Agencies establish agency standards, procedures and workflow in order to streamline, systematize and make their own operations more productive and effective, but also in support of their brand, which ultimately leads to profitability and achievement of revenue goals.

Agency standards should always stem from the organizational statements of vision, mission, values and purpose. These statements are expressions of who the agency is, why they're in business and how they expect their stakeholders to be treated as a result of the core organizational knowledge. 

If your agency doesn't have these key organizational statements in place, that's where you should start. Once established, then start back here to set anout to define "how you want things done" through your agency standards, procedures and workflows. 

To help you know what each of these three things are, let's define them for you briefly.

Agency Standards are the expected and acceptable level of performance in every core function of the agency's operation because performance builds the agency's brand.

Agency Standard Example:
Every account with combined annual revenues of $XXXX or above will receive an annual review outside XXX days from expiration of the lead or largest policy in the account.

Procedures define how the Agency Standards are to be achieved by defining who is responsible for accomplishing what needs to be done, in what timing and to what standard. 

Annual Review Meeting Preparation Procedure Example:
The account manager is responsible for preparing the documents necessary to complete the annual review, which should include: the account summary, any loss history from the current year, risk management reports, schedules of vehicles/equipment and any other items requested by the producer in order to prepare for the meeting. These items should be received three to five days in advance of the producer's scheduled meeting with the client.

Workflows are the actual steps necessary to complete the functional items included in the procedure. The clicks and drags in your management system, where items are stored, how they are stored, naming conventions, timing...all the things that are minutely specific to completing the procedure. The things that make up your workflows can often come from the HELP file of your agency management system (AMS), usually even location specific to where the workflow tasks occur while working in the AMS. Quite often, these HELP files are text-based and one can simply copy and paste the workflow into your agency documentation or simply always refer your staff to the HELP file for up-to-the-minute guidance on how to complete the workflow. 

Inside your workflows, your organization will still need to establish naming conventions for documents and other file documentation attachments, where specific things are to be filed, when they are to be purge/shredded and other electronic asset management, but many of the “clicks and drags" of how to accomplish the minute detail of your standards and procedures isn't quite as necessary when your AMS has a robust HELP file and all staff know to utilize it as the standard for how to efficiently operate inside it.

The Agency Procedure Development Toolkit is available free of charge, to our members. To access this toolkit select the box below after logging in as a member of Big I Oklahoma.  

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