Policies and Procedures

From ArticleWorld

Policies and procedures are designed to help companies develop standardized responses and behaviors in daily functioning and compliance practices. They are especially helpful in enforcing and keeping records of compliance with regulatory requirements on such matters as financial transparency and environmental impact codes. Generally companies find that having a set of formalized written documents detailing policies that must be adhered to and the procedures for doing so helps to not deviate from standards as well as maintain a chain of responsibility.

In an attempt to make policies and procedures, also called standard business practice, more objective and thorough, consultants are often brought in from outside individual firms to draw up these sets of documents. The technical writer consults with Subject Matter Experts for specifics, management on policies, and those who carry out specific tasks for procedural flowcharts to set down best practices.

There are stringent rules within companies about forms in which policies and procedures should be set down or altered. Specifics include a statement of purpose, chain of approval, date of institution, author etc.