Policies and Procedures 1 of 5; WHAT

In this mini-series on policies and procedures I am covering;

1. WHAT is a policy and procedure
2. WHY should you document a policy and procedure
3. WHEN and WHO should document a policy and procedure
4. HOW to document a policy and procedure
5. TEMPLATE for a policy and procedure

This post is on WHAT is a policy and procedure...

I thought I'd share some basic practical tips on Operations Management that I've learnt.  None of what I will describing is from a textbook.  It's all from real life experience from more than 20 years of testing things out in the real world.

A policy and procedure is a basic building block of the operation manager's toolkit.

A POLICY is a series of decisions made by the company about how they intend to handle certain situations.  It's a decision made by and endorsed by the managers of the company and you can think of policies as being like principles upon which actions are taken.

Examples;
- We will always attempt to acknowledge a customer complaint within 24 hours of receipt
- We will match any competitor price for the same goods if we receive notice within 2 weeks of purchase
- We will / will not cover shipping costs for returns
- We will ensure all new starters have a desk, computer and email account set up prior to their start date

A PROCEDURE (or process) however is a set of repeatable instructions that explain how individuals, teams and systems act out the policy. A procedure will describe step by step what is required in a particular scenario.  It's usually a scenario that repeats itself or that can be predicted.  People carry out tasks by following the procedures.  It usually explains who is responsible at each stage of the process.

Examples;
- How to process a cancellation
- How we recruit people
- How we handle complaints
- What we do when someone leaves the company

To describe a procedure without explaining the policies that underpin it risks that people following the instructions don't appreciate the context in which they are working.  Blindly following instructions means that should the instructions be missing a small point of detail or should the circumstances be so unusual that the instructions are incomplete, the team member would not know how to act.  However, if they can also understand the principles upon which the instructions are based, then they are more able to act in the interests of the company.

So, consider policies as a set of written principles and procedures (or process) as a set of written instructions.

Next: WHY should you document a policy and procedure (coming 11.02.14)