Guidelines, procedures and codes of practice at work
Guidelines, procedures and codes of practice that relate to your work are very important as each of them gives you critical information on how to perform your job effectively and safely. In addition, if you fail to follow the guidelines, procedures and codes of practice that are relevant for your job, you could potentially hurt yourself, others or even cause problems for your company by falling foul of legislation.
Guidelines
Guidelines are generally informal and can be for such things as answering the phone, working the fax machine (see Figure 1.1), sending an email request to a supplier, or writing a report.
Businesses provide guidelines to their staff for many areas of their work in order to help them carry out their tasks in the best and safest way and to avoid errors.
Providing guidelines is a good way to make sure activities are carried out effectively and consistently by everyone in the team, department and the company.
Customers are often given a better impression of a business if its employees follow guidelines as they will know the level of service they can expect from the business. This is particularly important when working in reception, for example.

Procedures
Procedures are slightly more formal than guidelines and cover such issues as: fire drills (see Figure 1.2) customer complaints reporting of accidents at work, and reporting employee absence from work.
Procedures usually consist