Does your department have an administrative procedures manual? Do you find that your staff are not being consistent with their memos, e-mails, the way they answer the phone, etc.?

I worked in quite a few firms, small and large, but my current one is the largest organization that I worked in - well, currently working in. As I worked in smaller firms, I didn't have to create an administrative procedures manual, as I was the only one that held this particular role. But once I moved to my current job, things changed quite a bit.


What happens if you are on vacation, sick or away from the office for any other reason? Someone needs to take over your responsibilities during that time. Also, if people are writing e-mails, memos, etc. all over the place, there is no consistency and makes everyone look bad, especially the company.

One of my readers asks:

The organization I work for has no administrative procedure manual. Every assistant uses his/her own format for memorandums, letters, personal letters, etc. There is no continuity and in my opinion, makes our town look unprofessional from the outside. I really don't want to re-create the wheel here. We have downsized and I'm doing the work of 3 people already. I want to implement a manual so that it might make things easier and more consistent for all of the assistants in the town. Any ideas?

My response to this is:

Wow, you are doing the work of 3 people? You have to share your secrets with us, if you are not feeling stressed, which I hope you are not. Ok, I had to squeeze that in. Sorry.

As for the real answer, try to create a template of e-mails, memos, letters, etc. that everyone can follow. Make sure that you specify colours, font type and size, margins, line spacing, etc. This way, everyone will have to follow the exact same details as are set out.

Another option is to create templates in Microsoft Office and either e-mail them to everyone or place them on a network drive for everyone to access. This way, everyone will be using the exact same documents, spreadsheet, etc. Just make sure to protect the documents, spreadsheets, etc. so that they don't get changed.



When you try to save a document as a template, make sure that you click on the drop down arrow in the Microsoft Office software that you are using and select template, when using the "Save-As" command.

Can anyone else think of any other ideas that you could add to this?

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Until next time,

Take care - of your clutter!


Post from: Administrative Assistant Tips