This week, I have continued making edits to the Zora’s House employee manual, and turning towards starting to restructure their operations manual. As my supervisor mentioned in one of our meetings, the editing process for these manuals is a lot more complicated than it appears at first glance. A large bump in the editing process has been figuring out who the intended audience is for the handbook and the manual. At first, the answer seems simple: the employee manual is for employees, and the operations manual is for anyone who needs information on how Zora’s House works. 

However, for a very small organization that will rapidly expand in the near future, the intended audience has shifted. Before, the employee manual might’ve been just for the fellowship positions at Zora’s House. Now, with the acquisition of a new, much larger space that is in the works, the number of employees will increase substantially, and can include a variety of new positions that might push Zora’s House to change some of its employee policies. Also, the operations manual for the Zora’s House space might be used by a variety of people, including the organization’s volunteers and members. However, the knowledge Zora’s House volunteers need to know or have access to about the space is a lot more detailed and includes more sensitive information compared to members and nonmembers using the space. So, who should the operations manual serve?

These questions of audience need to be resolved so that we know how to best structure these documents and know what language we should use to best convey the culture and values of the organization. However, something that has been very useful throughout this process has been seeing how other organizations structure their employee handbooks and operations manuals. Here, I see how important it is to be able to learn from others, and also be that tool for other organizations. This has reminded me of the conversations in our last learning session, and how difficult it is to find good and effective collaborative efforts. The sharing of knowledge between organizations is a crucial form of collaboration that might be overlooked sometimes, and it is a way of working together that should be better valued. It can help make organizations with similar missions and values more effective in their approaches.