General Office Practices & Procedures

Whether you’re a one-person team or a full-fledged company, having office procedures and
guidelines is a great way to establish some ground rules for your business. This not only helps you
with day-to-day tasks, but it can also aid your new hires when they get started and your established
employees when they need to check on administrative matters.

Establishing Guidelines and Making Them Accessible

Creating a manual for the 21st century office is a great place to start. The office manual should
include processes and procedures for important aspects of your business and should mention any
notable points from federal, state and local employment laws. Include information on leave policies,
non-discriminatory policies and workers' compensation.

This is also where you can include your company mission, vision and core values. These help
everyone in the business stay on track and work toward the same goal. It can include guidelines for
employee behavior, dress code, smoking, office hours, pay, promotions and benefits. Make your
handbook accessible to every employee by offering it both online and in print. Give a copy all
employees and ask them to sign a confirmation letter saying that they have read the guidelines and
understand them.

Taking Note of Technology in the 21st Century Office

In a 21st century office, it’s important to integrate technology into your guidelines. Regardless of the
industry in which you work, technology plays an important role in office procedures. Many things are
done on computers and smartphones. Decide if your company allows the use of office technology
for personal reasons and what your security measures are. Are employees allowed to use their
phones while they work? By establishing such rules, you’ll be able to clear up any disagreements
before they happen.

Creating Guidelines for Each Role or Department

Depending on your business, you may choose to establish procedures for each department or each
role in the company. For example, if you have a manufacturing department, their procedures will
undoubtedly be different from your sales department and your marketing department. By writing
down day-to-day procedures for each area of your business, you’ll help onboard new employees
more quickly and will be able to guide seasoned staff when they forget how to do a certain task.
Having a place of reference also helps you keep track of everything in your business. Some offices
that have multiple tiers of staff may choose to include an organizational chart so everyone is aware
of what their role is within the bigger picture of the company.

Keeping the Lines of Communication Open

Your guidelines can be updated whenever a new important element needs to be included. They do
not need to be set in stone. Ensure you’re communicating with your staff on a regular basis when
you add anything to the office procedures or your office manual. In addition, all of your office
practices should be easily accessible. Make sure your staff knows where they can turn for help if they
have a question regarding vacation time, cell phone use, workers' compensation or any other
modern office practice.
The Only Office Procedures Manual Template You’ll Ever Need

If you have office procedures you need to document, then you could probably use an office
procedures manual template. Templates make your life easier, giving you a solid starting point and
helping ensure that you don’t leave out any crucial information.

Why would you need to document office procedures in the first place? In other words, why do you
need to create an office procedures manual?

Excellent question. Common sense suggests procedure manuals are a good idea in general, but there
are also several specific benefits of creating an office procedures manual:

 If you go on vacation, then anyone can use the manual to get your crucial tasks done. The
manual helps your stand-ins do what needs to be done, and it also brings you peace of mind
because you’ll know your work is covered, and also covered correctly; you wrote the
manual, after all!

 If you need to onboard a new employee, then you can provide the new recruit with copies of
the manual. You’ll be able to easily explain all the processes and procedures as the new
employee follows along, since everything will be clearly outlined in the manual.

 If you need to explain your duties and processes to management, then you’ll have a well-
documented account of all your key processes and tasks right at your savvy fingertips.

 If you ever leave your current job, then you won’t have to scramble to record all your
processes before you leave. It will also benefit your replacement, and the company as a
whole, to have a reference manual that wasn’t put together in a rush.

The templates and tips below help Office Managers and Executive Assistants document and share
their tried and true work processes.

Office Procedures Manual Best Practices

Here’s everything you need to create an effective office procedures manual template.

1. Start your manual with an outline. According to Patricia Robb, author of Laughing All the
Way to Work: A Survival Blog for Today’s Administrative Assistant, “You should arrange your
duties in a logical format in a table of contents to map out how you want to place each item.
Once you have the table of contents completed, you can go back and fill in the details.”

2. Use your job description and any documentation from recent reviews to pull out your core
responsibilities. Your manual should cover, in step-by-step fashion, how to do each of these
core responsibilities.

3. Separate any policies you need to document from any procedures you need to document.
According to Compliance Bridge, “a policy defines a set of rules like workplace conduct,
whereas a procedure defines the steps you should take to onboard a new employee.” When
you want someone to know why you do something, create and record a policy. When you
want someone to know how to do something, create and record a procedure.
4. Write the manual in clear and concise language. A cryptic procedure manual is virtually
useless. Here’s a new office proverb for you: A procedure manual no one can understand
will do no one any good.

5. Include headings and bullet points. In addition to writing the procedures in clear language,
call out important topics and takeaways using bold headings, bullet points, tables, and other
visual elements that break up blocks of text. This helps anyone skim the manual and skip to
the relevant sections.

6. Include contact information for the person who owns the process, likely yourself. This helps
anyone using the manual know who to contact if they have questions.

7. Validate the manual. Let someone who has no idea what you do read the manual. After your
associate has read the manual, ask him to run you through a play-by-play of what he would
do in any given day. If he fumbles, then it’s likely a fault in the manual writing or structure.

8. Make the manual a searchable PDF. This allows people to search with far more
sophistication than they can achieve using just their eyeballs to skim your bullets and
headings, regardless of how well-organized they are.

9. Include the date the manual was created as well as the date it was last updated. This will
help users verify they’re getting current information.

10. Provide flexibility and options for each procedure. According to one policy writing guide,
“When feasible, procedures should offer the user options. Procedures which are
unnecessarily restrictive may limit their usefulness.” In some cases, the people using the
manual will simply be “filling in” and may not be staunchly dedicated to following the rules
to a T. If they come across something they really don’t feel like doing, then they might just
not do it.

11. Avoid including information that might become outdated soon. For example, if a procedure
involves collaborating with someone at the company, then you could simply use the title of
the position instead of the name of the person. When people leave the company, the
manual will remain useful.

12. Include context when necessary. Define any terms that might seem like jargon specific to
your position, or clarify any procedures that might require some context to understand. For
example, you might refer to the company annual report as “The Annual.” Be sure to refer to
it as the “company annual report” if you mention it in any procedures. If someone is
reviewing a procedure, they may underestimate the importance of the “annual” and take
shortcuts if they don’t know exactly what it is.

13. Create an update plan and calendar. An office procedures manual is not a static document
and it will need some revitalizing every so often. You’ll need to care for it to keep it in
working order.

14. Include organizational charts of departments and positions within your company to make
sure manual readers can connect the dots.

15. Organize procedures and tasks according to frequency. Make it clear if a procedure is a one-
off or a recurring daily, weekly, monthly, or annual task.
 16. Include how much time each procedure will likely take. This will manage users’ expectations
and help them effectively allocate their time.

17. Patricia Robb also recommends including checklists to help manual users be sure they’re
covering all the critical procedures.

Office Procedures Manual Templates

Use this template as many times as you need to cover all your essential duties.

Include the information below to outline procedures for one task in your procedure manual.

 The task:

 Required time:

 Departments involved:

 Positions involved:

 Why we do it:

 When we do it:

o Daily:

o Weekly:

o Monthly:

o Annually:

 How we do it:

o Step 1:

o Step 2:

o Step 3:

o Step 4:

o Step 5:

 Key deliverable/mark of completion:

Office Procedures Manual Examples

Your office procedures manual will likely be made of a series of tasks, some related and others
completely separate. Obviously, group related tasks together. Include lines or flow charts to indicate
connection between the tasks.

Example 1:

 The task: Take inventory of the office snack station

 Required time: About 15 minutes

 Departments involved: N/A; everyone enjoys the snacks, but the Office Manager is the sole
person responsible for ordering snacks and taking inventory
  Positions involved: N/A; this is a solo gig

 Why we do it: To be sure our snack quantities reflect actual preferences and consumption
across the office.

 When we do it:

o Daily: Twice, the first thing in the morning and the last thing in the evening.

 How we do it:

o Step 1: Count the snacks.

o Step 2: Record the overall quantities.

o Step 3: Record quantities of each specific snack.  

o Step 4: During your end-of-day visit, restock the snacks accordingly.

o Step 5: Place any orders as necessary.

 Key deliverable/mark of completion: A re-stocked snack station.

Example 2:

 The task: Create itinerary for executive leadership committee meeting

 Required time: 30 minutes

 Departments involved: N/A; leaders from every department are involved in the committee,
but itinerary creation involves only the Administrative team.

 Positions involved: Executive Assistants for each major department head will need to add
itinerary items and also review and sign off on the final itinerary.  

 Why we do it: An itinerary is central to the success of each executive leadership committee
meeting. Leaders take the itinerary seriously and use it to plan talking points, presentations,
and more.

 When we do it:

o Daily: While the meeting happens only once a week, the itinerary planning process
spans several days and starts long before the day prior to the meeting. Do a few
items each day to keep the process of creating itineraries as quick and easy as
possible.

 How we do it:

o Step 1: Email other department Executive Assistants to get their itinerary points.

o Step 2: Create a first draft of the itinerary using input from other EAs.

o Step 3: Send draft itinerary to other EAs for review and approval.

o Step 4: Integrate feedback and polish final itinerary.

o Step 5: Send itinerary to all meeting attendees.

Example 3:

 The task: Create an executive’s business travel itinerary.

 Required time: 1-2 hours

 Departments involved: N/A

 Positions involved: N/A

 Why we do it: Itineraries are central to the success of an executive’s business travel plans.

 When we do it:

o As needed: You’ll know it’s necessary to create a travel itinerary when the executive
has a trip coming up.

 How we do it:

o Step 1: Request travel details and confirmations if necessary.

o Step 2: Fill out the standard travel itinerary template for the specific type of travel.

o Step 3: Send the itinerary to the executive.

 Key deliverable/mark of completion: The executive has a travel itinerary at least one week
prior to departure date.

References

https://snacknation.com/blog/office-procedures-manual-template/

https://bizfluent.com/about-5152584-definition-procedures-manual.html