How to Write Procedures and Policies (With Templates)

An organization with clear policies and procedures promotes a positive culture. Everyone knows the company’s vision and values, which shape employee behavior.

Documented procedures include a list of what’s allowed and what’s prohibited. A well-written policy and procedure manual helps your organization meet legal and regulatory requirements. It provides work instructions for employees and managers to get the best results for all stakeholders.

However, procedure and policy writing is complex. If you’re new to writing the procedure manual, it’s only fitting that you need help communicating your ideas and clarifying your operations strategy.

In this comprehensive guide, we share step-by-step instructions on writing procedures, templates to help you accelerate the process, and tips and best practices for written procedures.

• What does Writing Procedures mean?
• Understanding the Importance of Writing Procedures
  • Efficiency and productivity
  • Clarity and consistency
  • Training and onboarding
  • Risk mitigation and compliance
  • Continuous improvement
  • Accountability and responsibility
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Ease of access
  • Define the scope and goals of the procedure
  • Aligning with business processes
  • Selecting the proper business process
  • Creating procedural structures and version control standards
  • Create an SOP Checklist
  • Utilizing the Five Ws Approach in Writing Procedures
  • Procedure creation
  • Document, approve, and review procedures
  • Use ClickUp to write procedures and implement them
  • 1. Process and Procedures Template
  • 2. Standard Operating Procedures Template
  • 3. Procedure Template

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  What does Writing Procedures mean?

  Procedures combine steps, guidelines, and online resources that help you accomplish a task. Well-written procedures are a series of routine steps, with the order in which they must be taken. They include the vision of the leadership group and equip your staff to meet their strategic goals, create performance standards, and identify areas of improvement.

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  Understanding the Importance of Writing Procedures

  Policies remove uncertainties about completing routine tasks, ensuring people do the right tasks correctly. This, in turn, helps the business improve efficiency and stay compliant with regulations. Although no procedure can guarantee optimal performance, they standardize best practices across all your teams and improve the quality of outcomes.

  Efficiency and productivity

  Has this ever happened to you? You’ve spent hours completing a task to perfection, only to discover that your teammate had done it in the past and there was an easier way. This is where procedures come in handy. Not only do they prevent duplication and regulate collaborative task management, but efficiently written procedures streamline workflows and empower your team to be more productive.

  Clarity and consistency

  Written procedures clarify employees’ expectations and minimize errors. Your goal while writing procedures should be to simply and consistently detail how specific tasks are performed across the organization or standardize processes.

  Training and onboarding

  Your new employees or team members can refer to all your procedures related to a process or product. This shortens their learning curve and reduces their dependency on teammates. Procedures also act as a valuable knowledge transfer resource, easily accessible whenever anyone is unsure how to complete a task.

  Risk mitigation and compliance

  Procedures can help you identify and manage potential risks by outlining best practices and safety measures. All industries are subject to country-specific laws and regulations; procedures ensure that organizations comply with these regulations and local laws. For instance, a potato chip manufacturer can face legal and regulatory repercussions if the ingredients of the contents are not listed, calling out allergens, if any. Implementing a watertight procedure that complies with regulations can ensure no such misses while packaging and labeling the products.

  Continuous improvement

  Update written procedures regularly to ensure organizational processes evolve to stay in tandem with changing business needs. For instance, during the pandemic, companies worldwide had to adapt to the new norm of remote working, which necessitated updating their policies and procedures to support their employees’ work in a digital and hybrid setting.

  Accountability and responsibility

  Procedures define employees’ roles and responsibilities, defining accountability and ownership. For instance, when you apply for a reimbursement, you submit your application along with supporting documents through a portal, have it approved by the manager, and finally have the accounts department reimburse the amount. This ensures that such processes are implemented seamlessly by identifying discrepancies and tracing them back to the appropriate employee so they can be addressed effectively.

  Customer satisfaction

  Imagine you’re leading a customer service team that handles numerous customer issues and queries daily. If your team could access a procedures guide that standardizes the process for resolving customer issues and queries promptly and effectively, it would accelerate the speed at which your team resolves common queries and support issues.

  Ease of access

  Too many manuals and loose memos in your organization would result in an information overload. Users lose track of relevant resources or waste time finding them when they need to make informed decisions. An updated online system that gives users access and allows them to update the procedure steps is a great option for fast-growing organizations where policies and procedures keep evolving.

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  How to Write Procedures

  Define the scope and goals of the procedure

  The first step in writing a procedure is to define goals—what specific process or task do you want to focus on? Who will be using this procedure document? Make a list of deliverables, blockers, context, and constraints when drafting the procedure.

  Aligning with business processes

  Any procedure you write should align with your company’s values and aid their seamless integration into the organizational framework. Involve key stakeholders in the procedure, drafting the step-by-step guide to the process to ensure the document effectively aligns with the overall business processes.

  Selecting the proper business process

  If you’re writing multiple procedures, start small. Prioritizing smaller tasks can help you understand the nuances of various internal processes and ease you into writing effective procedures.

  Creating procedural structures and version control standards

  Build a standard structure that simplifies the procedure-writing process. You can custom-build a procedure template or use publicly available templates to maintain consistency, which would help users quickly navigate different documents. When you create procedures, ensure that your documentation portal has version control. This lets all stakeholders track changes systematically and ensures your procedures stay up-to-date.

  Create an SOP Checklist

  While building a procedure, always include a sample SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) checklist. You can use SOP software and templates to create an SOP checklist as a visual guide to a well-structured procedure. For instance, your HR department can use an SOP checklist that standardizes qualification requirements when interviewing candidates for a new role.

  Utilizing the Five Ws Approach in Writing Procedures

  Incorporating the Five Ws—Who, What, Where, When, and Why—into your procedure writing process improves clarity and ensures no critical information is overlooked. 1. Who: Imagine you’re launching a new webpage and need to establish individual-level accountability for specific tasks. A structured process can help you clearly define the “Who,” establish accountability among each contributor, and ensure the project is completed on time 2. What: The ‘What’ helps you answer the question—what task or process must be completed? While writing a procedure, clearly define the objectives and detail the steps to complete the task. For instance, a factory worker should know what steps to follow to perform his role while complying with safety regulations 3. Where: It is essential to understand where a procedure is performed, whether it’s a physical location or software. When working on a new project, create a dedicated folder your team can easily access. This can help you track your team’s performance and boost accountability 4. When: While writing a procedure, set deadlines for every milestone to establish SLAs (Service Level Agreements) and ensure timely completion. Payroll procedures, for instance, involve a pre-determined number of steps or tasks to be completed per pre-defined timelines. 5. Why: Lastly, understand why the procedure is being documented. What are your goals? Understanding the ‘Why’ will transform a dry document into an essential organizational necessity

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