Your policies and procedures manual houses your company best practices, core business process descriptions, and methods and standards for how work is performed. Creating your manual allows you to focus your company for growth, simplifies training, and eases your ability to scale.
What Is a Policies and Procedures Manual?
Your procedures manual can be a three ring binder, a folder on a network share drive, or automated and published online using procedures management software like Onpolicy. What’s important is that everyone understands what constitutes your policy and procedure manual and where a policy or procedure can be found when someone needs it.
Communicating Standard Operating Procedures
Procedures are really about communication. Imagine that you are franchising your business. If you want every franchisee to operate the same so that every customer for your brand has the same experience, then your policies and procedures manual is the most critical document that you will produce. Your manual communicates your standards. An online manual communicates and manages your procedures automatically.
Your employees need to understand what is expected of them. Your employees need a procedures manual to reference for training. Your supervisors need a policy manual to reference for managing business processes. By documenting your standards, you are communicating what is important for growth, quality, and customer satisfaction.
Policies and Procedures Template
As your company grows, new procedures will be needed. Your policies and procedures manual can also be considered a procedure template library. Your manual houses example procedure templates that can be used as a model for new standard operating procedures.