Cleaning out drawers, cupboards, sheds, attics and garages can be liberating. Extra time at home often makes us more aware of clutter and disorder, and provides a great opportunity to sort and remove things. This principle also applies in the workplace. Cleaning up your organization's systems and tools can be a useful task, even if it may seem tiring in the moment. Cleaning and auditing go hand in hand and contribute to better order and efficiency.
Correct and relevant
Organizing a management system involves making sure that the information and data are accurate and relevant. This involves various activities:
- Review the requirements the business is facing. Ensure that you have an up-to-date overview of the requirements of the authorities, customers, owners and other stakeholders.
- Redo procedures and instructions so that the content comply with current practices and If there are discrepancies between procedures and practices, either the procedure must be revised, or the practice changed.
- Ensure that your documents are easily accessible to relevant readers; that is, to check that employees have the right roles with access to their documents
- Ensure that employees are registered with the right data and that former employees are archived and no longer have access to the system
Simple content in a double sense
When revising documents, it is at the same time a good opportunity to simplify and improve the content. You should ensure that the content is relevant and easy to understand for the reader. Not too detailed and not too general. For insentience’s, foreign words and generally a lot of text, it makes the content harder to understand.
Content must be easily designed:
- Standardized layout, use fixed templates
- Write short sentences and be straight to the point
- Symbols, images, and flow models describe much more than text
- Short videos are great at telling how something should be done, think about YouTube
The goal of clearing is to simplify and improve
Avoid duplicate content and increased risk
When conducting a thorough review of the management system, it is important to ensure that tasks and activities are clearly described in one place and are not repeated in several documents. This will help to avoid unwanted consequences and ensure an efficient workflow.
Describing the same thing in several places is often something that occurs over time. It may be a measure following a deviation that is resolved by writing a new procedure instead of revising an old one. Or it could be new employees who don't have the full overview and are creating new content. It's a bit like weeds in the garden - the system grows over time.
The advice is therefore to weed out duplicate content. With a good search tool in the software, you can find similar content and can remove redundant documents and text.
Then you avoid the following risks:
- increased probability of something being described incorrectly and the employee making a mistake
- increased likelihood of the employee becoming confused and making mistakes
- more administration, everything must be audited and followed up
Clean up your organization
Removing redundant procedures or their content is just as good as removing old clutter from the garage! We have the systems to get an overview and control at the workplace.
Contact us today for a demonstration of the RamBase Quality Management System
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