Writing Policies and Procedures

2-day course, in person or online

Download a PDF of this course description

Colleen Trolove

Why it matters

Goodbye, policies that nobody reads!

Gone are the days of policies, processes, and procedures that are costly to write and dusty to store. If you want to write policies to tick a box and sit on a shelf, find another course!

The focus here is to write policies that both work for your organisation AND are used by the people who need them.

Hello, reader friendly, usable policies

The product of this course will be policies and procedures that are short, sharp, and easy to follow.

What we’ll cover

We’ll cover all the good foundational skills of clear, modern business writing. Then we’ll focus on the requirements of policy, process, and procedure writing at a specialist level.

You’ll bring your own documents to work on and apply the skills straight away.

What the training covers

Day 1

Reader-centric tools

  • Focus on the reader for success

  • Putting yourself in the readers’ shoes

  • What all readers want to know

  • Bottom line up front

Plain language

  • What is plain language?

  • Who uses it?

  • Why use it? (the benefits)

The difference between policy, procedure, and process

  • Understanding the pieces of the puzzle

  • What good policy and procedure writing is really about

How policies can save you all kinds of trouble

  • The problem with unwritten rules

  • The problem with out-of-date policies

  • The problem with badly-written policies or old-fashioned policy language

Day 2

Process of policy development

  • Identify need

  • Get the right people involved (but not too many!)

  • Dump, chunk, draft

  • The review process

  • Policy approval and publication

Structure of policies and procedures

  • The importance of standardisation

  • Ideal structure

Language and voice of policies and procedures

  • Writing engaging policies and procedures

  • Simplifying the complex

Legality, obligations, and pitfalls

  • When to use a disclaimer

  • Avoiding absolutes, weasel words, conditional phrases, and other risky bits

  • Using unambiguous, unbiased, and non-emotive language

The specifics

Who’s it for?

Up to 14 people who write policies, processes, or procedures at work

How long?

2 full days at your venue

How much?

All trainings are $8,000 + gst per day plus travel

What format?

In person or online, but not a mix of both

Before the training

You can give me document samples to use in the training (optional)

To bring on the day

  • Laptops

  • Your own documents to work on

Colleen Trolove

Download the full course outlines

Plus the ROI information you need to make a strong business case for this training

Course descriptions

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