You do your best to make sure your organization is operating as effectively as possible. But if your policies and procedures are incomplete, outdated, or inconsistent, then they are not driving the performance improvement they should. When employees try to use incomplete or undefined procedures, waste and costly errors soon follow.
Case Study: Procedure Mistakes Add Up Quickly
Without knowing it, employees at a local auto parts company were having a costly problem determining when to accept customer credit. The company actually had a detailed credit application procedure, including an exhaustive error correction routine, but the procedure had one fatal flaw: it was not properly indexed.
Indexing Improves Procedures Usability
Without a way to readily locate and reference the applicable procedure in the operations manual, employees could not find it and were simply not using it at all, leading to an inconsistent process and wildly varying output. Potentially valuable customers were regularly turned away by some staff members, while others accepted bad credit risks because they were unsure of which ones to reject.
A small omission like this can add up to thousands of dollars in lost sales and good will. Even the most thorough procedures inevitably have gaps that come from being "too close" to the process or not following the basic rules of effective procedure writing.
Profit from Process Experience
To be effective, procedures must be action oriented, grammatically correct, and written in a consistent style and format to ensure usability. These guidelines, along with industry "best practices" that are documented in auditable criteria, can be used to improve your procedures:
1. Context. Actions must properly describe the activity to be performed.
2. Consistency. All references and terms are used the same way every time, and the procedure must ensure consistent results.
3. Completeness. There must be no information, logic, or design gaps.
4. Control. The document and its described actions demonstrate feedback and control.
5. Compliance. All actions are sufficient for their intended compliance.
6. Correctness. The document must be grammatically correct without spelling errors.
7. Clarity. Documents must be easy to read and understandable.
Quickly Improve Your Policies and Procedures without the Hassle
You can quickly resolve these usability problems and improve performance, and also upgrade your documentation to "best practice" standards without hassles or commitments. By beginning to improve your documents, you will be able to identify areas for improvement. And you can start today with the 7 Cs of “best practices”.
You may have found the best advice regarding life insurance.
You may have found the best advice regarding life insurance. When you are trying to find top advice concerning life insurance, it will be easier said than done extricating superior advice from foolish life insurance suggestions and support so it is important to know how to judge the advice that is offered.
Now we'd like to offer you some advice which we think you should use when you are trying to find information about life insurance. You need to understand that any recommendation we present to you is only pertinent to internet help on life insurance. We are unable to offer any guidance or advice for conducting research offline.
A great hint to follow when you're presented with help or advice about a life insurance web is to verify the ownership of the website. Doing this could reveal the owners life insurance credibility The quickest way to work out who owns the life insurance web site is to find the sites 'about' page.
Any worthwhile website providing information on life insurance, will almost always provide an 'about' or 'contact' page which will record the site owner's contact details. The details should divulge major points about the owner's skill and understanding. You can then arrive at a decision about the webmaster's familiarity and qualifications, to provide advice to you regarding life insurance.
Got a Question? Ask.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Corporate Hierarchy Go Over the bosses Head?
By: coachpauline | 26-09-2008
I was hired at a financial services company 8 months ago. As a commission based sales person my compensation plan including a $25,000 salary was based on selling a product where my 1st yr earnings were projected to be between $100,000 &150,000 depending on my skill. The marketing that I was promised didn't materialize, the Sr. Vp who hired me left a new VP came in and the focus of my division changed to selling a product where the money to be made by a sales rep is alot less, so the new people who have come in have been hired at a higher salary and a higher commission. Everyone else from the old regime has been fired or left. I asked to be brought up to par with the new workers, especially since I am by far the top performer. I kept being put off, told that a newer, even better permanent compensation plan would be put in place as soon as a new Sr Vp arrivedand they dont want to change my comp plan twice. The New Exec Vp Is here-This newer, better comp plan was supposed to happen for the last 2 months-now I've been told it wont be until Jan. At an evaluation I was told I am an outstanding performer, I will be up for a promotion when a management position opens up in my division etc. Meanwhile my sales #'s are always #1 or #2(only ever beaten by my supervisor who has years of experience) while taking time out of my sales day to bring new people up to speed, who are on a better comp plan and at this comp plan I will be lucky to earn $50,000. My boss keeps putting me off until this newer comp plan goes into effect, but I cant afford to be producing results and not earning for another 3 months. SHOULD I GO OVER MY BOSSES HEAD AND EMAIL HIS BOSS W/ MY DILEMMAAND CC MY BOSS OR WRITE MY BOSS AND CC HIS BOSS?My bosses boss has the ultimate decision making power. I feel like I have some leverage right now that I may not have down the road. I am close to closing a huge deal for them that will be the largest in their portfolio. I have never worked in a corporate environment before-was a business owner so don't really know how this stuff works, but I am getting pretty fed up. Also I am going to be sharing my leads with all these new people and at this comp plan my sales will certainly drop. I will not go out and bring in more business from relationships that I have made over the years if I am not paid what I am worth and at that point I will have no leverage.
Fund management industry
By: Naw | 25-09-2008
what is a fund mangement industry?what are the trends and issues in that industry?
The overall goal of emergency management is to?
By: scott | 24-09-2008
the overall goal of emergency management is to?
What is the vision of tesco ?
By: karim | 24-09-2008
what is the vision of tesco ?
Explain how the four functions of management ...
By: kache620 | 23-09-2008
Explain how the four functions of management support the creation and maintenance of a healthy organizational culture.
Is there any NetKeeper installer available for mac ...
By: odey | 18-09-2008
is there any NetKeeper installer available for mac OS?
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