In this page
Who this is for
About the problem
How Cherryleaf can help
What success looks like
Next steps
How to contact us
Who this is for
Cherryleaf’s policies and procedures writing services are for organisations that need:
- Clear policies and procedures written. They know how to run their business, but they don’t have the time or skills to do it.
- Their existing policies and procedures updated or improved so they are clearer, complete, and more effective.
About the problem
Don’t let your organisation be held back by poorly written policies and procedures.
Policies and procedures should be one the first places managers and staff go to when they have any doubts about what they should do.
The problem is, people often find it hard to write them well. It’s one of those tasks that often doesn’t seem like a priority, when you’ve got so many other things to do.
Poor or missing policies and procedures are some of the main reasons why staff find themselves stuck, wasting time or making mistakes. Sometimes, they have to deal with contradictory information. They can also find it hard to find the right advice quickly.
Your policies and procedures will also come under the spotlight if things go seriously wrong.
What users want from policies and procedures
Staff and managers typically want policies and procedures to provide clear guidance on how to perform tasks or activities within an organisation. Overall, organisations also want them to ensure consistency and compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and best practices.
Specifically, staff and managers often want:
Clarity
Policies and procedures should be easy to understand and follow, with clear language and step-by-step instructions.
New staff want to know:
- What is my role?
- Where do I fit in with the rest of the organisation?
Relevance
People want policies and procedures that are relevant to their job duties and responsibilities, without having to sift through irrelevant or unnecessary information. They want the content to address the specific challenges and issues they may encounter in their work.
Accurate and consistent information
People expect the information to be accurate, and up-to-date. There shouldn’t be any outdated or incorrect information that might confuse them or result in mistakes. They also want policies and procedures that are consistent across different departments or units within an organisation.
Accessibility
Staff want policies and procedures to be easily accessible, with clear channels for requesting clarification or guidance.
Flexibility
People want policies and procedures that allow for some degree of flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances, while still maintaining compliance with relevant regulations and standards.
Effectiveness
Users want policies and procedures that are effective in achieving their intended goals and objectives, such as improving quality, reducing risk, or enhancing efficiency.
They may also want to know:
- Why does this work matter?
- What are the key beliefs and values?
Meeting the needs of the different audiences
Creating a good policies and procedures guide usually involves identifying and meeting the needs of the different audiences. For example:
- A CEO will need a top down view of the organisation
- A manager will need to know which activities they are responsible for
- A staff member will need to know how to do something correctly
How Cherryleaf can help
The ability to communicate is like a super power. Cherryleaf can help you get that super power.
Cherryleaf helps you provide the clear policies and procedures your team needs. Good policies and procedures documentation can give you confidence your staff are doing their jobs well.
You and your team know how to run your business.
What we do is write policies and procedures documentation for you that communicates this clearly.
We can also update and improve your existing content. This can involve making the information clearer and easier to find. It can often involve identifying and fixing any areas that are incomplete. We can work with you to correct any information that’s inaccurate or otherwise out of date.
Three typical Use Cases - the types of organisations we help
Organisations reorganising and merging
You have teams that are doing the same work in different ways. You want to have a consistent, standard way of doing things, and communicate these to staff.
Organisations that need to rely less on word-of-mouth communication
You want move away from relying on important knowledge being held inside a few people’s heads, as your company grows in size.
Companies getting their policies and procedures ready for an IPO/public listing or company sale
You’re planning to get new investment in your organisation, and you need to demonstrate it’s run and managed efficiently and effectively. You need policies and procedures to show this.
The types of content we create or update
HR policies and procedures
- Equality
- Diversity
- Anti-bribery
- Maternity
- Recruitment and staff induction
- Staff handbook
Health and Safety policies and procedures
Supply Chain and procurement
- Roles, responsibilities & authority
- Preparation for procurement
- Selecting the right procurement procedure and contract
- Supplier selection
- Negotiation
- Award of contract
- Management of the procurement
- Close out and learning
Sales and marketing policies and procedures
- Brand marketing
- Customer acquisition
- Sales team training and on-boarding
- Customer credit finance approval
Finance policies and procedures
- Accounting standards
- Fixed assets
- Tax
- Treasury & cash management
- Funding
- Travel & Expenses
- Cash and debt
- Hedging
- Cost control
- Capitalisation
- Projects (including DevEx and CapEx)
- Payroll
- Revenue Recognition
- Inter-Company charges
Operating procedures
- Complaints handling
IT security and data privacy procedures
- Policies that ensure you conform to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- Anti-virus
- email and Social Media
- Information Governance
- Risk register
- Malware prevention and detection policy
- Removable media policy
- Systems updates procedure
- User access permissions policy
- Disaster Recovery plan
- Business Continuity plan
- Monitoring and response policy
- Home and mobile working policy
- Controlled document procedure
- Cyber Security Events and Incidents procedure
What we don't do
We can’t tell you how to run your own business.
We are also not experts in legislation.
For those reasons, we do not sell boilerplate templates for ISO 9000, staff handbooks etc.
We do have a number of policies that we have written in the past, which we may be able to adapt and repurpose for your situation. However, you need to know what you want your policies and procedures to be.
Our skills are in communicating the knowledge of you and your staff.
What success looks like
Rewriting a procedure so it’s clearer
In this video we take an old Brigade Order from a Fire and Rescue Service and go through the process of improving it so it’s easier to understand.
Client case studies
Creating an easy to use Listener Guide for the Samaritans and the Prison Service
Developing procedures for a rapidly expanding company
Case Study: Samaritans procedures clarified and put online
Examples of policies and procedures
On our examples page, you’ll find examples of:
- HR policies (employing new staff policy)
- Controls-based financial procedures (VAT reporting and payment)
- Management processes and staff roles and responsibilities (in a responsive web layout)
- An online employee portal
Next steps
Discover more about how Cherryleaf can help you provide the right content for your audience, simply and efficiently.
How we work with you
You’re unique, and your polices and procedures will be different from anyone else’s. However, there is a proven framework for writing policies and procedures. Here’s a short summary for you.
1. Agree the scope of the work
Although there’s a lot of similarities between projects, each client is unique.
We start by understanding what needs to be done (how much content we’re talking about), the target audience, and other factors that affect the scope of the work. Where possible, we agree the costs upfront – to avoid any nasty surprises for you.
2. Agree a project start date, and the project begins
We’ll start work on looking at any existing content, developing the content structure, and defining a template. This means the final result will be consistent, and the work will be done efficiently.
3. Interview the Subject Matter Experts
A key objective is to convert the knowledge that’s in people’s heads into policies and procedures.
That normally involves talking to the “Subject Matter Experts” and getting a “brain dump” from them in a quick and efficient way.
That can often be done via a short Teams or Zoom call.
During this stage, our writers are checking to see if it’s clear:
- Who should be doing a task
- How a task is carried out
- What happens next (for example, are there any handover issues)
- How the policy or procedure will be checked for compliance
4. Write 1st draft
We write the first draft of the policies and procedures, using plain English principles. Plain English is a way of writing clearly, concisely and unambiguously. It means presenting ideas and information in a way that’s easy for your audience to read and understand.
In addition to the writing, we also continue the work on organising the content. This is so that is in the best structure for people to find information when they need it.
We’ll send that draft out for review.
5. Second draft
We amend the content in response to the feedback we’ve received.
6. It’s ready for delivery
We hand over the final version for you and your team to use.
Sometimes, we produce the content as online pages. In other cases, we produce the policies and procedures as Word or PDF documents.
The result is better, clearer, more findable guidance for you and your team.
Preventing it getting out of date
For some projects, the project will include setting up systems so that information isn’t left to stagnate and get out of date. Depending on your needs, these systems can:
-
- Deliver the content in different formats.
- Establish a “single source of truth”.
- Enable you to re-use chunks of text in different publications, and in different contexts for users:
- Subsets delivered for different outputs.
- Personalised content for different job roles, location etc.
- Create it once, and re-use it multiple times.
- Automate the exchange of content with other systems, so others can use your content in their outputs
What is your policies and procedures KPI score?
Take this two-minute quiz to find out how your polices and procedures score against key KPIs.
On top of that, we’re going to give you our top three tips for policy writing success!
Take the quiz: What is your policies and procedures KPI score?
Contact us
Need help in developing your policies and procedures? We’re based just west of London and in Brighton. Our clients are based mostly around the UK, Europe and the USA (although if you are based elsewhere, we still may be able to help).
Fill in the contact form
Use the form to tell us about your situation, and to ask any questions.
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