How to Engage Your Employees with the Policies and Procedures of Your Business?

Many organizations spend countless hours and resources in developing their policies and procedures for ensuring a compliance environment. They expect every employee to get familiarized with their policies and to make an effort to uphold those guidelines. However, policy and procedure management may not be the topic of interest for all employees, especially for those who work outside the legal environment of their respective organizations.

How one can engage their employees and teach them the right approaches to achieve their policies and procedures? In certain cases, employees might not feel motivated to spend time reading and learning lengthy policies and procedures. It is critical for every organization to captivate and retain their employees’ attention for effectively managing their policies and procedures.

To ease the process, here are a few unique ways to help you engage your employees with your business policies and procedures. 

Analyze the Nature of Your Employees

The very first step your legal or compliance team should take before executing smart ways to deliver your policies and procedures is to evaluate the nature of your organization and the staff. You may have incredibly diverse employees in your organization. While some may feel encouraged to learn your policies and procedures, others may lack interest. Finding the ways your staff members will respond to your messages will help in creating methods to engage them well. 

Make More Presentable Information

Not every employee would like to spend the time to fully read through your policies and procedures. One way to engage them is to incentivize the process. Present the information in a more creative way to help make the reading process more fun for your employees. Adding quizzes, games, times, social learning or giveaways are some of the ways to encourage them to pay more attention. It will also give you a clear understanding of whether your information is well received or not.

Use Visual Technology for Interactive Content 

Adding videos, Infographics, and other visual materials into your content is a great way to engage your employees. Visual content can help segment the whole presentation, cover as much as you want, and make it more interactive. It gives employees an opportunity to learn piece by piece and to ask questions while reading interactive presentations.

These tips will help you create more engaging information by using your policy and procedure management software that will ensure regulatory compliance. 

6 Knowledge Management Trends to Watch Out in 2019

What’s behind the creation of remarkable services and products as well as behind the insights shared by people? It’s a huge collection of knowledge and information. As the enormous amount of data is being created with advanced apps, tools, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and running on the cloud, information is spreading across various diverse platforms. Therefore, an effective knowledge management strategy is essential to harness all the data and make informed decisions.   

Knowledge is a power which fuels the successful business when properly harnessed. The digital transformation has a significant impact on knowledge management which inspires software platforms to leverage knowledge management strategies. With changing demands and business challenges, knowledge management software is continuously evolving. 

Here are six emerging knowledge management trends to look for in 2019. 

1. Integrated External Process
   Many professionals today juggle with numerous instances of software to remain on track while communicating, scheduling, coordinating projects, curating content, and handling other tasks. Thanks to social intranet software which eliminates the need for multiple application login. 
   
   
2. Content Creation and Management
   Content is an essential tool for marketing which is used by companies to keep pace with the increasing demand for information. It is all about collecting information and disseminating that information in a structured way to people. With knowledge management software, anyone can organize tag, and share the created content. 
   
   
3. Increased User Engagement
   From controlling to cultivation, this great shift in knowledge management enables different teams to share information and ideas organically. This active contribution of employees to their company helps to create more efficient and productive work culture. Knowledge base software permissions are becoming more comprehensive and adaptive to promote this engagement.
   
   
4. Segmentation of Information into Multiple Spaces
   Information assets are organized, shared, and refined in your knowledge management system. Overloaded information is hard to manage by businesses, especially during the rapid growth stage. Fortunately, knowledge management software allows you to document your information into multiple community spaces.
   
   
5. Automatic and Consistent Updates 
   As new challenges and solutions continue to emerge, it becomes critical for companies to get updates automatically and consistently. Social intranet software suites are rolling updates and improving with each update to help boost your business productivity. 
   
   
6. Improved Customization 
   As Knowledge Management Software is evolving, it is providing more customized software solutions that fit in your specific business requirements. This helps you to scale your solution to match your company’s growth.  

Get Expert Help to Complete Your Procedure Manuals Project

There’s another reason your project for developing a company procedure manual or for bringing your ancient policies and procedures manuals up to date might be stalled and stuck on the back burner. As we began in our earlier post 5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done, sometimes projects bog down because the task at hand is unfamiliar to you and your team lacks experience and confidence.

Differences of opinion among team members on how to go about the process of writing policies and procedures can cause gridlock. You can’t get “buy in” to move the project forward because the team lacks consensus on the best way to proceed.

If any of these situations seem familiar, maybe the answer is to seek help from a third party expert who can offer your team best practices, advice and tricks of the trade that will break the gridlock and propel you towards your goals. If you want to jumpstart a stalled project, save yourself time and money, and get yourself or your team moving forward in the right direction, consider signing up for some procedure writing training, individual consulting, or educational webinars.

As hard as it might be to believe, there actually are professionals with many years of experience who know the best ways to go about writing policies and procedures who can help you, as well as books, blogs, and webinars available. [Ahem . . . COMPROSE Policy and Procedure Pros who write this blog have decades of experience with all types of policies and procedures, work instructions, operations manuals, training guides and more.]

In addition to reading this blog for opinions and tips on writing Policies and Procedures that deliver more value, check out our webinar series, particularly our How to Create User-friendly Procedures webinar. Just follow the link to download a datasheet.

Source:https://www.comprose.com/get-expert-help-to-complete-your-procedure-manuals-project/

What are the Best Knowledge Management Practices Businesses Use?

Knowledge management is a system integrated by organizations using KM software which help employees access, share and modify business knowledge and information. Since knowledge is important to boost productivity and efficiency, it is critical for businesses to manage their knowledge process effectively. 

Most organizations make use of their knowledge management in different forms. In this post, we will discuss the best knowledge management practices applied by companies from diverse sectors for the smooth functioning of their business and employee support teams including IT, HR, and finance. 

1. Content Management System (CMS)
   One of the great ways to organize and use knowledge management is by implementing CMS. Content management systems like Bloomfire and SharePoint enable every individual and collaborative teams to access, update, and publish information on a firm intranet.


2. Chatbots 
   A chatbot is a smart knowledge management practice used by many companies in various sectors. Chatbots respond to employee queries and requests for information using AI and machine learning. 
   
   
   By using Chatbot, employees don’t have to dig around in chat history or document system for seeking information. They can pose any concern and chatbot will filter its knowledge base to provide the best information possible.


3. Cross-Training Programs
   Training programs including mentoring and shadowing allow employees to enhance business knowledge in a work environment. The new employees can shadow experienced staff by watching their work. Cross-training programs implemented in the companies using knowledge management software help ease the training process of new hires.


4. Social Networking Tools
   Workplace, Slack and other social networking tools help boost team collaborations, interactions and productive communications in a shared space. That’s not all! These tools store historical conversations which allow employees to search and retrieve archived information. This proved to be an excellent knowledge management practice.


5. Document Management Systems
   Companies are extensively using document management systems like Box and Google Drive to store business document and data on the Cloud. These systems allow the companies to control access permission and share the data in an efficient way. 

Generally, these tools are embedded with the systems which allow adding metadata and tagging files to make the information easily accessible for everyone. This is yet another knowledge management practice that companies are using for streamlining their business process.

If you are new to the business and haven’t started making smart use of Knowledge Management System, start including knowledge management software to your business for efficient business workflow. 

Are Your P&Ps GOOD or Bad? Here’s the Definitive Test

Many companies have heated internal debates on this question: “Are our written policies and procedures (P&Ps) good or bad? “ How do you know?

Some people measure quality based on whether P&Ps exist and are physically accessible to staff, whether they are grammatically correct, or how they look. Criticisms range from “Our P&Ps are too long” “We don’t have enough pictures” “We need different fonts.” “Playscript format is best” “No, a flowchart is the answer.” “We don’t need details.” “We need much more detail.” and on and on.

When it comes judging to the quality of your policy and procedures manuals, it’s all a matter of opinion, right? Wrong! In this post, we show you how to tell OBJECTIVELY if your corporate policies and procedures are “good” or not.

The definitive test is how you answer this questions: Are we getting the PERFORMANCE results we want?

The term “Performance results” is a little broad, so we’ve broken it down into 7 specific areas relating to operations and training. If you answer YES to just one question, your standard operating procedures are either missing in action or need fixing and you are not getting the return you should for the time, money, and effort you’re spending on writing policies and procedures.

Diagnosis Checklist

1. Training Difficulties
   Does it take too long to get new employees productive? Do supervisors spend too much time answering the same questions? Is training inconsistent? (How are you training your people?)


2. Inefficiencies, Slowness
   Does it take too long to: Perform routine tasks? Open new locations? Take a business concept and “franchise” it? Implement major changes? Roll-out new systems? Launch new products?


3. Errors, Waste (Quality Control)
   Are people making too many errors? Do you have difficulty controlling the quality of service, products without a lot of labor and oversight.


4. Knowledge Retention
   Are there areas where you would be at significant risk or project failure if your STAR performer or consultant left today? Are best practices in peoples’ heads? Are your “experts” overwhelmed by people constantly asking them for help?


5. Inconsistency / One-offs
   Are work processes inconsistent? Is there a significant variance in how one person performs a job vs. another person? Do people often re-invent the wheel?


6. Fire-fighting
   Are managers spending too much time fighting fires, dealing with mundane issues, instead of mentoring employees and focusing on innovation?


7. Regulatory Compliance / Liability Risk
   Are there areas of exposure? High risks? Are Board Members signing off on policies they aren’t reading and don’t fully understand?

Anyone of these issues by itself is serious. The financial impact could be costing you tens of thousands of dollars (or could possibly even you out of business).

A “good” P&P system is the most efficient and least costly way to alleviate these problems, so if you still have them, whatever you’re doing (or not doing) isn’t working. Here’s the bottom line.

If people are USING your corporate Policy and Procedure manuals and achieving the expected results with minimal supervision, then you get an A+. If you have operations, quality, and training costs under control and down to a science, then whatever you are doing is working. If you have a systematic and sustainable way to transfer the best practices of your star performers then BRAVO.

That’s the true test of whether P&Ps are GOOD or not. Nothing else really matters.

Through our Operations Mapping approach and Zavanta software, COMPROSE helps our clients design their policy and procedure systems that meet this test. 

Source: https://www.comprose.com/are-your-pps-good-or-bad-heres-the-definitive-test/

How to Implement an Effective Knowledge Management Program?

A successful knowledge management system in an organization helps employees utilize the knowledge to increase productivity, improve work quality, and ensure consistency in deliverables. Many companies are capitalizing on knowledge management software for data mining, document management, community forums, and blogging. However, they don’t consider defining their objectives and the ways to manage their knowledge assets for achieving long-term goals.

To develop an effective knowledge management program, an organization must consider certain essential elements like people, technology, structure, processes, and culture. An organization must determine the ways to boost the efficiency of staff, to create best practices for recognizing, regulating and dispersing accurate knowledge, to select tools for automating knowledge management, to transform business structure for promoting awareness, and to establish a knowledge-based culture.

Here is a step-by-step process of building an effective knowledge management system in your company.

1. Identifying Knowledge Management Needs
   The first step is to identify what type of knowledge you need to document for developing and executing a successful business strategy. You can establish both long-term and short-term program objectives to facilitate the business drivers.


2. Determine the Knowledge Assets
   The management must identify and plan to get maximum returns out of competitors, government agencies, technology, suppliers, processes, products and other knowledge assets of their organization.


3. Analyze the Type of Content
   You may conduct cross-functional research to gather qualitative insights on problems that customers are facing. This will help you decide what type of content needs to be included in the knowledge management program.


4. Define the Process and Structure
   Knowing how knowledge is gathered, categorized, managed, and disseminated will help organizations utilize the full potential of their knowledge management system. A high-end knowledge management process will help in an effective management of your company’s knowledge assets.


5. Implementing a Knowledge Management Program
   The program can be established through knowledge assets and by making situations that need the emergence of a learning organization. Converting a raw information into knowledge can be highly useful to achieve business goals. Moreover, emergent conditions make individuals’ knowledge available for business purpose.


6. Storage, Utilization & Distribution of Knowledge 
   A well-defined knowledge management system includes knowledge repositories to preserve and acquire knowledge, to utilize knowledge for making business decisions, and a collective knowledge access to all the members of the organization.


7. Measuring Knowledge Management System
   How will you check the effectiveness of investment in Knowledge Management Software and the significance of knowledge management program? You need to measure the impact of a program on organizational performance and forge techniques for improving the system. 

5 Ways to Finally Get Your Procedure Manuals Done

We’re amazed at the number of people who really want to develop better standard operating procedures for their organization, who clearly understand the benefits of standardized procedures and who even have management mandates and funded projects to develop or update their policies and procedure manuals. But–despite all that–never manage to actually do anything about it. They have good intentions. They hold meetings. They discuss requirements. Sometimes, they even open up the word processor. But that’s as far as they get. Momentum grinds to a halt. Years can go by with no usable results.

If this sounds familiar, maybe you need some better strategies to get back on track.

Here is a list of 5 Simple Strategies that work to break the logjam and finally get your procedure manuals to project off the drawing board and across the finish line.

1. Start Small
   Don’t try to do everything at once–you’ll get overwhelmed. Instead, pick just one key task or operating process. Develop just that content and then publish it and start getting feedback. You’ll get a quick win. Then go on to the next area, and the next, piece by piece in bite-size chunks.
   
   
2. Divide and Conquer
   Many hands make light work. To cover a lot of ground rapidly, involve a large pool of subject experts to contribute first drafts. Then edit their work. Each person has only a small part to do, but the combined effort gives fast results.
   
   
3. Set Goals
   There’s nothing like a deadline to provoke action. If your CEO demands that the Operations Manual be done by October, you’ll figure out a way to get it done. So, if you’re stalled because there is no external deadline, set one and stick to it.
   
   
4. Learn from the Experts
   Sometimes projects bog down because the task is new and your team lacks experience and confidence. Consulting a third-party expert can often jumpstart your momentum. Consider a staff training or enrolling your team in some educational webinars.
   
   
5. Get the Right Tools
   If your project is stalled, the problem might be that you lack the right system. Traditional word processors and general-purpose software have proven cumbersome, ineffective and costly for creating and updating effective corporate Policy and Procedure manuals. Investigate if there are better tools for your needs. COMPROSE invented Zavanta software to provide a faster, better way to get high-quality results.

Source: https://www.comprose.com/5-ways-to-finally-get-your-procedure-manuals-done/