The litigation group of a law department ought to analyze the process by which it handles litigation hold orders (See my post of Aug. 21, 2005 about not hiring a head of litigation.). Large companies must issue hold orders routinely, so some thought and preparation ahead of time will be rewarded.
Guidelines for hold procedures make sense. One I know about has 7-8 pages with attachments. The attachments describe a litigation support team, give a sample hold order with annotations, provide instructions to law firms of what to do and not to do with documents, guide document custodians, and explain in lay terms the function and importance of a litigation hold order.