What’s a Policy, What’s a Procedure?
You need policies and procedures because otherwise there would be chaos and frustration. Policies and procedures are the way an organization operates. Policies deal with the “what” and “why” while procedures deal with the “how.”
Policies are guidelines that regulate organizational action. Policies are used to explain an organization’s view on a certain subject or issue and why their view is what it is. Policies are up to each organization to decipher and regulate as long as their choices do not break any laws. Decision-making is the key in policy making, because if the organization doesn’t know what direction it wants to go in, the employees lose sight of what is important to the company and this can result in lost productivity and job loss due to the lack of clear direction.
Policies can be either ambiguous or specific, depending on the subject matter. It is up to the policy writer to determine when it is appropriate to be ambiguous and when more specificity is needed for certain policies.
Procedures are the normal method of handling things. Procedures tell employees how to go about their daily job in an appropriate and safe manner. Procedures are action oriented and can point out the consequences of not following procedures correctly. Procedures should be very specific, and oftentimes can be regulated by safety organizations such as OSHA, and will help employees to stay safe and in good standing while on the job.
Policies and procedures can be difficult to write because they require both an air of subjectivity and an assumption that the employee will take their own actions and position within the organization seriously and with regard to others on the job.
Policies and procedures should be carefully considered before they become “law.” They are not always appropriate, and they can sometimes lead to employees feeling micromanaged or result in more incidents because employees got “bored” reading through all the procedures and therefore didn’t. Be sure that the organization goals are clearly communicated, and employees will generally try to fit within those goals.
Written vs. Unwritten
Unwritten rules can sometimes be more preferred than written rules. We all have unwritten rules, whether we realize them or not, that come into our daily lives and work lives all the time. It is best to leave a policy or procedure unwritten when:
· It involves organizational culture and norms,
· It cannot be consistently enforced,
· It is potentially offensive or intrusive, or
· It simplifies another rule that employees already understand.
Sometimes, these unwritten rules DO need to be written down, but unless something serious has happened such as an accident or a complete disregard for even the ambiguity of the unwritten rule, unwritten rules are normal and almost expected in organizations.
What to Include in Policies and Procedures
It can be very hard to know what needs to be included in policies and procedures, especially when there are the aspects of keeping the rules ambiguous at certain times and specific at other times, or when there can be rules that do need to be written and those that do not. The audience is the key in determining what needs to be in your policy or procedure. Purpose is another big determiner in what is written. Writers need to determine what readers need to know as opposed to what they want to know. It is important to ask who wants readers to know specific policies or procedures, and if the writer can answer that question, it can be assumed that the policy or procedure NEEDS to be included. If information is interesting, but maybe not necessary, to the employee, that is information that they will WANT to know. Writers need to keep in mind that the readers of policies and procedures want to know what’s in it for them (WIIFT) – what it will mean to them and for them.
Discretion is key in determining the detail content of the policy or procedure. If a subject or topic is complex, or if the policy or procedure contains a legal aspect, the policy should be as detailed as possible to avoid questions or misinterpretations of the rule. Writers should be sure to do a thorough audience analysis before writing or updating policies because that is who the policies and procedures are directed at, and can help the writer to determine what level of detail is appropriate.
Manual or Handbook?
Once an organization has its policies and procedures written down, it is important to organize them into one place where employees will know where to go to find the information when they need to reference it. Many institutions call these organized books of information either manuals or handbooks. There are legal connotations associated with both of these terms:
· Manuals imply restricted circulation within an organization, and
· Handbooks imply general distribution.
If a writer is concerned at any point about a contractual issue, it is important to know the differences between the two as they could create legal troubles later.
Summary by Team 1: Amy Beeman and Jane Xiong
14 comments:
Thank you Jane and Amy for that great summary of the chapter. I appreciate it! It is interesting that I am enrolled in this course this semester, because the agency I am employed at is currently undergoing a revision of some of its policies. We just updated our manual, yet the legality of some of our policies are questionable and will be changed. Okay, that is all I will say with that! Anyway, thanks! As another note, I really liked the tools and resources that are located at the end of the chapter to help us understand the chapter's content.
I also believe that the summary of the chapter touched on the more important aspects of policies and procedure writing. It appeared to me that polices and procedures are most often the result of a particular situation - don't waste your time thinking of all that should be in a manual or handbook, but rather let the policy or procedure be useful and driven by the needs of the company and its employees.
One of the best pieces of advice this chapter offers in its encouragement of organization of a handbook. Presentation of the handbook is critically important in the usefulness of the document. Without appropriate organization and arrangement (color, tabs effective use of space) the handbook is destined to become a permanent fixture on a shelf.
I also appreciated the advice regarding the explanation of a policy or procedure. The author admonishes the writer to explain your reasons for the rule. How many times have you said, "This is really a dumb policy/rule!," perhaps an explanation might alleviate that type of reaction.
A more pressing question after reading about policies and procedures is how these are handled in electronic interface (on the Web). This could be an interesting topic to study.
Very nice summary. Thank you. At my place of employment and at my husband's, our policies and procedures are located only online. When I read that sometimes it is important to make things ambiguous, it made me cringe a little bit. We had the experience of looking up policies for bereavement leave recently when my husband's mother passed away. I can't remember the exact words, but his policy talked about using sick leave to attend a family member's funeral. It said something about being available for use in the same circumstances that the employee would use it for themselves. The supervisor was trying to say that if you were dead, you wouldn't be able to use sick leave, so he couldn't use it for his mother's funeral. It was ambiguous to the point of being ridiculous. The end of the story is that he ended up being able to use sick leave to attend the funeral. But in my opinion, an intentionally ambiguous policy often is a disservice to the employees.
Wow, what a summary! Although this chapter is basically an intro into this topic, it should not be underestimated in importance. There are many working professionals in the field that have no clue about what constitutes a procedure and what defines a process. Without knowing what each is, it is easy to mix those two up or abuse the labeling. Also, it is human nature to be intimidated or closed up to things that we don't know or don't understand. This chapter did a great job bringing the reader on a level of common knowledge and understanding and took any preconceived ideas away, which can become barriers in the workforce (I am thinking of all the engineers I work with who cringe when I say any of the two "p" words).
I enjoyed reading the summary,it was better than reading the chapter. I was involved in writing policies and procedures for two companies that I worked for. The one company had a skelton set done and we had to redo the entire works, it was a slow and employee input process. There were meetings involved and it turned out to be a very interesting process. Most of the policies ended up going through an attorney to make sure that the legal wording and the terms were correct. The procedures were double and tripled checked so that an outside party could come in and pick up the manual and follow the procedure and do the job. It took a team of workers to complete each procedure. Policies and procedures are the nuts and bolts of running a success company. If there is not P&P in place, how will there be consistency from one situation to another?
This chapter was a good overall introduction to policies and procedures. I feel like I have a good overview of the topic now, so I hope the material to come in the book follows in being consistently useful. I feel the tools and lists at the end of the chapter will be a great resource to refer back to when needed. It helped when brainstorming topics for the policies/procedures assignment.
I like the mention of the writer's motto WIIFT-what's in it for them. Great guideline. I also appreciated the distinctions between a policy and a procedure. Some organizations can get policy crazy-publishing a policy for just about everything. Unfortunately, many policies and procedures manuals and books are poorly written and documented. Concentrate on clearly organizing policy manuals and you've won half the battle.
Overall, great summary: Thanks!
I'm going to disagree somewhat with what Keeley wrote. Ambiguity is a necessary component of any complex system. If you try to make the rules too precisely defined, you find that you are forced to make a million of them to cover every possible case.
I agree with her assessment of her husband's employer's bereavement policy--there's no need for ambiguity there. But ambiguity does play an important role in general.
Take, for example, the laws passed by Congress. Sometimes they are highly detailed and specific, and other times they are less specific and more open to interpretation. It is often the case that the highly specific laws end up backfiring because people find a way around them (easy to do if a law is narrowly defined). In other cases, highly specific laws (i.e., "three strikes" laws) end up sending petty , non-violent offenders to prison for life simply because there's no latitude in the law for alternate sentences for non-violent felonies. (There are cases in California in which a person's "third strike" was unarmed shoplifting).
Corporate policies and procedures, like our laws, need to contain an appropriate mixture of specificity and ambiguity.
What a common sense approach to understanding policies and procedures. Thank you for a concise summary, Jane and Amy.
Two items were particularly significant to me and my experience at work. The first item involves when to create new policy. In my experience, administration determines new policy is needed because of the actions of a few. So although it may meet Campbell’s criteria “to control, direct, or inform,” I’m not so sure the end user perceives the need for the new policy in the same manner as administration. Communication regarding need for policy is essential.
The second item of interest for me is the level of detail necessary in policies and procedures. In my experience, the balance to inform but not overwhelm is considerably difficult. My partner for this course, J.J., and I are going to take a look at a form used during the usability testing phase of online course development because the document is extremely cumbersome and difficult to use. Hopefully we will be able to use some of the checklists provided at the end of Chapter 1 to streamline this procedure.
Very thorough summary! It really is important to find that balance between specifics and ambiguity for a policy or procedure to be useful. If policies are too rigid, they are bound to be broken, and if they are too vague, then they won't be implemented as intended. A writer must be sure that inflexible rules are spelled out precisely, leaving no room for interpretation or misunderstanding. Similarly, a policy should leave room for judgment when situations cannot be predicted in advance.
In the case of Keeley’s husband’s employer, a specific, clear policy should have been in place regarding the use of sick time. Those types of benefits should not be subject to interpretation or negotiation!
Very thorough summary! It really is important to find that balance between specifics and ambiguity for a policy or procedure to be useful. If policies are too rigid, they are bound to be broken, and if they are too vague, then they won't be implemented as intended. A writer must be sure that inflexible rules are spelled out precisely, leaving no room for interpretation or misunderstanding. Similarly, a policy should leave room for judgment when situations cannot be predicted in advance.
In the case of Keeley’s husband’s employer, a specific, clear policy should have been in place regarding the use of sick time. Those types of benefits should not be subject to interpretation or negotiation!
Amy and Jane, thank you for the great summary. I thought this was a good chapter because although it was not very long, there was a lot of important information presented in a very clear and concise manner. I also though the references and examples at the end of the chapter were very well-though out and practical. Your summary did a good job of emphasizing the main points and definitions.
I agree, Lance. I felt that the chapter was stressing that policies and procedures should only exist because they need to. Some "rules" are expected and do not have printed policies and procedures, but there may be specific cases where this could not be enough.
Regarding ambiguity, I don't think it is always one way or the other. Sometimes things are cut and dry, while other times--for example, performing customer service over the phone--they cannot be solved based on only one policy or procedure. Ambiguity allows the user to operate on intuition which is sometimes the best we can ask for.
Thank you for the chapter summary. This is a great overview and explanation on the distinctions between policy and procedure. It gave me a good foundation as I move on with my projects. I believe that to have a good procedure an organization should have a clear policy first. Also I think that policies are based on organization's missions and outlook and then also by legal implications.
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