POLICIES
Policies are “The Rules” that govern the operation of your company and those who work for it. Policies are generally developed during the early days of the company, but they typically evolve as the business grows and changes. Policies are foundational legal documents of your company’s business operations on which all other guidelines are built. They also reflect your company’s philosophy and expectation for employees.
PROCEDURES
Procedures – or SOPs – explain how to fulfill a company’s policies in more detail. Procedures often dictate “what” must be done and “who” is responsible. If it was company policy that all employees must receive 24 hours of safety training, the SOP would provide detail about how those hours are to be scheduled and what competencies are expected of employees following completion of the training. If you want to improve performance, include specific criteria or standards that help set clear expectations for completing the SOP tasks and measuring the results. Procedures remain flexible to accommodate improvements in systems over time and therefore, are less explicit than Work Instructions and/or Job Aids.
WORK INSTRUCTIONS
Work instructions tell you “how.” These step-by-step instructions (or task analyses) tend to be department- or job-specific and explain how to execute SOPs to accomplish specific tasks. When developing work instructions and setting expectations for those doing the work, it is essential to define the output to be achieved (not just the behaviors) and related criteria so a company knows if it was done “well.” If the company policy is to ensure timely access to treatment for potential clients, the “Work Instructions” would list all steps of the intake process beginning with the initial phone from the referring entity seeking services, documenting all necessary referral information, timeline for response by the company, through the initial meeting, signing of relevant consent forms, and beginning the initial assessment. Work instructions typically exist to some extent within a company, but most businesses could stand to have more thorough and better written work instructions that are easier to follow.
JOB AIDS
A job aid is a specific piece of material intended to help someone execute a task more effectively. While a work instruction could be categorized as a job aid in some situations, job aids encompass more than just directions. Examples include checklists, screenshots of electronic files, flyers, and any other supplemental material that assists in successfully accomplishing a task. Given the breadth of materials that constitute a job aid, most businesses have these in place, but in some cases the company needs to have more technical job aids in place for complex tasks.
What Does It All Mean to You?
The most important thing to know about these various directional assets is that your company needs them but may not have them. Standard operating procedures often go unwritten or poorly executed because no one has time to set up or update them. Work instructions are often drafted when someone is asked to “document what you do,” but the results are inconsistent or incomplete. Everyone recognizes the business needs guidelines, but no one knows quite how to create them effectively.
These varied directional materials are worth investing in, however. Putting the right policies, procedures, work instructions and job aids in place can yield performance improvement in the form of:
- Increased efficiencies
- Consistent product/service quality
- Reduced downtime
- Reduced errors
- Reduced employee turnover
- Reduced time to competency for newly hired employees
- Referenceable data for continuous improvement efforts
Partners Behavioral Health offers a growing library of quality resources by a team of skilled industry leaders https://partnersaba.com/our-team.
Policies and procedures:
Caregiver/client policies and procedures for ABA companies: https://partnersaba.com/product-and-service-packages/caregiver-handbook-with-service-agreement-and-intake-and-consent-packets-will-be-priced-at-299-and-available-for-download-in-april
Employee/operations policies and procedures for ABA companies: https://partnersaba.com/product-and-service-packages/policy-and-procedure-manual-operations-and-employee-will-be-priced-at-299-and-available-for-download-in-april
Job aids:
Performance management system job aids: https://partnersaba.com/product-and-service-packages/clinical-performance-management-system
Incentive system job aids: https://partnersaba.com/product-and-service-packages/incentive-spreadsheet-for-performance-management-and-incentive-system-for-behavior-analysts-and-behavior-therapists
Click here for all available products and services: https://partnersaba.com/product-and-service-packages
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Eileen M Mendes
Chief Knowledge Officer
Partners Behavioral Health
Partners Behavioral Health can help with your clinical and business standards, compliance, and outcomes. We can help you scale an ethical ABA practice you’re proud about.
