This chapter is devoted to answer the questions that arise when procedures need to be revised. Companies are expected (and legally held accountable) to keep their organizational records up-to-date; specifically, when a company holds ISO 9000 standard certification, it is a requirement to have all policies, procedures and manuals up-to-date and to have only the active copy “active” i.e. being used.
Additionally, the unusable state of a procedure makes it useless and redundant as well as obsolete. Usually, the writer can receive best feedback about the use of a procedure from the end-user. The writer should also keep in mind that policies and procedures require a regular update and maintenance to remain usable and accurate.
When should a procedure be revised?
According to Campbell, there are two methods:
1. Regular review and revision
2. As-needed review and revision
A company should evaluate, which method would be more appropriate and beneficial. Often, ISO certifications require a regularly scheduled review and revision, but this can be difficult for companies that have limited resources and overwhelming if all documentation is updated all at once. A solution to this can be a rolling review that staggers documents in groups. As-needed reviews are risky, because they are more vulnerable to procrastination and justification: after all, how can you measure need? Campbell provides some pointers on how to implement as-needed reviews: the company can revise a procedure after accumulated changes, significant content changes or after observing some clues (such as: complaints, questions, errors etc.) that reveal the procedure’s complacency.
Of course, there are times when a revision is not required; before rushing into the next revision, the company should evaluate whether there are other factors that contribute to the lack of following a procedure. This could be lack of training or lack of management support to enforce that process, or people may simply take time to accept change.
Once the decision has been made that the procedure needs to be revised, there are several factors to consider:
· How much should be revised? Revision Content
· How should the writer revise? Revision Process
· How to communicate and clarify the changes? Revision Awareness
The revised content can be communicated by highlighting the added/revised content, using clear wording in the transmittal document and finally, summarizing the changes that were made. This is also important when maintaining ISO certification.
After the document has been revised and all changes are highlighted and summarized, the revised procedure can be published. In order to ensure that all users take responsibility in application of all changes, a system should be in place that prevents user excuses, such as “I never knew about these changes.” A simple sign-off roster/revision index/action memo for all employees works well. That way, each user can be held accountable for having read the changes and knowing about them.
Finally, Campbell provides some helpful templates and tip sheets in the Appendix for Chapter 11.
Thanks for reading our summary: Lance and Vanda
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10 comments:
Although I haven't dealt with many procedures that legally require revisions, I have worked with less formal procedures that are outdated. That's why I think it's helpful to do regular reviews, especially when new staff come on. With fresh eyes, they're sometimes the best people to ask, Why are we doing this procedure this way? Sometimes there's a good reason and sometimes the answer just that that's the way it's always been done. If the latter is the answer, then you need to review the procedure.
When it comes to HR policies and procedures, I've always received notification by email when something has been updated or revised, along with a link to the pocliy/procedure online. These have always been updated regularly. I've mainly worked for big companies, so I'm not sure if it would be different for smaller companies.
As far as departmental policies and procedures go, especially job duty procedures, I think the updates and revisions tend to get pushed aside more. They may not be deemed as important as the day-to-day work that needs to be completed.
I'd like to relate some of this chapter to a job I held many years ago. I worked at a newly formed business and we put together a policy and procedures manual. As things changed we would make the employees aware of the change by giving them a copy of the new change in writing and a week or so having them sign off on it. (company only had 25 employees)There has to be some accommodation for employees who do not have access to computers, for e-mails, to know of revisions to company changes.
Another way to make revisions or ask for revisions/changes is to hold meetings and talk to employees about changes in their departments. Do this before the manual needs to be updated. This may help prevent unscheduled changes between scheduled updates.
I consider myself fairly lucky to not have had to deal with legal revisions. I did my undergrad internship at a place where they had a lawyer on-staff in case he was needed, but for the time I worked there, he wasn't required. He was mainly there in case we over-stepped the HIPPA laws somehow... we even had to be trained on HIPPA before we could begin our work. I thought that was a good move on the company's part because they had at least covered the basics of HIPPA and what was and was not legal.
I agree with Jane - it is important to do regular reviews so that things are kept up-to-date and just to keep a new perspective on things. I also worked at a job where things were just always done that way because they had always been done "that way," and I really think they would've been wise to consider making some changes (in fact, my first manager there told me she wanted me to bring a fresh pair of eyes - and a fresh mindset - to the work there, but the somewhat overbearing senior writer didn't really allow me to do that).
Nice summary! Thanks!
I don't really have much experience that I can to relate to this article, but nevertheless I thought it had some good ideas. I thought the tip on making sure there are not other factors contributing to a lack of following procedure before automatically assuming the procedure itself is at fault was an excellent point and one that could save lots of time, effort, and money. The explanations of the two methods of revision were also very informative.
This seems to weird to me now, but I've never worked anywhere that had someone in charge of policies and procedures! And I've never seen a policy or procedure being revised. The Action Memo System that Campbell discusses seems like the ideal way to hold users accountable for keeping abreast of new changes. People should take some responsibility for understanding what changes have been made, and this seems like a great way to shift that responsibility onto their shoulders. Coincidentally, it also highlights the responsibility of the revisionist to be organized and to disseminate the changes to all of the employees who need to see them.
I do not have much experience with the revisions of the policies, but organization that I work for does sends out the notifications about revisions over the e-mail. However, I am not aware how policies and procedure are selected to be revised.
I, similarly to Mary, wonder what revisions steps are there in a smaller organization? My job does not require me to revise and/or be responsible for updates of policies in the organization, but I find this chapter to be informative.
I've been involved with the revision of policies and procedures, most of which occurred because someone realized it had been awhile since the last revision.
On occasion, revisions occur more urgently. Recently, at the hospital where I work, a new physician decided to try a procedure that hadn't been used in years. Previously it was used exclusively with pediatric patients, but it fell out of favor when better treatments came along. The new physician wanted to try it with an adult with a totally different diagnosis.
Suddenly, people were scrambling to review the process, obtain the equipment, and revise the 15-year old procedure. Not the the best way to have to go about it, but sometimes that's the way it works!
This is a quirky comment, but I am also taking ENG 678 right now and during this semester we have read Adam’s The Dilbert Principles. One of the jokes relates to the ISO 9000 documentation phenomenon. Adams basically presents this documentation as humorous and that it makes no coherent sense. I found it interesting that this chapter refers to this same documentation that Adams pokes fun at. I wasn’t familiar with ISO 9000at all until this semester!
I also work at a hospital. We have extensive policies and procedures which are all only accessible online. They are organized in a searchable database to be pulled up as needed. We also have certain policies that are required reading each year. Links and reminders are posted on an employee specific page and usually include a short test to prove that you understand it. Things like hand hygiene, what to do in case of fire, and the confidentiality standards. If an employee isn't up to date during the employee evaluation process, they will get a "Does Not Meet" standards and something bad will happen. From reading the other posts, it sounds like this is focus on policies is pretty unusual.
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