Are policies and procedures really THAT important?

Most of the time your organisation ticks over with few moments of crisis. Then someone important (to whom everyone refers) goes down sick. You don't want to keep phoning them but ...

Does it feel familiar?

When a long-term employee is relied daily on to give business procedure advice to newer employees, you know you have a potential problem. While that person is at work, everything ticks over. Newer employees rely on her/him to know the answers. They never assume responsibility for remembering how this process happens. They don't need to.

The same thing happens when the important person has operated a particular machine for years. They learn the machine's idiosyncrasies; they know what to do when things go wrong; they even know when things are about to go wrong. If experienced operators are no longer around to ask, newer employees start trying things out. They do things by trial and error ... and error, error, error.

Out-of-date procedures

If you look around your organisation, you will probably be able to find a manual written by someone some time ago. Could you or others run the department, machine, cashbook program or service using that manual alone? If you can, then you don't need to be reading this.

If that manual no longer makes sense, then you do need to review your policies and procedures. An enterprising employee could refer to it at any time and unwittingly do the wrong thing - just as the manual says. A lot of product or time could be wasted before the mistake is recognised.

Edutech KM Ltd

PO Box 25-241, Victoria Street, Christchurch;
phone: 64-3-337-0234
fax: 64-3-337-0235
info@edutechkm.com
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