Brayn Wills is an experienced writer passionate about customer service and relationship building. His expertise encompasses help desk management, customer communication, AI chatbots, knowledge management, lead generation, and more.
Learn about Our Editorial Process Expert Writer Updated: 26 Jul, 2024
Declining employee productivity and increasing turnover rates are two of the major concerns of businesses today.
Creating a training manual is a practical solution that can give you a respite from several workplace-related problems. It helps create a culture of continuous learning by making training resources and business information available for employees right at their fingertips.
This sheer convenience of getting all that they need in a few clicks is a huge help for employees every time they are on client calls, working on a project, or confused about a decision.
The right job training increases efficiency and productivity at work. When this happens, employees turn better at what they do – resulting in quality, on-time deliverables that positively impact your firm’s growth. In this blog, we have provided expert tips, steps, and practical advice to help you create a training manual that engages and inspires your employees. Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
A training manual acts as a one-stop portal where employees can get all the assistance they need to perform tasks and excel in their roles. It is a valuable resource that guides employees at every step of the way, helping them overcome challenges, solve problems and upskill themselves.
With well-structured articles and how-to videos, the manual makes it easy for employees to understand your work processes, culture, and policies. Moreover, discovering information is a piece of cake with the manual’s robust search system that shows relevant responses matching employees’ queries.
Depending on the type of training and the content involved, there are various types of manuals to choose from. Let’s take a closer look at the different types of training manuals that will help you determine the best fit.
An employee handbook is an important document for onboarding new hires. It is a comprehensive document explaining your company’s policies, procedures, products, clients, projects, etc.
It serves as a guidebook for new employees and provides them with crucial information about their rights and responsibilities in the workplace, so they can get up to speed faster.
Project documentation is where your employees will get complete information about critical company projects – key details such as project proposals, project status reports, business cases, project plans, and a lot more. Easy access to project details ensures your teams are on the same page and stay on top of all developments taking place across projects.
Process documentation consists of step-by-step procedures on how to perform tasks or carry out work processes with maximum efficiency and minimum errors. This document gives a detailed step-by-step explanation of your business processes, demonstrating them through relevant images and videos for easier understanding.
Using tools like flowcharts and diagrams, the documentation ensures employees gain complete clarity of how to successfully execute a process or task.
An internal wiki is a collaborative web-based platform where teams come together to share knowledge, ideas, and expertise. It provides an effective way to centralize company knowledge, streamline communication, and facilitate information flow across departments. Employees can access the learning resources anytime they need which improves their productivity and decision-making abilities.
Research indicates that for 92% of employees, well-planned employee training programs positively affect their level of engagement.
Training documentation & manuals not only help employees understand their job duties and responsibilities but also help them acquire new skills and knowledge necessary to keep up with the ever-changing business landscape.
With a training manual in place, you can cultivate a continuous learning culture to help employees stay relevant and be their productive best at work. A carefully-crafted training manual also ensures that employees across departments receive consistent and standardized training.
Training manuals can be a valuable tool for your organization. By investing in comprehensive training manuals, you can rapidly improve job performance, employee engagement, and overall business success.
Let’s look at the benefits you can reap by building training manuals:
Employee training is a sure-shot way to increase workforce productivity. When employees have clear guidelines and instructions for performing their duties, they are better equipped to complete tasks efficiently and accurately.
Training manuals act as reference points that employees can use to hone their skills, brush up their knowledge on a subject, and gain the required expertise in their area of interest.
It is an effective way to make employees feel more supported, reduce errors, boost morale, and increase their confidence. Employees who feel confident about their role are more likely to take on new challenges and work with renewed enthusiasm.
Onboarding is an excellent way to set the right expectations right from the first day of a new employee. However, onboarding can take weeks or even months when executed the traditional way and make employees feel overwhelmed in their initial days.
With full-fledged training manual software, new employees will have a 24×7 learning resource at their disposal. They can self-learn your company mission, vision, and policies and get a peek into your company culture.
With clear instructions manual to follow, new employees feel confident about their new workplace and start contributing positively to their new job.
Every employee today wants to be a part of a company that values their learning and development. Creating a training manual will put your brand in a favorable light by making a positive impact on the career course of employees.
Employees will realize how much your business values their professional growth and will be ready to go above and beyond in the work they do. Investment in the continued learning of employees will eventually turn employees into brand ambassadors and will prove immensely beneficial in the long run.
Training manuals help in reducing training expenses to a large extent. Physical training sessions often burn a hole in a company’s pocket, given that they are organized multiple times a year. Moreover, they are also draining and time-consuming for employees.
Creating a training manual can help employees self-train and learn at their own pace. You just need to make a one-time investment in an appropriate tool and reap the benefits all year long. It’s far cheaper, efficient, and time-saving.
Next, you need to capture feedback from employees, which will help you understand if they are really finding your training manual useful.
Giving employees the option to share feedback on every article makes them feel cared and they will be more than happy to support your endeavor of improving the manual’s quality. Taking feedback also makes them feel valued and an integral part of your organization.
Now, to collect feedback, you can add forms at the bottom of every article. These forms come with a single question, like – “Was this information helpful?”. This question comes with Yes/No as the answer options.
On clicking “No”, a comment box appears where employees can explain the issue.
This feedback mechanism will introduce you to both aspects of your manual you didn’t know existed. You will be able to identify improvement areas and make informed decisions to enhance your manual’s quality.
Here’s a quick video on how you add forms and surveys to your training manual.
Creating a training manual can be a game-changer for your company’s success.
With a training manual in place, you can significantly improve employee productivity and cultivate a knowledge-sharing culture in your workplace.
Moreover, it can save you a tremendous amount of money. You just have to create it once and your employees can use it for as long and as many times as they want.
With dedicated training resources at their disposal, learning is more convenient for employees. Knowledge sharing also gets streamlined and employees get better at decision-making, innovation, and creativity.
The process of creating a training manual can be a bit challenging, and that’s why you need a tool like ProProfs.
Employing ProProfs Knowledge Base can help you launch a stunning manual that’s well-structured, interactive, and mobile-friendly.
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