The Key to Better Policy and Procedure Management

The required policies and procedures are present in almost every organization in the world, yet they are often not followed, which can result in damages for the organization. A closer look at the way we treat policies and procedures and the distance between them and the organizational culture reveals the reason that they are ignored so much. Having a policy and procedure management system in place allows organizations to close the gap between what is written down and what happens in the organization.

Changing how we interact with policies and procedures

The approach towards policies and procedures that has been historically taken in our corporate culture has not advanced as our needs have. Businesses now operate at a much faster pace than ever before. Speed is of the essence in most businesses and consulting policies and procedures is a step that is often skipped because of how long it takes to do so. There are several ways that policy and procedure management solutions can help organizations improve not just the perception of but also the application of the organization’s policies and procedures.

Collaborate to write better policies and procedures

Policies and procedures are often written in a way that is not easy to understand for the layperson. While the employees that have been trained in the field that the policies pertain to may be able to extract their meaning, everyone else simply does not have the prerequisite information required to do so. Policy and procedure (P&P) management systems allow people to collaborate painlessly in the creation and writing of these policies and procedures, allowing more perspective from different stakeholders. Once policies become easy to understand, the procedures become easy to follow for all employees.

Accessibility matters

Accessibility is often overlooked when it comes to policies and procedures. If any policy or procedure is ignored by an employee, many organizations fault the employee for not going through the process of accessing the policies and procedures that have been written down. While some fault lies with them, organizations ignore their own responsibility to make the policies and procedures as accessible as possible.

A policy and procedure management solution becomes the central location everyone can access for information. This means that no one needs help in finding what they need. Since these systems have digital versions of the policies and procedures it is also possible to search through them. Thus, instead of going through all the policy and procedure documents to locate the information needed it is possible to find it with a single search in the system.

Keep updating policies and procedures

Every policy and procedure that is written down will eventually be outdated. Technologies change, businesses expand, cultures change, and the business environment is always changing as well, thus the policies and procedures also need to keep up with the times. Outdated policies and procedures can lead to compliance conflicts and heavy fines by regulatory bodies. This is another area where policy and procedure management solutions help. They make you give every document that is created an expiration date. Once this expiration date is near all the relevant stakeholders will be notified automatically.

All these steps will help move your organization towards the same goal – the goal of having policies and procedures become a part of the organizational culture. This leads to the most compliance friendly work culture possible. It allows policies to go beyond the papers they are written on and shape the way people work. Procedures that have been designed to increase employee and customer safety and satisfaction are also more likely to be followed in such an environment.

The best part about policy and procedure management solutions is the ease of implementation. They only take a day or two to implement and are not disruptive at all. The system can be introduced to the people once it has been implemented. It isn’t financially difficult to get such a system implemented either. There are many flexibly priced solutions on the market which can be deployed at a small level and you can expand the implementation if you are satisfied with the solution’s performance.

If you want to see what a Policy and Procedure Management Software like Predict360 can do for your organization, simply sign up for a 30-day free trial. You can also get a live demo of Predict360’s most exciting features by getting in touch with us through chat, or by filling the Contact Us form.

About the company

360factors, Inc. (Austin, TX) helps companies improve business performance by reducing risk and ensuring compliance. Predict360, its flagship software product, vertically integrates regulations and requirements, policies and procedures management, risks and controls, audit management and inspections, and on-line training and qualifications, in a single cloud-based platform based on artificial intelligence.

Remain up-to-date on industry news/updates through our Twitter & Linkedin profiles.