Scope of Noting by the Management
Every department has a scope of noting beyond which they will not be authorized to take a decision. Based on that, the following instructions shall be observed by the departments in noting upon the cases −
All notes should be clearly understood by everyone and be drafted in a simple language; they should be concise and to the point.
All notes should be written with an objective point of view and should have justifiable reasons behind them, compared to having just personal opinions. All observations, criticisms and feedback from other departments need to be taken sportingly with courteous behavior.
The manager who is responsible for the dealing of the case is supposed to go through all the 'paper under consideration' and the previous notes, so that the necessary reproduction and verbatim reports can be generated as per necessary situations.
A precis (summary or abstract) of a single paper is often made when the original paper is of either great length and complexity, which makes it virtually unwieldable and a comfortable reference. As such a precis can cause the errors of quoting examples out of context, such precis is not prepared without the instructions from a manager.
If the inclusion of any information in the note is likely to obscure the main point at issue or make the note unnecessarily lengthy, a separate statement or appendix giving the information should be placed on the file.
When there are, in a single case, several points or orders which can more conveniently be dealt with separately than in a continuous note, each point should be separately noted upon in Department Notes. The Department Manager and/or higher managers will record their orders on each 'Department Note' separately and these notes will thereafter be amalgamated to form the notes on the file for purposes of issue of orders, etc.
The sequence of noting generally follows the same sequence as that of the serial number in the correspondence, and in case there has been any interruption in the continuity of the notes, the papers should be amalgamated with the main file at the earliest opportunity.
No note should be written on the receipt unless it is a routine matter. If any Manager has made any remarks on the P.U.C., these remarks must be first made in the notes and the department can use these as instructions.
Sufficient space must be provided for signatures and observations of higher managers. Notes to be submitted to the Department Manager or higher managers should be placed at the bottom of the page. A fresh blank sheet should always be added to the notes in case there is too much content to be corrected.
Whenever notices or requests are received from the Department managers or others on small pieces of paper, they will not be passed on as they are. This is done because of the likelihood of them being lost in transit. The first receiving Department will paste or clip the slip of paper, thus received, to a foolscap size white sheet before passing it on in a file cover to manager or department concerned for disposal.
The concerned department will raise the request and then take out a notice. After that they will dispatch the message and wait for the receipt. The practice of writing long notes in the sidesection needs to be reduced as much as possible.
The 80/20 Rule
An office without a properly filed and processed list of procedures is a den of chaos. Borrowing from the 80/20 Rule that states that 80% of our success comes from only 20% of our actions. In simple words, it is important to focus more on the 20% which demands the actions to de-bone for the 80% success.
That is why it is very important to plan, prioritize and start working on the 20%. In one of the most important corporate decisions ever taken, BIM Manufacturing had stopped all important communications from being oral in nature, and even at the steep cost of having to document every single word spoken in paper, they did it so that their future officers can benefit from the wealth of discussion. Today every other company is following their footsteps.
Most often, a wrongly-designed document can spread massive miscommunication and discrepancies between the working departments in an organization. Hope this tutorial, designed for those young working professionals who have started working in an extensively documentation-related department such as Administration, Accounts, Human Resources, etc., learn how to file important documents that carry sensitive details.
