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Policy & Procedure Manuals - Tools For Greater Productivity and Efficiency

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In today's tough retail environment the retailer needs all the tools he can get to help improve efficiency, productivity, and the bottom line. Two of these tools are the company's Policy Manual and Procedure Manual.

In working with independent retailers throughout the country we have found that the majority do not have written policies and procedures. When questions or problems arise concerning the store's policies or procedures the store owner/manager handles them on an individual basis. The problem with this approach is that it takes too much of management's time and can lead to inconsistency in dealing with company policy and procedures.

Employees respond well to an environment in which company policies are well defined and equitably and consistently enforced. Therefore, having a written Policy Manual and Procedure Manual can make a store a better employer and a stronger profit maker. The Policy Manual will give the employees the information they need concerning company regulations and policies and will support management in enforcing them. A Procedure Manual will give the employees instructions on HOW to do their job. It can be used both as a training manual and an on-going reference manual.

If your store does not have both a Policy Manual and a Procedure Manual, make a commitment to begin this important project immediately. If you do have these manuals, take some time to review them and verify that they are up-to-date and include all the information your employees need to be more productive and efficient.

POLICY MANUAL There is much information concerning the company that employees need to know and management is obligated to tell them. The best method for disseminating this information is by providing it to the employees in the form of a written Policy Manual.

A written store policy manual is also an important management tool. It details for your employees what you expect of them. Personnel problems are avoided because ideas of conduct, job performance and general store policy are spelled out in writing. The excuse "You didn't tell me" can not be used when employee problems arise.

A Policy Manual is needed for companies of all sizes. The manual should be expanded to cover any new situations that arise. A growing company especially needs a continuously updated policy manual to keep its employees fully informed of all the changes occurring in company philosophy as well as policy.

In writing the Policy Manual, keep in mind that it will be used by supervisors to resolve any disputes or initiate disciplinary action, and should, therefore, be written in such a way that it supports them in this endeavor.

A Policy Manual should answer some of the most important questions employees ask. For example, prohibitions against drinking and drug use on the job, performance review, holidays, vacations, benefits, leave of absence, work hours, personal hygiene grooming as well as dress codes and other critical policies that often affect morale. However, don't put anything down as policy if you are not going to enforce it as this just confuses employees and creates dissention. Also, a Policy Manual may be considered legally binding so it would be best to consult with your lawyer regarding local, state and federal statutes before you issue the Policy Manual to employees.

The company Policy Manual is usually divided into sections covering the following areas:

1. Introduction to the Company

2. Orientation

3. Working Conditions

4. Wages

5. Benefits

6. Evaluations

7. Employee's Termination

8. Store Services

The introduction gives a brief history of the store and welcomes the new employee.

The orientation section includes general information on what is expected of the employee, job descriptions, personal appearance and grooming guidelines, and how he is expected to handle the customer.

The section on working conditions includes such things as store hours, employee scheduling, overtime policies, breaks, personal use of the telephone and causes for termination.

The wages section includes a statement or two about the wage and hour laws, payroll record keeping requirements, when employees are paid and how pay is computed.

The employee benefits section covers such items as holidays, vacations, sick leave, jury duty, employee discounts, insurance and pension plans.

The section on employee evaluation details what the evaluation will be based on, shows the printed forms used in the evaluation process and gives a schedule of when evaluations are made.

The section on employee termination tells the amount of advance notice required and outlines the options available regarding the employee's insurance, pension plan and settlement of his charge account.

The last section, store services, gives a general overview of the services provided for customers such as charge accounts, layaways, gift certificates, alterations and delivery.

The Policy Manual is a good vehicle for a company to use to indoctrinate new employees and to keep all employees informed as to any changes in company policy and philosophy. It should tell employees all they NEED to know as well as what the company WANTS them to know. To be used effectively, the company's Policy Manual must be continuously updated, must be enforced at all times and must ALWAYS be supported by top management.

PROCEDURE MANUAL

For a retailer to survive and prosper in today's retail climate, he must be alert to any and every possible way to streamline his operation. The development of a Procedure Manual forces the retailer to take an in-depth look at the total operation and can, therefore, be very enlightening. It can help the retailer to identify:

* Recurring problem areas

* Areas where internal controls are weak or non-existent

* Where work is being duplicated

* Where unnecessary work is being done - so busy work can be eliminated

* How the organization can be improved so all areas of the business work together efficiently and economically toward the common goal of store profitability

A Procedure Manual provides detailed instructions for all the company's standard work routines. The manual should be written in an easy-to-read, detailed, step-by-step manner so all employees will be able to use it for guidance in handling new or unfamiliar transactions or procedures. The benefits of a Procedure Manual are many. For example:

* People know what to do and what is expected of them

* The company is no longer tied to an "indispensable" employee

* Minimizes dislocation and loss of time and energy due to personnel turnover

* Helps new employees quickly learn and achieve a productive status

* Reduces management time spent in training

* Facilitates growth of your business

* Can free the retailer from an in-depth involvement in all the details of daily operations

* Standardizes the way identical tasks are performed by different employees, thereby increasing efficiency and reducing errors

The Procedure Manual must be as detailed as possible so it can be used as a training manual for new employees as well as a resource manual for existing employees. A set of standard procedures should be developed for every activity in the store from alterations to store maintenance. All of these areas of activity can contribute to or detract from your store, either directly or indirectly. Some activities need step-by-step instructions. Examples of these would be activities involving record keeping and merchandise handling. Other activities by their nature will need only general guidelines within which to operate. One of these areas might be housekeeping, with guidelines for carpet care, lighting, window washing and pest extermination.

As an example of the level of detail needed for the Receiving/Checking/Marking department we have listed below a portion of the table of contents of a Procedure Manual we helped a client develop:

I. Purchase Orders

A. General Discussion

B. Purchase Order Maintenance

C. Use of the Purchase Order in Receiving

D. Filing Partially Complete, Completed and Canceled

Purchase Orders

II. Receiving

A. General Procedures

B. Source Documents & instructions for completion

C. Receiving Merchandise

D. Checking and Marking

E. Supervisor's Responsibilities

III. Refused Shipments

A. General Discussion

B. Source documents & instructions for completion

C. Checking for and Refusing Delivery of Late

Merchandise

D. Retention period for Purchase Order Cancellation and

Change Reports

IV. Returns-To-Vendor and Claims

A. General Discussion

B. Source documents & instructions for completion

C. Processing a Charge Back

D. Shipping return merchandise to the vendor

E. Supervisor's Responsibilities

The Procedure Manual should be developed around the logical divisions of your business, such as receiving and marking, office, store and buying. Then each division will be further divided into specific job responsibilities.

The section on receiving and marking should detail the standard routines for handling purchase orders, receiving, checking and marking merchandise and returning merchandise to vendors.

The office procedures section should explain the routines for such areas as sales audit, accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventory control, payroll and data entry.

The store section would explain the forms and procedures used in handling the different types of sales such as cash, layaway, gift certificates or charge. It should also detail how to handle returns of merchandise, due bills, interstore transfers, the receipt of new merchandise on the sales floor, price changes, how to take a physical inventory count, and opening and closing procedures.

The buyers section would cover the items for which the buyer is responsible, namely purchase orders and price changes.

A well planned and maintained procedure manual will greatly facilitate the growth of your business. It is your foundation on which to build. New stores can adopt the tried and proven procedures used by the original store and begin operating smoothly and efficiently from the very beginning.

IN CONCLUSION, it is the retailer's responsibility to provide employees the tools they need to do their job in an efficient and productive manner; a Policy Manual letting them know what the company expects of them and what they can expect of the company and a Procedure Manual giving them instructions on how to do their work correctly.

Once the Policy Manual and Procedure Manual have been written and are in place, they will free up the owner/manager's time so they can more effectively use their time to help the company become more profitable.

Most retailers or their staff, not being authors or as attentive to details as necessary, or even lacking the time, will find it helpful or necessary to get professional help from a consultant knowledgeable about retail industry practices. It would be a wise investment, to be returned many times over.

This is a guest blog post written by Dave Kawula, a Senior Consultant with 1E. Dave was the guest on our January episode of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk where we talked about how IT managers can take the risk out of their Windows 7 deployment projects. Below Dave details cost savings that can be claimed by implementing automation and self service as part of your deployment project.

Read Dave’s other guest post on rationalizing your apps prior to a Windows 7 deployment >>

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Imagine that you have finally completed the following phases of your project:

Core Architecture, Gold Image Build and Test, Application Rationalization, Testing, Testing, and more Testing

Now you need to get your images deployed to end users…well this is a problem because most organizations lack the forethought to automate this process.

So when it comes to deploying Microsoft’s operating systems there are really two choices that we are normally presented with: Lite Touch and Zero Touch. Let’s take a moment and define both of these:

• Lite Touch = Some manual intervention from a desktop analyst or from user driven menus.
• Zero Touch = Fully automated builds when an administrator can choose to deploy operating system upgrades on demand.

Now do either of the above work… the answer is yes absolutely. The issue is that all of this requires Careful coordination and communication to end users. This process normally involves hiring project managers, business analysts, corporation communication specialists, and costly IT Engineering time.

My question is this: We are in a world where we can get applications delivered to all of our phones by simply clicking in a portal and having them magically installed. We can change devices and simply re-deploy these applications from the same portal.

WHAT IF… you could do the same thing for your Windows 7 deployment. Just treat the Windows 7 deployment as nothing more than a complex application. Allowing end users to click on a Windows 7 upgrade icon in a portal. Then have them them schedule their own upgrade for a time that works for them.

Check out this product from 1E Software called yes you guessed it, 1E Shopping:

Does this mean death to the manual spreadsheets… well probably not – we always seem to return to what we know and love. I have personally deployed this product and have seen the impact it has on the classical approach to operating system and software delivery. The only requirement for Shopping is that a customer must already own and have configured System Center Configuration Manager.

The best part of this application is that it can be easily be installed and configured in less than five consulting days.

So I want to wrap up this post with a little bit of simple math for everyone:

• Assume each Windows 7 Upgrade costs an organization $3000 per desktop.
• Assume that approximately 50 % of deployed software is not used.
• Assume that each request for Software costs an organization $200 (BTW This is a really safe number) I haven’t seen it much lower than this.
• Assume it takes over 5 business days to receive the software after a request.

Now…here is a look at the old way!

Deploy 1000 Desktops x $3,000 each = $300,000 in resource costs

• Assume 25 applications averaging 100 each with 50 % unused and deployed to all workstations. 25 Apps x 1000 Desktops x $100 Average License Cost = 2.5 /mil investment in software. This would work out to having approximately $2500 in software on each desktop – You all know this number is really low!
• Assume that the organization receives 20 software deployment requests per week for 52 weeks per year. 20 Request x 52 Weeks x $200 average cost = $208,000 in resource costs to deploy software.
• Assume that it takes 5 business days to receive your software once requested. Well you do the math on this one – quantify the cost of lost productivity for your employees!!!

How about the new way!!! Take the opportunity to incorporate this organizational change into your Windows 7 projects.

From my previous post on application rationalization:

• Deployment costs reduced by 30 % simply by “Rationalizing” the number of applications that need to be ported to Windows 7 and automating the delivery mechanisms for the images. You could easily save over $90,000 in soft costs out of the gate.
• Reduce the amount of Software Renewals, Support, Deployment, and licensing costs. Once again we “Rationalize” all of our apps. Assume a 50% savings for your organization what does that return? How about an estimated 1 /mil + savings in hard and soft costs. By the way – now that you have a tool that helps rationalize this – think of the savings the next time the licensing police come visit you.

Add in savings from using automation and self service:

• Reduce the amount of annual software deployment costs by over 50%. Savings of over $104,000 in soft costs.

Assume your budget for this Windows 7 project was around $500,000. I will leave you pondering those numbers. Now of course remember there is an acquisition cost of new software that would save money. The nice thing about 1E is that all of their software pretty much pays for itself very quickly.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and I welcome any feedback or if you want to share your experiences with your Windows 7 projects thus far.

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About Dave Kawula

Dave Kawula is an MCSE and CNE with over fifteen years of experience in the IT industry and a senior consultant with IE. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server LAN/WAN environments. He has experience with project management, network strategic planning, network design and integration. He has led the architecture for NT, SMS/SCCM, Exchange and Internet Gateways, including managing migration paths and issues as well as implementation. He has supported a variety of network infrastructures as well as architecting and defining technical standards.

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