How to Write a Training Guide for Employees
With changing trends in business, several studies have revealed that organizations only tend to concentrate on training new employees. Although training for the new hires is essential, research indicates that writing a training guide for employees at all employment levels has a direct influence on the employee’s long-term performance and contributes to the organization’s revenue. Continuous training promotes various opportunities for professional development available within and outside the organization. Actively initiating employee training practices ensures the organization’s commitment to hiring and retaining employees with appropriate skill sets. Further, it also acts as a medium for existing employees to expand their expertise.
Employee guides are a method of enriching the training process and letting the employees know what is expected from them. The purpose of an employee training guide is to accurately reflect the importance of effectiveness and productivity required in the organization. Training guides are meant to set a purposeful tone for the organization by demonstrating the work culture that needs to be followed.
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Revisiting the organization’s training manual to form brief guidebooks for the employees often ensures an opportunity to enhance the work culture and the business ahead. Following are a few parameters to be kept in mind while writing a training guide for employees.
Few Parameters – Write a Training Guide for Employees
Use the Guide as a Communication Tool
Employee guidebooks should include values and expectations the organization wishes to instill in its workforce by positively outlining the mission of the business. It should be clearly articulated in the guidebook that the purpose behind it is to help the employees understand their jobs, however, they can ask questions or clarifications when in doubt. The content of the guide should be proactive, positive, and encouraging. The guidebook should be written in a straightforward and coherent way so that the employees can easily absorb the information.
Safety Policies
This is a section most useful for the experienced employees who have been trained several times and can recall everything in the manual. However, employees often take safety and security policies for granted. Hence, it is essential to outline these procedures so that they can refer to them in case of emergencies. Organizations need to emphasize the fact that employees’ safety is of utmost importance and the guidebook should reflect the same.
Code of Conduct
All the legal expectations and policies of the organization should be enlisted in this section to give the employees a broad outline of what is expected of them. For example, if an organization condemns the use of personal cell phones during work hours, it should be stated clearly in this section. Guidelines on shifts, lunch breaks, professional behaviorism, dressing, leaves, and overtime should be included so that there is no confusion. The training guide should be designed in such a way that it works as a reference to avoid mistakes or during casualty.
Avoid Excessive Information
Even though an employee training guide is an excellent way to outline the vision and mission of the organization, it should be brief and concise. New employees receive several official documents during the hiring process. Hence, instead of reinitiating the same information in the guide, a note of reference of these documents and a summary can be affixed.
The Content Should be Concise and Comprehensive
The training guide should be precise. The use of clear headings, bullet points, paragraph breaks, and alignment make the guide more accessible to the learner. The information should be crisp and condensed so that it is easy to read through when one is looking for a particular section.
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Opportunities for Further Development
As a business grows, it tends to change its course. Employees need to adapt to such changes and revise their workflow. To ensure that the employees are not stuck in old procedures and systems, the training manual should be designed in such a way that changes can be incorporated as the organization achieves new milestones. The guide should be reevaluated regularly for upgradation. This can also be used as an opportunity to get employee feedback on how to make the guide more user-friendly and add new procedures to enhance their performance.
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