If you had to place a set of values on your business, what would they be? A management policy is just that, a set values, values that you consider important for your business to operate effectively and morally, values that will make the interaction with your staff, customers and suppliers a positive experience.
The management policy is a tool used to inform your management team (and remind yourself) about how they should, in general terms, carry out their day to day activities, make decisions, and interact with staff, suppliers and customers. It informs them about what is important to you, the business owner and what is expected of them.
It is also an important tool for you, particularly through the business planning and operation manual development process. It provides a fixed point of reference to ensure that your business plan and operation manual fits in with the values you have already determined. It’s a set of guidelines of which everything else will follow.
The management policy can also be a part of the operations manual and in fact it is one of the most important parts of it, explaining in broad terms what we want to achieve in an operational sense (i.e. the way we carry out our business). The implementation of the policy will be discussed in later chapters but for now we need to look at its development.
Here are some examples of what a management policy may include.
- To be committed to quality in everything that we do
- To value our people as they are the essence of our organization
- To be fully aware of our customer’s needs and expectations as our business relies upon them
- To strive for excellence in leadership as it promotes unity of purpose and direction.
- To maintain positive relationships with our suppliers as we rely on them as much as they rely on us.
- To make decisions based on factual information
- To take a systems dependant approach to management to maintain our confidence in knowing what is being done.
- To continually improve our personal and business performance because we can be sure our competitors will.
Think about what is important to you. What qualities of your business will make it special? What will make people feel good about interacting with your business?
The best way to start is simply brain storming some ideas, getting them on paper. Keep going until you can’t think of any more.
Read and re-read what you’ve written, then expand on the ideas that you find appealing. Apply your ideas to specific circumstances, do they hold up? This is a very personal thing and eventually you will come up with a set of ideas that you feel comfortable with. Then you’ll have a management policy.
It doesn’t really matter how long or short the management policy is as long as it is clearly communicated and is an accurate representation of what is important to you and your business.
