Creating an Online Policy and Procedure Manual
By: Cheryl Johnson,
NELA Live,
Post Archive,
RSS FeedPosted: Wednesday, November 19th, 2008, 6:55 am MST
Category: Casual Friday,Disintermediation,Flourishing,Real Estate
A question for other small independent brokerage owners and managers:
I have almost completed the online version policy and procedure manual for my smallish, independent brokerage office. It’s been a lot of work. Who knew? I ended up using a WordPress platform, since I didn’t have the energy to learn all the ins and outs of designing around the wiki format.
Here’s the question: Can the online version completely replace a printed version? Do you add a paragraph to your agent’s contracts stating they have read the online manual (yeah, right) and they agree to comply with the policies and procedures?
Creating a printed version kinda defeats the purpose, though I suppose I could install one of those “Turn-Your-Blog-into-a-Book” plugins.
Thoughts, suggestions, anyone?
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4 Comments so far
Talk to your DRE. If agents can indicate consent on a web-based form, then building one in PHP is a can of corn. Actually, you could just use Grunion.
>>>>If agents can indicate consent on a web-based form
Darn, that’s a good idea! It hadn’t even occurred to me.
The form idea is a good one. Another way would be to do a post with the statement that it is there to indicate that commenting agents have read and understand the manual on the date of their comment. Then have them go in and comment with “I have read the manual, and agree to abide by it.” or something similar.
When you make modifications in the future, have those pages/posts sent out to all agents to comment the same.
“Creating a printed version kinda defeats the purpose”
Not really, one major purpose of a P&P manual is to protect the broker from a rogue agent or a colossal error. I would not like to litigate the binding nature of an online manual, in addition to whatever the tort might be. I would discuss with my E&O carrier, as they will be defending you. E&O counsel should assist you in building the most robust of defenses.