Short notes on the Preparation of Office Manual

The task of preparing the office manual is generally entrusted to a committee consisting of departmental heads. If the organisation plans to have a manual of a particular department, say. Sales Department, then the Sales manager will be a member of the committee.

And he who takes initiative of supervising the preparation as well as revision of the manual. Revision of office manuals is as important as the preparation of the manuals. The committee will prepare the manual by following the steps :

1. An outline of subjects to be covered should be prepared. It will include history of the organisation, its products, objectives, office rules affecting office hours, holidays etc. Suggestions, ideas etc. as to the subjects to be collected in the manual should be invited from departmental heads, supervisors and employees etc. of the enterprise.

2. The number and types of manual to be prepared and their contents will be determined. This will help in determining procedures being used in different departments to be standardized.

3. The committee will consult the important executives and employees from each department regarding the flow of work and the job analysis of each position. It will assemble the information and compile it for proper use in preparing the manual.

4. The committee will study the data to determine the overlapping of jobs and duplication of functions. The information and data included should be accurate and complete. The language should be simple. As far as possible short sentences and words should be used.

5. Lastly, the draft manual will be prepared and edited. It may be either in bound or loose leaf form depending upon the use to be made of the manual.

A limited number of copies of the draft manual should be prepared for key executives, supervisors, employees, union representatives. Criticisms and suggestions should be received from them and in the light of which the manual should be given final shape by the committee and send it to the top management for approval.

The work of revising the manuals becomes easier and less expensive if the manuals are prepared in the form of loose-leaf books, rather than bound books. If it is in loose-leaf form the pages requiring revision can be extracted from the book and substituted easily.