How to Improve Your Company’s Policies and Procedures

In your company’s employee handbook, you likely have a whole bunch of policies and procedures listed. Some people will read it and refer to it regularly. Others will never open it outside of the required signatures for HR. Either way, it’s still important that your values have a home there.

Here are some ideas on where to start upgrading your employee handbook.

Highlight your values.

This is the most obvious, but again, it’s something that’s often overlooked. In the section of your handbook or employee manual that cites your vision, mission, and values, include how the values were formed, how they’re upheld, and the value promises that underline the specific expectation so that each team member can embody them every day. Make it clear that these are more than just nice ideas and marketing collateral.

Use plain, jargon-free language.

As someone who came from the nonprofit sector before starting my business, I am quite familiar with jargon. We do-gooders often rely on it to get a point across, but it doesn’t always serve us or the person reading it. Do your best to use plain, easy-to follow language so that people can get it right away and don’t have to decode it or hire a lawyer to understand its meaning.

Use small, scannable chunks.

When policies and procedures look like legal documents, it’s highly unlikely that people will be able to understand them. It takes a certain type of learner who can easily process that form of information. Wherever you can, break sections up and use images, lists, charts, or icons. Get to the point of what you have to say so that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to decipher what you’re intending to share.

Give permission to be human.

Most people won’t treat their employee manual as bedside table reading. Let’s be honest. When new employees come aboard, a lot is going on, and it’s likely that although they may need to sign pages of the manual and review them with you in real time, they will need to be examined again and again if you want them to stick. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that information is now locked into someone’s thinking or way of being. Most humans need to hear something at least seven times before it sticks. So if it really matters, make sure that there are opportunities to engage and digest the information outside of the traditional policy and procedure conversations.

Need help creating an employee handbook that is in alignment with your company’s values?

This was an excerpt from MaryBeth’s book – Permission to Be Human: The Conscious Leaders Guide to Creating a Values-Driven Culture.

Learn more from this conscious leadership book.