A business or company operating manual contains all the policies, procedures and work instructions that make up the way a business carries out all the functions in the business. Ideally an operating manual will contain all the information required for new and existing employees to access for training, reviewing and up-skilling.
Creating a manual requires a dedicated effort from the senior management and ownership of the business right through to all the employees of the business. The manual itself will ultimately contain all the intellectual knowledge of all the people in the business.
To successfully complete the manual requires firstly decisions to be made about structure of the end product before a method of creation is chosen. The users of the manual in the end are present and future employees of the business. If the manual is created in such a way that the users are unable to find information or the structure is confusing then the intention of the manual may be lost.
Alternatively a business may look to hire a business analyst or technical writer to assist with creating their manual.
Famous quotes containing the words business and, business, company, operating and/or manual:
“The point is that nationalism, even in its latest madhouse frenzies under Mussolini and Hitler, is still, like advertising, an arm of big business. Nations as we know them today, were the invention of business and it is natural that business should still consider itself slightly above patriotism and that the strongest international should still be the international of profits.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The most sensible people to be met with in society are men of business and of the world, who argue from what they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what things ought to be.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. James’s] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“... the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)