Administrative manuals as a key tool

Administrative manuals are records of written information that can be used to guide an employee, their use dates from the Second World War, they have a wide variety, existing general and specific for each function or area of the company, they are prepared through four stages and provide advantages in the training of new staff.

Introduction

In an introductory way in this essay you will be able to know about the origins of the administrative manuals, the uses that were assigned to them, the first appearances they had as such, the basic concept of what a manual is and an administrative manual from the point of view of view of a recognized author in that field, as well as the objective of his creation traced in previous years.

You will be able to study the different existing classifications of these manuals, the parts that compose them with a brief description of each of them to better understand them, in the same way, you will be able to analyze the advantages and importance of having an administrative manual in an organization, not Without first knowing the stages that must be followed for its elaboration in a meticulous way, taking it by the hand in understanding the information.

This is done with the purpose that you as a reader can write a document that will support you in personnel management, avoid inefficiency in productivity, redundancy in the activities and functions that your company operates, as well as that your employees have a adequate understanding of the overall plan and their own roles in the organization.

In this essay we intend to analyze in detail what are the advantages of having administrative manuals within a company?

Administrative manuals

“The use of administrative manuals (based on old records) dates back to the years of the Second World War, by virtue of the fact that the front had personnel not trained in war strategies and it was through these that they were instructed to soldiers in the activities they should carry out in combat… ”(Terry, 1993)

A manual is a document that tells you step by step how to carry out an activity, but then, what is an administrative manual? A recognized author in the administration points out that “… they are written records of information and instructions that concern the employee and can be used to guide the efforts of an employee in a company”. (Terry, 1993). In this way, reinforcing what the author mentions, they are instruments that support the functioning of the institution; they concentrate extensive and detailed information about the legal bases, attributions, organic structure, objectives, policies, degree of authority, responsibility, functions and activities and these reflect the company in a general way.

The first attempts at administrative manuals were in the form of circulars, memoranda, internal instructions, etc., by means of which the ways of operating a body were established; These attempts lacked a technical profile, they did not have a pre-established format, they simply indicated the strategies to be carried out in a fight, but they established the basis for them.

These first models that were generated contained a number of technical defects, but without a doubt, they were very useful for the training of new staff.

Over the years, the manuals were adapted to the needs of each company to be more concise, clear, practical and with better arguments that could guide the new worker without falling into redundancies and inefficiencies in their work.

Classification of administrative manuals

There are different types of manuals, firstly there are those that are in accordance with their content such as historical manuals, organization manuals, which are divided into General and Organization-specific, there are also policy manuals and multiple content manuals, but In the same way, there are manuals for their specific function, such is the case of those that are prepared according to the needs of each department, such as purchases, sales, production, finance, among others, in the same way the Manuals of procedures are mentioned, integrated by General and Specific, there are the Personnel Manuals that, like the previous ones, are also grouped in General Personnel and Specific Recruitment and finally there are the Specific Internal Audit Manuals.

The previous one was an overview about how administrative manuals are grouped, and for that we will give a brief reference of what each one is:

The History Manual is intended to provide historical information about the organism: its beginnings, growth, achievements, administration, and current position.

The Organization Manual is a normative document that allows to know the organic structure of the company as a whole or part of it, it also defines specifically the functions of each of the areas that make up the institution. These in turn are broken down into two types:

The General Organization Manual (Reflects the organizational structure from the first level), and The Specific Organization Manual (Includes the functions and responsibilities of a specific area). The sections that this manual should contain are:
1. CoverIndexPresentationBackgroundLegal FrameworkAttributionsOrganic StructureDescription of PositionsDirectorySignatures of authorization

The Policy Manual contains a detailed description of the guidelines to be followed in making decisions to achieve the objectives.

A Procedures Manual is the administrative document made up of a set of interrelated procedures that may correspond to an area or a whole unit. It serves as a guide (of how to do things) for the workforce and is very valuable to guide them in the event of new admission. Its implementation increases the certainty that personnel are using the prescribed systems and procedures when performing their work.

The guidelines that the procedure manuals should contain are:

Manual cover Manual content Manual technical approval documentation and manual registration Update document Manual introduction Manual objective Cover page Procedure index Procedure objective Operation rules Narrative description of the procedure Flow charts Annexes (Filling forms or instructions) Glossary Participants in the preparation of the manual Directory

Procedures manuals can be of the following types:

General manual of procedures that mentions the procedures of all the organic units that make up a social body, in order to generate a uniform line of action. And the Specific Procedures Manual, which consists of elaborating the procedures in the order of importance of a specific area, in order to capitalize on the natural opportunities of sequence of steps at work. The multi-content manual consists of combining two or more categories that are interrelated in administrative practice. In small organisms, a manual of this type can interrelate these concepts, having to be separated into sections. The Production ManualIt encompasses the need to interpret instructions based on everyday problems in order to achieve their best and prompt solution. The Purchasing Manual defines the scope of purchases and the methods to be used that affect your activities. The Personnel Manual covers the General Personnel, which contains a series of considerations to help communicate the activities and policies of the upper management regarding personnel, it mentions aspects such as recruitment and selection of personnel. And the specific Recruitment and Selection Manual refers to a part of a specific area (the staff) and contains all the information regarding recruitment and personal selection in an organization.The Specific Internal Audit Manual groups together the guidelines, instructions for specific application to certain types of activity (internal audit in particular).

Advantages of having administrative manuals within a company

"Many employers feel that it is important to give employees information regarding the history of the company, its current beginnings, growth, achievements, management and current position." (Terry, 1993)

As we discussed above, there is always a type of manual according to the needs of the company, either in a general or specific way, however, it is very important to have them, because they allow us to instruct and provide information regarding the organization to our employees of new income in carrying out their activities, as well as avoiding their inefficiency.

And what advantages does having them provide us as a company? We will mention them below:

They achieve and maintain an organizational plan They ensure that all stakeholders have an adequate understanding of the general plan and their own roles in the company They facilitate the study of organizational problems They systematize the initiation, approval and publication of changes in the organization Determine responsibility for each position and its relationship to others in the organization Avoid jurisdictional and role conflicts Clarify sources of approval and the degree of authority at various levels Information on roles and positions is often helpful as a basis for evaluating positions and as a means of checking each person's progress They are a permanent source of information about the work to be carried out They help to make effective the objectives, policies, procedures, functions,Standards, etc. They ensure continuity and consistency in procedures and standards over time. They are useful tools in staff training. They increase coordination in the performance of work. They enable effective delegation, since there are written instructions, the Supervisor monitoring can be limited to control by exception They establish the guidelines and mechanisms for the correct execution of a given job They serve as a basis for conducting studies of methods and systems, in order to achieve streamlining, simplification, automation or deconcentration of the activities carried out in the dependencies. They assist in administrative audit tasks.They are useful instruments in the training of personnel. They increase coordination in the performance of work. They make possible an effective delegation, since there are written instructions, the supervision of the supervisor can be limited to control by exception. They establish the guidelines and mechanisms for the correct execution of a specific work. They serve as a basis for conducting studies of methods and systems, in order to achieve the streamlining, simplification, automation or deconcentration of the activities carried out in the dependencies. They assist in the audit work administrative.They are useful instruments in the training of personnel. They increase coordination in the performance of work. They make possible an effective delegation, since there are written instructions, the supervision of the supervisor can be limited to control by exception. They establish the guidelines and mechanisms for the correct execution of a specific work. They serve as a basis for conducting studies of methods and systems, in order to achieve the streamlining, simplification, automation or deconcentration of the activities carried out in the dependencies. They assist in the audit work administrative.Supervisor follow-up can be limited to control by exception They establish guidelines and mechanisms for the correct execution of a given job They serve as a basis for conducting studies of methods and systems, in order to achieve streamlining, simplification, automation or deconcentration of the activities carried out in the dependencies. They assist in administrative audit tasks.Supervisor follow-up can be limited to control by exception They establish guidelines and mechanisms for the correct execution of a given job They serve as a basis for conducting studies of methods and systems, in order to achieve streamlining, simplification, automation or deconcentration of the activities carried out in the dependencies. They assist in administrative audit tasks.

How to create an administrative manual

As we mentioned before, having manuals is essential, since they serve us as support and provide support to the organization's structure.

But to elaborate them it is necessary to execute certain stages that will allow us to optimally obtain an administrative manual no matter what it may be, among these stages are the preliminary study that is the first thing to be carried out, since with this we can know in a global way the functions and activities carried out in the area or areas where it is going to act.

Subsequently, the information is collected, which consists of obtaining a description as detailed and exact as possible of how the operations that make up the procedure are carried out and to collect said information, various techniques are used, such as documentary research that is the review of the institution's files, direct observation that is to see in person how activities are carried out in the company, the survey that is a questionnaire applied to employees and finally the interview, which allows us to interact through a series of questions with the senior managers of the organization.

Once this stage is concluded, the information is recorded, where we record the facts applying a criterion of discrimination.

The integration of the information consists of the order and systematization of the data in order to carry out its analysis.

And the last stage, which is properly the analysis of the information that is the study of each of the elements that we integrate in the previous phase, at the end of this, we obtain the diagnosis that reflects the reality of the company, we then proceed to request the publication of the content, to publicize the objectives and functions of the organization in a general way, as well as the benefits that result from developing administrative manuals for a company.

Conclusions

As a last point we can conclude that administrative manuals provide us with positive aspects by having them, a big problem with SMEs today is that they do not focus on creating them, thus allowing the many advantages and benefits that they provide us by having them in an organization.

We realize that these manuals are of great importance, because they are useful instruments in staff training, they ensure continuity and consistency in procedures and standards over time and therefore avoid conflicts between the various positions that exist in the company, since all the responsibilities and objectives to be followed are determined in writing, making the personnel within the organization more efficient.