5 Steps to Developing a Dynamic, Effective Employee Training Manual

Training employees has become more important than ever before. As more Baby Boomers either retire or cut back on their hours, employers hire more workers to take their place. However, it’s difficult to find experienced new hires. That means they need training, and training a new employee correctly and quickly is key in getting them to stay with your company.

With all this in mind, what’s a business to do? The short answer is: your company needs a great training manual. This set of instructions should be developed to optimize performance in positions, processes, and tasks. Training manuals should be developed to cover every position, including in-person and remote workers. They are especially helpful during onboarding, rollout of new technology systems, and training in operating procedures.

Here are five steps to develop your company’s comprehensive employee training manual:

Step #1: Define your audience(s)

Consider all of the roles that will need to be trained as well as when, where, and how the training will take place. Will the training manual be used solo, or will it be used as a training aid? Consider how much time each person will have to go through the manual, whether the people you’ve hired would prefer written content, text with visuals, or video. Also consider whether you need alternate language versions and whether you need to consider any cultural references in translation.

Step #2: Identify what employees don’t need to know

When training a new employee, you want them to get started as quickly as possible. It doesn’t help anyone if that employee is trained on things they’ll never use. The first place to start with training a new person is to talk to people who either currently have that job or who have done that job recently. These people are experts in what someone in that position needs to know. Talking with them will help you cut out unnecessary information from the training materials and make sure you’re teaching the best practices.

Step #3: Pinpoint what employees do need to know

When you’re talking with the experts, you’ll probably learn additional things that new hires need to know that aren’t covered in the current training materials. Jobs grow and change over time, and there’s nothing more frustrating than thinking you’re done with training and realizing you still have questions. Look for these gaps in the training materials, make sure you fill them, and write down the best way to do any processes that new employees need to know.

Step #4: Incorporate all new processes in the workflow

Sometimes, after talking with everyone about this position, you realize there are more things a new employee would need to know. Maybe there’s a process that’s split up between multiple people that should be completed by one. Or maybe your company has made larger changes to the workflow, and you’ve realized the new position will need to cover part of the process. There are many reasons to add responsibilities to a job description, and the best time to do so is before you hire a new employee. If there is anyone currently in this position, you’ll need to make sure to train them on these new duties as well.

To make sure you’re training new employees on the right things, you’ll need to find out what has changed in that position and what is imperative for a new employee to know. Training a new hire correctly from the beginning makes their transition into the company easier and makes them more likely to stay. You don’t want to have to train new employees often because it takes time and money.

Step #5: Plan your instructional content

Now that you’ve got all of the important processes and tasks documented, and culled out what is no longer relevant or necessary, it’s time to strategically plan your manual. Consider whether you want to organize information alphabetically, beginner-to-advanced, according to positional roles, or by sequence of work to be done. Your manual will be more effective if it is packed with exciting content. Mix it up a bit; consider having it accessible through your intranet as a multimedia kit with video tutorials, articles, PDF guides, and other formats. Integrate interactive features to make the content more engaging and assessments to show managers where their employees are in their progress. Accountability is essential!

Do you have a dynamic, multi-format employee manual or a 3-ring traditional binder? What works best for your
organization to maximize employee performance and why? Share your thoughts with us on Facebook!

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