This pandemic has upset even the most diligent organizations and still has many unanswered questions about how soon life as we knew it will return. Managing remote workers is simply another challenge small business owners face in these very uncertain time. Every entrepreneur or small business owner can tell you what sparked an idea that turned into a business.
Whether the business is manufacturing wood cabinets or delivering a carpet cleaning service, the product is only as good as the process by which it is manufactured or the service is delivered to the customer. As employees are hired, it is important that they understand the correct work process to ensure that the service or product maintains high quality. Policies and procedures provide a guide for meeting organizational objectives and describe the steps that employees are to take when creating a product or delivering a service.
A policy will set the expectation for employee behaviors and the procedure outlines the steps for it. For instance, if you find yourself suddenly managing a virtual workforce, a policy may dictate the frequency for which to have virtual meetings and the procedure will outline how those meetings will be accessed, facilitated and attended. Polices communicate what the organization expects for behavior but also its approach to dealing with work processes.
For instance, a cash handling policy dictates the expectations for how employees are to behave when handling cash. This includes how that cash is safeguarded, stored, and protected from employee fraud.
For example, for a waiter who serves in a restaurant, the procedure for delivering the service might be:. In her spare time, while she ages gracefully, she helps out with kids theatre, rides an electric bike and drags her husband off to explore the world as often as possible.
As a young employee, I used to think that policies and procedures were just a dull and boring part of the workplace. They were something that was a necessary evil, more important for the management than staff, and could be ignored for most of the time.
As time has gone on and I have worked for a number of different aged and disability organisations and in various roles, I have come to realise that they are a valuable and essential resource for both management and workers. Consistency — when a workplace has set policies and procedures, staff are not constantly having to make decisions on what to do in various situations or change how they approach their work. This is confusing and more than a little frustrating for them, as well as the clients.
Written policies and procedures give power to the staff, allowing them to direct new coordinators in the way things operate in their community. Stability — where staff have to constantly change the way they do something to adapt to the personal preferences of a new manager, rather than the new manager following set procedures, there is likely to be higher staff turnover and a less stable workforce.
No one gets preferential treatment because they are related or they are liked more by their supervisor or manager. People are accepted onto the program because they fit a certain criteria, or they receive a particular service because they have an identified need. Your staff may not be able to just pick up the phone and get a new permission to some additional part of the network. On the other hand, how much would you lose if you lost the person that understood exactly why your firewall is set up the way it is?
Without writing these processes down, you create massive vulnerabilities. You can mitigate the change somewhat, though, by writing your company culture into your policies and procedures. Nowhere is it written that policies and procedures must be horribly formal, boring-to-read documents filled with legalese and pain.
What are the things that make people want to work there? Fit your policies and procedures to your company culture, your business, and how your people interact. This will minimize the hardship of implementing them and help preserve what makes your organization unique. In a world of lean staff, fast turnaround, and an emphasis on doing a lot with a little, finding the time for governance may be extremely difficult.
I can hand you management book after management book, essay after essay, whitepaper after whitepaper, all on how defined policies and procedures will improve your business at every level if you follow the process. The time to do the work and document your policies and procedures has to be found. The advantages outweigh the pain of policies and procedures. Committing to the process has serious benefits. Does your organization view mature policies and procedures as a necessary evil?
Do you understand the purpose of policies and procedures? What obstacles has your organization found when developing or implementing policies and procedures? How have you built in the time to commit to enforcing policies and procedures?
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