If you’re spending more time than you have to spare on training new employees, you might consider setting up a standard operating procedure for the tasks that employee needs to perform. I’ve seen the learning curve shrink in half by implementing this solution that many small business owners think is just for big, corporate companies.
When I first started training employees one of my biggest pet peeves was that they didn’t take notes. Here I was taking time out of my crazy schedule to show them the ropes and they would sit there with a glazed-over, deer-in-the-headlights look and nod their head after I walked them through each skill. “They’re never going to remember this,” I would think.
At the time, I told myself that it was their responsibility to take control and take the initiative and do their best to learn their new job. Then I had to realize that not everyone likes school. And that’s what learning a new job is. It’s going back to school. And what does everyone get when they go back to school? They get a syllabus and course materials and resources and an instructor with office hours.
Thus began the migration of my love for learning to my love for teaching. My first iteration was a simple outline of the tasks. As I trained more, I added steps to the outline. Then I added more detailed steps. Then I included screenshots. After four years of training being a large part of my full-time job, I had published step-by-step instructions for well-over 200 procedures.
Every time I trained a new employee, I would walk through the steps and revise them as needed to be more helpful, more descriptive, more explanatory. The trick was to format them in such a way that veteran users could breeze through them more quickly. There were tasks that came up only once a month or once a quarter or even once a year. By describing the process briefly (e.g. Step 1: Run this Report) and in detail (e.g. Go to Menu > Reports > Quarterly Report > Dates: Last Quarter, Accounts: Expense Account) I was able to meet the needs of long-time users, first-time users, and everyone in between.
After my transition to small business consulting, this process became invaluable. I started writing standard operating procedures for every system I put in place. These step-by-step instructions are usually kept in a binder with tabs for the task frequency (i.e. daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly, as needed). I’ve also published them in folders on servers, where everyone can access them. For those with Microsoft Exchange Servers, I’ve published them in shared folders in Outlook.
The key is to make the policies highly accessible and to preach their daily use. After all, there’s no point in spending the time to write them if no one is going to use them. If anyone asks you how to complete a task and you know there’s a written procedure for it, ask them to use the instructions. If they still have questions, walk through the instructions with them and revise as needed. As we all know, it’s easy for a teacher to gloss over finer points and to assume everyone knows what they’re talking about.
Try not to get frustrated with the learning process. I realize you didn’t sign up to be a teacher when you decided to start a business, but it will become part of your job description as soon as you hire your first employee. You must teach and teach well if you truly want your employees to partner with you.
That’s it! If you need help, it’s literally what I do for a living. Drop me a line and I’ll get in contact with you as soon as possible.
