A policy and procedures manual is a compilation of all of the policies and procedures that every employee needs to know. People often say that no one ever reads policy and procedure manuals. They are not written to provide reading material to the employees. They are, however, designed to explain and illustrate the policies that the employees must be aware of and tasks that the employees must be able to demonstrate.

When there is no policy and procedure manual in a store, you run the risk of things being done randomly. If a policy is not written down, there is no way of holding people accountable for their actions. For example, Mary handles an exchange improperly and when you reprimand her for it, she says, "No one ever told me that," or "I never knew that was the way to do it." If you have a manual that covers the policy and procedure of handling an exchange, you can hold Mary accountable for knowing the information contained therein. A major flaw in some manuals is the clarity and completeness of the material itself. For a manual to be most effective, it must be written so that a new employee could read a section and be able to explain and/or demonstrate the material on their own. This can be accomplished by using a variety of examples so that no stone is left unturned. For example, any type of transaction that occurs in your store, no matter how infrequently, should be covered in the manual. If it happened once, it may happen again, so each salesperson must be aware of how to handle it or where to refer to handle it.

Every store should have a policy and procedure manual. However, putting together a manual is a tedious task that requires patience and thoroughness. To begin, you need a list of everything that should be covered. A list of chapter titles as well as an example of the subjects for one particular title is provided in Figure A.

You may not realize it, but many of the policies and procedures you will need may be already written down in the form of company memos, inter-office memos, and manuals. Compile all of these documents, and begin sorting them into sections and subsections using Figure A to guide you. You will find some sections are missing all together, that's ok, you just need to make a note that you need to write these policies and/or procedures. Some of the memos may have outdated policies and procedures, keep track of the areas where you need to update company policies and procedures.

You can assign the sections that need work to as many people as possible to not only collect the necessary information faster, but to involve everyone in the process. Set deadlines for having the information compiled. While the people you recruited for this project begin to work on their assignments, you can begin to enter all of the data you organized that was current and accurate from the documents you compiled. As you collect the sections from every person, you can simply add them to the manual you've already started.

Next, review each section for clarity and missing details. After making notes on what additions or revisions need to be made, go back to the people responsible for each section and have them make the necessary changes. If you discover varying perceptions of what a certain policy is or how a certain procedure should be completed, make a decision one way or the other so there is a standard guideline for all people to follow. Recompile the information, and make any final changes.

When the first draft is ready to be proofread, it may be a good idea to have someone not employed in the store (perhaps a spouse) read it through once. It sometimes becomes hard to realize when a point is not clearly stated if you are already accustomed to doing it correctly. An outsider reading the manual is like a new employee reading it for the first time. If the outsider can understand the information, it is likely that a new hire will as well.

Once the manual is official, it is extremely important that you keep the content current and accurate. When a policy is changed, the manual is changed as well. Rewrite the appropriate pages, and make two copies of the revised version. Replace the pages currently in the manual with one of the copies, and post the second copy on a communication board in the store. Have each employee initial the revised copy on the board, and you can rest assured that everyone has been notified of the change.

If you have more than one store, have the stores send in the outdated page in their manual before you send them two copies of the new page. This assures that everyone has filed the most current policy and/or procedure. When they receive the copies of the new page of the policy manual, one is placed in the policy manual and the other is put on the communication board for everyone in the store to initial.

The goal of creating a policy and procedure manual is to outline and clearly explain the rules for all employees to follow while working within your organization. Often, the best intentions of a thorough manual are defeated with overwhelmingly complicated text. If too much emphasis is spent on carefully choosing legal, yet lengthy explanations of a policy or procedure, months, or even years can pass before the manual will reach completion. In addition to this delay, a policy with complicated text will often be lost in the translation by a new employee. Use simple terms, cut out any unnecessary information concerning the purpose of a policy and clearly state the bottom line so all of the employees can understand and comply with the rule. Here is an example of an unnecessarily lengthy explanation of a time card policy:

Example: A new time card is to be started the first work day of each week and the individual's name and store are to be written thereon immediately. (Time cards without names are not to be in the rack. Any time card found in the rack without a name will be subject to removal by management personnel. Any time thereon will not be paid until the employee has certified their time, their manager or supervisor has verified the time and forwarded the card and certification to the office. There will be a minimum delay of at least one payroll cycle in this instance.)

In the above timecard policy, unnecessary explanations and consequences were stated that not only confused the issue of having names on all time cards, but created a very negative tone. The same information can be simply stated as follows:

A new time card is to be started the first work day of each week. To prevent a delay in payroll, be sure that your name and store is filled out immediately on the first work day.

After writing your first policy and procedures manual, it is likely that you will discover areas that you have missed. During the first year of its life, you may find yourself revising and adding quite a bit. That is perfectly fine. Just keep going until you at last have a manual that you are proud of.

Editor's Note: The Friedman Group offers a Retail Policies Manual that covers the most commonly used store policies in retail, along with points to consider in establishing the right policy for your business. The Retail Policies Manual comes with a deluxe manual and computer disk for easily customizing, revising and updating your own store policies manual. For more information, call 800-351-8040 or visit www.thefriedmangroup.com.