Procedure document template

Employees should sign off when they have read the document. Create a training plan to support the new policies and procedures. Then, establish a review cycle so that new regulations and practices can be incorporated into your documents to keep them relevant. Language and Tone Use language and tone appropriate to your audience. Consider these tips: Use terms and definitions consistently. Explain acronyms. Use plain language rather than jargon. If you must use jargon, explain it.

Use inclusive and gender-neutral language. Provide general information where possible. For example, provide a general departmental phone number, rather than the mobile phone number or office number of an individual who may change jobs.

Be clear about required actions versus optional actions by choosing the correct words. The words must and will indicate compulsory actions. The word may suggests an optional action. Write in short sentences with plain words. Write in active voice rather than passive voice when possible. Tips for Readable Policy and Procedure Templates If your documents are easy to find and read, users will be more inclined to read and reference them.

Consider the following structural tips for your policies and procedures: Linking: Hyperlinks to external reference documents and internal sections make it easier for users to find documents. Naming Documents: Use clear and consistent names for documents.

Headings, Numbers, and Bullets: Especially for long documents, consider using clear, short subheadings to describe the topic, using numbering sections and paragraphs, and using bulleted lists. In general, limit subdivisions to three levels. Resources to Help You Create Policies and Procedures Your company may publish policy and procedure templates on the company website, which can help reduce the need to consider design and formatting, and provide hints about content to include.

Types of Content in Policies and Procedures Templates Depending on your industry, certain content may be mandatory in policies and procedures. Purpose: This explains what the policy is about and the reason for having the policy, such as how it promotes compliance with standards or regulations. Policy Statements: Describe the overall framework for the policy and its intent. Definitions: Define terms in your policy, especially words and phrases with multiple meanings.

Definitions make policies clearer and can be important if the organization ever faces litigation. Table of Contents: Whether your document is published online, made into a PDF, or printed, a table of contents aids users in quickly finding information. Hyperlinked tables of contents are a helpful feature of electronic documents.

Policy and Procedures: Details of the policy and procedures may be included in one document. Scope: This describes the individuals, departments, or groups to whom the policy applies. To increase clarity, describe any employees or others to whom it does not apply. Responsibilities: To ensure compliance, specify which roles are responsible for creating documents and reviewing documentation and activities. Additional Sections Organization Chart : An organization chart can show how departments and individuals relate to one another.

Dress Code: Discuss what constitutes appropriate dress for your organization. Reporting: A reporting policy describes how you store any documents required by policies and procedures. Job Descriptions: Define the responsibilities of each position. Smoke, Drug, Alcohol, and Weapons-Free: Organizations can specify that smoking and alcohol consumption are prohibited on their premises. They can also prohibit off-premises drug use through drug testing. In addition, they can ban weapons from organization property.

Cell Phone: Cell phone policies limit the use of employee-owned cell phones to business-related activities. Computer and Internet: Computer and internet usage policies describe what activities are permitted on organization-owned assets. Attendance: This describes the expectations for employee attendance, work hours, and unexpected absences or lateness.

Anti-Harassment: Anti-harassment policies help an organization communicate what it deems unacceptable behavior. These policies also outline the consequences when unacceptable behavior can be proven. An important part of anti-harassment policy is a predefined complaint procedure.

Safety: Safety policies and procedures encourage behaviors that prevent or lessen the chance of accidents and injuries.

Employee Evaluation: It is crucial to outline the process for employee evaluations and disciplinary procedures before such actions are necessary. Diagrams and Drawings: Procedures may be best explained through these tools. Another good example is the loan borrowing process.

It has policies and procedures that are entirely different from those of software testing. It all comes down to the fact that how you use the template depends on your environment. Test Procedure Word Template infarmed. By using test methods, developers can identify the effectiveness of a software solution as well as identify and fix bugs. Safe Work Procedure Template education. These procedure templates will help you do the right thing at the right time for the benefit of your project.

When you have a set of instruction templates written down and distributed to your team members or the target audience, you eliminate the need for guesswork, unreasonable time wastage, and poor results.

Maintaining a comprehensive procedure list will help you and your other users to have the assurance that they will be doing the right thing when they follow these procedures. It is not possible to complete a process without a procedure. Even small projects with definite timelines often demand a comprehensive systematic guide to complete the project successfully.

The Financial Program Management and Control Policy and Procedures template highlights the management cores like the administrative, accounting and finance, internal control, risk reduction, and office administration. With it, your organization will be able to make policies that guide the interest of the organization. This could be incorporated with the state bylaws, audit committee, etc. The Employee Mental Health Policy and Procedure template promotes positive mental health in the workplace.

It erases discrimination, stigmatization, social exclusion, and workload in the workplace. The Anti-money Laundering Policy and Procedure template will help your organization to adopt the best practices of anti-money laundering. It includes anti-fraud, anti-corruption, and taking measures to mitigate against financial crime. Click here to download the Accounting Policy and Procedure Template. The Accounting Policy and Procedure template can be used by small, medium, and larger enterprises.

It contains the financial framework to satisfy auditors, obtain accreditations, certifications and satisfy boards looking for higher standards of strategic governance and administration in your company.

The Payment Security Policy and Procedure template is created to help organizations processing card payments to prevent card fraud. It includes verticals that put strict control of data and confidentiality on card payment details.

For instance, it pushes for a global data security standard that businesses can adopt to accept card payments, and to store, process, and transmit cardholder data. It involves the process of proceeding with the compliance team, how to take stock of a broad aspect of information, and regulations to cater to administrative responsibilities.

It also relates to guidelines that control the day-to-day activities of service billings between companies and their customers. The security-related policy and procedure templates are documents ranging from firewall configuration security, information security, internet, and intranet security, data protection, etc. This Office Security Policy and Procedure template outlines basic security rules, guidelines, and definitions that are standardized across the entire organization.

It outlines the importance of wearing ID badges at all times and information about how to make an acceptable password. The Firewall Configuration Security Policy and Procedure template provides the essential guidelines for the information systems security infrastructure.

It itemizes how to control security systems and restrict network connectivity on network services. It also defines the rules of managing and maintaining owned, rented, or leased firewalls as controlled by the company. The Information Security Policy and Procedure template outlines the requirements around which encryption algorithms define the acceptable use of equipment and computing services that the organization subscribes to. So, employees are expected to have a good knowledge of internet services; else, they may lose their system privileges.

The Data Protection, Confidentiality, and Information Services Policy and Procedure template address data encryption, password protection, compliance requirements, and access control. It also highlights the data protection process and explains the roles and functions of the data protection process. The Safeguarding Customer Information Policy and Procedure template outlines the behavioral expectations of employees when dealing with the customer. This policy also includes the requirements for data leakage prevention and protects restricted, confidential, and sensitive customer data.

A policy in an organization is a clearly defined, easy-to-understand statement that directs how the organization operates. They are guiding rules that every staff member should follow when delivering their assigned responsibilities. Policies are regulations that govern process delivery in the organization. Policies offer a structure for consistency and also ensure compliance with organizational values and goals as well as regulations and standards.

Meanwhile, as the name implies, the procedure describes how policies should be implemented. Procedures are step-by-step instructional statements that explain how an employee should complete a task or job. That said, the procedures document created to achieve a particular task can change over time as new tools, new processes, and new policies emerge. Usually, procedures are performed by employees and describe who should perform specific activities and how to complete a task.

Many companies have paid fines and faced unnecessary lawsuits because they lack these simple documents. For regulatory requirements, every business must have the policies and procedure documents. This is important because it provides information that gears effective corporate compliance and requires every department to adopt the best practices to work. Sometimes, biases are expected in human nature. The policy and procedure documents are reasonable to ensure that employees stay on track and deliver on the agreed terms.

It is a mechanism to hold them accountable. The policy and procedure documents are also perfect for identifying gaps in the work process and organizational transactions. It helps to figure our compliance level and allows the audit team to ascertain if the organization is steering in the right direction or not. The policy and procedure document also helps the organizations to build a more robust work culture.

When each employee knows the work procedures and the policies guiding each of his tasks, it becomes easier to add ethical values to the organization and interact with other colleagues better. A good policy and procedure document should be written in simple and straightforward language that any employee, even a new hire, can understand. The procedure document should be well-laid out and indicate how the steps in the policy document should be delivered.

That said, a procedure document must be written in a style that stirs usability. As such, it must be action-oriented, grammatically correct, and consistent. A good procedure must have the following:. There are main steps to walk through when developing the document. Before delving into writing a policy and procedure document, here are some things you have to do:. You must discuss it first with those carrying it out. It becomes easier for employees to follow a procedure when they see that their contribution is being acknowledged in the final document.

During your discourse with users, ensure that you clearly understand how the procedure is currently done and how the users think it should be better done. If the procedure transcends between departments, make sure that everyone is in that discussion. And to avoid the users nudging you, sketch out the procedure based on your understanding before meeting with the users. This process will shape your understanding through flipped learning.

Before you begin writing, ensure that you picture your understanding of the users and leverage that to write for them. Start with an interesting introduction that will likely keep the users reading. Know the gap you want to fill by creating the procedure. Answer the question as appropriate and remember to include tools, passwords, keycodes, technology, physical items such as pen, paper, and anything else that might be required.

Combine your knowledge, experience in the field, and the notes you took from your meeting with the users, then explain each process in a list. Break complex procedures into simple tasks where each item stands as a single detailed and clear instruction. Adding other types of media to your procedure will let you explain the concept properly and keep the readers glued to the content.

So instead of writing pages full of texts, you can put a page of text into a second multimedia format that paints the situation rather than texts. Adding supporting documents, such as videos, images, audio notes, or forms that need to be completed, will make the content sticky to the readers, and they will follow each procedure to the letter.

For those knowledge-thirsty users who always want to do a deep dive, consider including links to relevant resources to improve their skills. Check that the procedure solves the problem you created it for. Look through it to make sure everything is correct.

This will help you save time as it will be less likely that anyone will spot errors. Testing your procedure in a controlled environment does two things. First, it helps you check that, once more, all the steps are correctly captured. Second, it points out whether the procedure needs some rework instead of forcing people to adopt it.

Using all the key performance indices, examine the inputs, outputs, and goals, then ensure that the right mix will produce the required success. After your test, you should know if your procedure needs improvement or not.