(Response by Mike Kazis aka DJ Bizman, Dated 11/2/2007)
I think handbooks are great for companies to have. I created one for my DJ company two years ago after completing a business seminar and after reading a book about improving customer service. A handbook standardizes everything that a company believes in, lists all standard operating procedures, and guides their employees toward what the company feels are the best practices to completing any task.
As wonderful as they are to have creating a handbook for your company is not enough to improve your company's quality. What I worry most about my handbook for example, is its effectiveness toward reaching its audience. If the handbook is not taken seriously by it readers - the employees, then the company will fail to improve quality at the employee level and their performance will trickle its way throughout the organization in which the company will be recognized as not doing what they say. Our text mentions
the fact that there are many quality programs business but many have failed. The author believes that they fail not because the programs don't work but because they are not managed properly. The same holds true for a handbook as a quality improvement tool.
I often loosely compare handbooks to advertisements. No one will act on it if no one sees it. Employees will need to be reminded about the handbook for answers to their questions and the answer must be found in the handbook. If the answer is not, then the employee may discredit the handbook and never use it again.
Companies also should not expect employees to read the entire handbook at the beginning of their employment. Handbooks are usually much too big for someone to LIke a dictionary, they must be referred to from time to time for the answer to a question. That's how I feel a handbook lives up to it's effectiveness.
