Tidy up your internal knowledge with these tips.
Now that spring is officially here, you may have the itch to do some workplace spring cleaning. But you shouldn’t just focus on your office or desk; doing a little virtual cleaning can really help boost your productivity, too!
By taking a look at some older (and potentially outdated) documents like your corporate standards or best practices, you can refresh and modernize them to streamline your workflow.
If taking a look at some documents and giving them a refresh seems daunting, don’t worry! We created a few easy tips, tricks, and ideas for you to follow to ensure your standards are in tip-top shape.
Check out these six suggestions on how to clean up your company’s corporate standards and best practice guidelines:
- Review the current documents
- Assess for any new legal requirements
- Audit for any new additions not documented
- Ask for input
- Review changes with your team
- Display or share in an easily accessible location
Let’s jump into updating your corporate standards!
Review the current documents
While it may seem obvious, starting with a current copy of your corporate standards and really going over them closely is the best way to start. Your documents may be simple, one-page items, or you may be facing folders full of crucial information. Either way, auditing them carefully and making notes is an excellent start to editing and updating your resources.
It’s also a good idea to understand why a corporate document or file of best practices is essential. Check out this blog on why corporate standards are a necessity! Once you’ve gone over what is currently there, take some notes on changes or improvements that you’d like right off the bat.
Assess for any new legal requirements
Oftentimes, especially in the AEC and manufacturing spaces, there are new legal requirements around building design, personally identifiable information, design standards, and more that you’ll need to adhere to. Making sure that your organization’s best practices and internal documents reflect the latest legal requirements or industry standards is crucial.
Audit for any new additions not documented
Perhaps you received an email or newsletter notification detailing a new process or standard to be implemented, but this wasn’t fully updated within your company standards documents. Take this time to gather any outstanding resources, communications, or other collateral detailing new policies that haven’t made their way into the final standards pages.
Organizing all of these items into one “single source of truth” will help reduce the time spent trying to find various different resources in different areas and will help minimize rework if a standard is missed.
Ask for input
Working with your team to create any verbiage around missing items (or discovering what items they need clarification on) is a great way to find sticky or unclear points within your current standards document. You can also gather their feedback on additional resources, standards, or best practice items they’d like to see included in the main document.
By working with your team, you can help clear up your internal standards to best suit their needs. Keeping them streamlined and useful will ensure your team returns to the single source of truth time and time again, increasing adoption and maintaining corporate standards throughout various projects.
Review changes with your team
Along those same lines, when you’re refreshing your corporate documents, review the changes with your team to make sure they’re still in alignment and clear to the users. The last thing you want is for a new version to be published that only leads to more questions! Take the time now to review with your employees — this also serves as a good refresher course on some of the standards they should be following at all times.
Display or share in an easily accessible location
Now that you’ve created this awesome new corporate standard packet, are you going to just send it off into the void? Think again! Make sure that everyone receives a copy of the latest version, and emphasize the importance of following the corporate guidelines.
In addition, saving your corporate standards in a place that everyone has access to at all times is vital; uploading your documents to a shared place, like our Pinnacle Series e-learning solution, is a great way to ensure your whole team (and entire organization) has access to the most up-to-date version of your corporate standards and best practices information.
If you’re a current Pinnacle Series subscriber, log in now and check out our tips on how to become a custom content pro!
If you’re not a Pinnacle Series subscriber yet and you’re looking for a great way to share documents, customize content, create personalized training plans, and more, reach out to our team today for a demo or no-cost pilot!
