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Well admit, sometimes policies and procedures are dry and boring. Sometimes they seem like common sense recitations of things that “go without saying.” They cover things that you’d hope people know they should be doing, or not doing, as they go about their jobs.
But policies do more than that. They provide guidance, answer questions, solve ambiguities, detail best practices, and keep your people safe and out of legal trouble. They define the standards for conduct and appropriate behavior.
Policies and procedures are the framework that your organization is built on, reflecting your values and guiding your employees to success in their daily operations.
That means your policies and procedures manual shoulders the burden of creating your companys culture. Theyre the visions and expectations of your executive leadership, showing how employees are expected to carry out those visions and meet those expectations. They equip your staff to meet their strategic goals, reduce legal and regulatory risk, create standards for performance, and identify opportunities for improvement.
Well-written policies and procedures are critical for any organization to operate efficiently and achieve consistency across all business activities. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about crafting effective policies and procedures from scratch.
What are Policies and Procedures?
Policies are documented statements or rules that outline expectations for how work should be performed within an organization. Policies provide guidelines to employees on how to handle specific situations and carry out specific tasks according to the company’s standards.
Procedures outline the step-by-step processes required to implement policies consistently. Procedures describe in detail exactly how employees should complete any activities covered under organizational policies.
While policies define what needs to be done, procedures detail how it must be done. Policies and procedures together form the core framework and operating philosophy of any organization.
The Importance of Documented Policies and Procedures
High-performing companies recognize the value of documenting their policies and procedures rather than relying on informal knowledge transfer. Here are some key benefits of formal policy documentation:
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Promotes consistency: Documented policies and procedures ensure every employee works in a standardized way across all business activities. This minimizes variation in processes.
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Enhances compliance: Written policies and procedures make it easier for employees to follow rules, regulations and best practices consistently. This reduces compliance failures.
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Improves training Documented manuals make it simpler to train new employees by clearly explaining company policies and required procedures through each step
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Boosts efficiency: Well-documented policies reduce errors, wasted efforts and duplication of work – thus improving organizational efficiency.
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Limits risk: Formal policies minimize ambiguity and misinterpretation around company standards – limiting potential risks and liabilities.
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Facilitates scaling: As organizations grow, documented policies enable new employees and teams to seamlessly adopt company procedures and begin functioning quickly.
How to Write Policies and Procedures: Step-by-Step Process
Follow this proven step-by-step process to develop comprehensive policies and procedures tailored to your organization’s needs:
Step 1: Identify Which Policies and Procedures Are Needed
First, determine which policies and procedures need to be documented based on your company’s operations, internal processes, compliance requirements, goals and pain points.
Involve departmental managers to understand areas that will benefit from standardized policies and procedures. Focus on frequently carried out tasks, complex activities, and processes prone to inconsistencies.
Step 2: Research Industry Best Practices
Research how similar organizations within your industry document policies and procedures for the areas you identified in Step 1.
Reviewing examples will provide inspiration on crafting your policies and give ideas on industry best practices to incorporate.
Step 3: Draft The Policy Statements
Start writing the policy portion first. Keep sentences simple, direct and action-oriented. Avoid ambiguity.
Clearly state what is allowed or prohibited. Specify who the policy applies to. Include why the policy is necessary.
A good template for writing policy statements is:
“[Responsible parties] must/must not [action] because [justification]”
For example: “Employees must wash hands before returning to work because it reduces health risks.”
Step 4: Develop The Detailed Procedures
Next, expand the policies into step-by-step procedures. Break down the process into simple, sequential actions.
Specify who completes each action, when it is done, and how. Include relevant details and examples. Follow a numerical or chronological order.
A good template for writing procedures is:
“Step 1: [Action] – Responsible parties: [Who], When: [When], How: [How]”
For example:
“Step 1: Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds – Responsible parties: Employees, When: Before returning to work, How: Rub palms, back of hands, between fingers and under nails”
Step 5: Document All Relevant Information
For each policy and procedure, include relevant background, resources, documents and supplemental guidance to eliminate ambiguity.
At minimum, define: who, what, where, when, why and how for every process. Add visual aids like flowcharts and screenshots to simplify complex procedures.
Step 6: Review and Refine
Once the initial draft of all policies and procedures is ready, conduct an extensive review to identify gaps and areas of improvement.
Verify accuracy and completeness of each policy and procedure with departmental managers. Assess whether documentation matches real-world practices. Update content iteratively based on feedback.
Step 7: Publish and Communicate
Finalize documentation and publish policies and procedures on your company’s intranet or server location accessible to all employees.
Inform staff of new or updated policies through announcements, training sessions and email campaigns. Encourage managers to reinforce policies through team meetings.
Step 8: Review and Revise Regularly
Schedule periodic reviews of all policies and procedures to keep them current. Update any outdated or inaccurate information.
Add new policies and procedures as needed based on changing company operations, regulations and strategic priorities.
Best Practices for Writing Policies and Procedures
Keep these proven best practices in mind when drafting policies and procedures to ensure they are highly effective:
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Use simple language: Explain policies and procedures in clear, concise and simple terms easily understandable by all employees. Avoid jargon, acronyms and excessive wordiness.
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Maintain consistent structure: Follow consistent document formatting, tone and visual style across all policies and procedures to improve comprehension.
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Include visual aids: Incorporate charts, process maps and screenshots to simplify complex processes and enhance understanding.
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Be specific: Provide granular detail and cover all scenarios. Avoid vague or ambiguous language that can cause misinterpretation.
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Outline context: Explain the background, reasons and organizational context for policies to justify why they are needed.
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Specify accountabilities: Identify who is responsible, who must approve, who must be consulted and who is affected for every policy and procedure.
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Link related policies: Reference and link to other associated policies and documents to guide readers to additional context.
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Make it accessible: Index and organize policies in a logical manner. Use search functions to enable quick access to desired information.
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Highlight changes: Call out recent updates prominently and note version history to distinguish the latest policies and procedures.
Policies vs. Procedures – What’s the Difference?
Policies and procedures are closely linked but have the following key differences:
| Policy | Procedure |
|---|---|
| States what must be done | Defines how it must be done |
| Provides high-level guidelines | Outlines detailed steps to follow |
| Answers what, why, who | Answers how, when, where |
| Broadly focused | Deeply focused |
| Principles-based | Process-based |
| Static | Dynamic |
While policies define expectations, procedures outline the processes to meet those expectations consistently. Policies set the rules, procedures enable following them.
Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Policies and Procedures
Steer clear of these common pitfalls when drafting policies and procedures:
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Writing vague, subjective policies open to interpretation
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Failing to detail all necessary steps in procedures
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Using complex phrasing and formal language
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Including too much or too little information
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Not updating documentation when processes change
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Assigning unclear ownership for policies
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Poor formatting that makes details hard to locate
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Lacking visual aids for complex processes
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Failing to highlight recent document changes
Well-documented policies and procedures ensure consistency, enhance compliance and boost efficiency across any organization. By following this comprehensive guide, you can develop highly effective policies and procedures tailored to your company’s specific needs.
Documenting your critical organizational processes clearly and accurately is a project that produces immense long-term benefits. The time invested upfront in creating systematic policies and procedures prevents wasted efforts, risks and delays resulting from uncertainty or errors down the line.
Once you have a draft ready, implement a repetitive process of soliciting feedback, refining details, and communicating changes to keep policies and procedures living documents that evolve with your company. This powerful framework will enable seamless execution and scaling of all business activities.
Why are policies and procedures important?
According to the Navex Global 2016 Ethics and Compliance Policy Management Benchmark Report, between 2013–2016, 44% of organizations faced legal or external regulatory actions where a policy came under review as part of the action or defense. In that same report, the authors found that 47% of organizations say keeping policies current with changing regulations is their number one challenge.
As you write new policies and procedures or rewrite your old ones, its important to understand the difference between the two. Your policies are the high-level principles that set the tone for the entire organization. The procedures are how those policies are carried out. They also define the lower-level processes that shore up the policies.
That is, if employee safety is one of your bedrock policies, and the organization expects complete adherence to your safety policies, the procedures establish how those policies will be followed, such as the wearing and disposal of PPE (personal protective equipment), or the training requirements for handling hazardous materials.
This article will show you a few best practices for building a solid foundation in guiding your team toward success. Well talk about how to prepare for writing your policies, how to write a policy and a procedure, and how to implement your shiny new policies and procedures.
How to implement new policies and procedures
Once youve written your new policies and procedures, you need to create a plan to ensure compliance. Heres how you can do it.
Sure, you could print these out and create binders full of policies, but thats a waste of time and money, not to mention all the headaches it will create as soon as a single policy gets updated.
Instead, use a policy management software solution to store your policy manual. That way, your employees will be able to access them at any time, even outside the office. By keeping them in one place, your employees can easily search for them to answer any compliance questions they have.
You can also use the policy management software to distribute the policies, ensure everyone reviews and understands them, and even have them sign off on the documents. Further, you can track all the signatures to ensure full regulatory and accreditation compliance.
Of course, reading a new policy is not the same as understanding the policy, especially if these are complex and/or legal requirements that required input form subject matter experts.
Youll want to develop training content so employees can understand the organizational expectations and the executive vision. Using a policy management solution that includes a training management tool can make things a whole lot easier.
You can create customizable online training that not only saves time and money, it helps your employees quickly understand your new policies. You can also test their knowledge and understanding with assessments, which will not only help with any compliance requirements, it can show you holes in your training and other materials.
Laws and best practices are always evolving and technology is always changing, which means policies and procedures are living documents. So even though youre done writing the policies, that doesnt mean youre ever fully finished. (Policy management is an ongoing issue.)
Part of a healthy, robust policy management process means reviewing policies on a regular basis, such as reviewing policies on social media or bring-your-own-device every six months. Other policies may only need reviews and revisions once a year or every few years.
Including the review process as part of your writing process will help ensure the policies are never out of date. Just make sure to pay attention to any details that will need to be revisited, and keep the bigger picture and end goals in mind throughout the whole process.
How to Create Policies & Procedures For Your Business
What policies and procedures do you need?
Specific policies and procedures may vary depending on the type of organization. At a minimum, you need policies for events, such as holidays or family emergencies, policies for behavior, such as attendance, absences, and harassment, and a policy governing technology, such as a BYOD policy.
How do I write a policy & procedure?
Page Headers – The page headers should include the title and procedure number of the policy and procedure. Initials – This should be the initials of the last person who reviewed the policy and procedure. It should also include the date when it was last reviewed. Examples – These will be on separate pages that won’t have a header, page numbers, etc.
How do I develop policies for my policy and Procedure Manual?
When developing policies for your policy and procedure manual, it is important to follow a step-by-step approach to ensure clarity and effectiveness. Here is a list of steps to consider: Identify the areas or topics that require policies.
What is a policy procedure?
Procedures contain a series of consecutive action steps related to a policy that specifies how a particular policy should be carried out. Procedures may have detailed instructions, definitions, and/or forms that facilitate policy compliance. Generally procedures change more frequently than policy and have a separate approval process.
