How to Begin Your Policy and Procedure Manual

A well-written policy and procedure manual can improve your company by establishing clear guidelines, setting goals and communicating organizational knowledge. Sounds great, right? But how should you begin?

A good place to start is by looking at policy and procedure manuals of other companies with similar sized businesses. You also can look online for templates you can download, such as Microsoft Office Policy Manual. It offers 140 updated policies & procedures, human resource forms, labor posters, and job descriptions that will help you get started on a comprehensive office policy manual.

Although these forms and templates can give you a good head start, they are not customized for your particular business, or even your particular industry.

Some companies, such as those in the banking industry, for example, are steeped in regulations and policies and, therefore, need a large amount of policies and procedures. Other businesses, especially small businesses, may only have a handful of policies. Chances are good that your business is somewhere in the middle.

To customize your manual, the best place to start is with your company philosophy. Do you have one? Do your customers and employees know what it is?

Top executives will often say something like, "That is not the way we do things around here." If they mention a company philosophy, they may assume everyone in their employ knows what it is. The truth is that they may not.

Many companies operate under general beliefs, involving honesty and integrity. Those values are good ones, but when it comes down to making decisions for your company, those words are not enough.

So what is a business philosophy? It is a term for the basic beliefs by which a company runs. It is the often unwritten guidelines that employees are expected to follow. Company philosophies are often established over time and often over the course of trial and error.

Relying on "understood" policies can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Are your employees guessing at what your company philosophy is? If so, creating a policy and procedure manual can be the opportunity to make those unwritten guidelines written for all to see.

Although business philosophies vary from company to company, Marvin Bower in his book, The Will to Manage, offers the following concepts as typical components of a successful company:

• high ethical standards


• a fact-founded, thoughtful approach to decision making


• sensitivity to changes in the business environment


• employees judged on the basis of their performance


• a sense of competitive urgency