Using Documents

Name: Using Documents
Author: Diane Martin

Learn how you can use documentation to defend your organization.

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 4 lessons.

Course: On-Demand

(bright music) How do you use the documentation that you've accumulated or produced? In Using Documents, we'll go over how you can use documents in your company's compliance efforts, how to utilize them in investigations, and how you can use defensible documentation when making decisions. Organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that employees comply with internal policies and procedures. After all, clearly documented policies and procedures are generally designed to ensure a productive, safe, and collaborative workplace. You are recommended to rely on your company's documented operating procedures to let your staff know what workplace standards are satisfactory. When carefully written policies and procedures are known and distributed to employees, an organization can more effectively defend itself against claims of being subjective or bias. Consistently, appropriately and fairly applied policies contribute to an organization's overall credibility and its ability to meet strategic objectives. To aid in the effort of meeting these objectives, you can establish specific performance goals for both your departments and every member of your team. Many organizations formerly conduct an annual performance review between management and staff. Documenting and communicating performance is key to ensuring that employees understand how their work has been observed, evaluated, and compared to workplace policies and procedures. Performance that fails to comply with standard operating procedures, or SOP, can be addressed and documented through this process. Performance reviews can serve not only as the basis of disciplinary action, but also as evidence of the employee's past conduct and their being notified of corrective action. Additionally, through the evaluation process, employees are often given specific, measurable, achievable, and timely goals to accomplish. Showing that the employee failed to meet goals and objectives goes a long way in supporting your company's claim that it was indeed fair in dealing with this person. In the end, if the employee decided to bring in a legal team after receiving negative feedback, the organization's ability to submit its documented policies together with an unbiased performance evaluation form would be both credible and convincing. Documentation can be used to advance the organization's policy objectives in a variety of ways. These objectives can be advanced by distributing information to employees, having training programs, and by conducting internal audits. These can be carried out relatively easily. In many cases, simply posting flyers from regulatory agencies in frequently used areas can work. Or you can request that employees participate in training designed to prevent misconduct. Well-written training programs can be an organization's first defense against claims that problematic behaviors happened in the workplace.

Intermediate Provider : Diane Martin 4 Lessons · 11m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

Organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that employees comply with internal policies and procedures. In these lessons, we’ll explore how documents are used within your organization. We’ll focus on how documents are used in compliance efforts, utilizing them in investigations, and how they factor into company decision-making.

What You'll Learn

Understand the basic purpose of workplace documentation for investigations
Apply a decision-making process based on documentation
Use documentation to maintain compliance within your organization
Recognize how documents support your organization's compliance effort
Examine how documentation factors into company decision-making

Key Takeaways

Organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that employees comply with internal policies and procedures.
Documents are used within an organization to support compliance efforts.
Documentation can be utilized in investigations.
Documents factor into company decision-making, including defensible documentation practices.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course cover?

The course explores how documents are used within your organization, focusing on how documents are used in compliance efforts, how they are utilized in investigations, and how they factor into company decision-making.

What will I learn in this course?

You will learn the basic purpose of workplace documentation for investigations, a decision-making process based on documentation, and how to use documentation to maintain compliance.

What lessons are included?

The course includes lessons on How Documents Are Used in the Organization's Compliance Effort, Documentation and Investigations, Defensible Documentation and Decision-Making, and a Test Your Knowledge section.

Why does this course focus on workplace documentation?

Organizations have a vested interest in ensuring that employees comply with internal policies and procedures, and the course examines how documents support that compliance.