One of the most valuable ways to onboard new employees in the workforce is to have documented workflows and processes, suited to your company’s goals and job details. Think of it as an organisational manual, but specific to tasks. This is extremely beneficial to any type of business as it gives the management team more leeway with training, the ability to scale the business when the time is right, and a concrete way to review processes and modify them to be more efficient.
How to start documenting your workflow?
Documenting your procedures varies from company to company. For company “A”, it might be as simple as jotting down the job and what it is required from it. Bullet points, it’s literally a step by step process specifying tasks and providing a detailed description for each one. It could literally be:
How to file a new client entry on a spreadsheet:
- Open the file
- Look for the tab “New Clients”
- Go to an empty row below
- Fill in all required fields (they are marked RED)
But for company “B”, a company with more complex processes, documentation might not be as simple as bullet points. It might involve flow charts, shadowing, video tutorials, and the like.
For STAFFLINK, we take full advantage of technology and we incorporate it into our documentation process.
We have written task manuals and video training courses guided by our onsite trainers and management team. This is provided for both our clients and staff to ensure all parties involved are on the same page.
So why should you start documenting your workflow and procedures?
Scalability
Having a well-established workflow (in software such as The Hub) makes your organisation easily scalable. This makes onboarding a breeze and shortens the training process. This is also a good opportunity to create a system where staff can help guide each other and contribute with additional processes should they discover how to make the work more efficient.
Makes your Organisation More Valuable
Building and documenting your workflow makes for an autonomous ecosystem that can sustain itself without excessive supervision. Staff can easily refer to the documented procedures to accomplish their work, whenever a supervisor is unavailable.
This saves your company valuable time and money, as your time could be better spent growing your business, working on dollar-productive tasks, or doing research on other ways to help improve the business.
If you build it, they will come
Workflows and stable processes are the foundation of any business. It gives your company structure. A structured work environment has all the makings of a successful business. By documenting your workflows, not only can you fix processes that no longer work, but you can also introduce new processes that can help keep your business ahead of the competition. In other words, successful.
With the power of documentation, not only will you attract the right staff to fit the roles needed to make a business great, but you will also attract more potential clients to avail your services. A business that knows what to do (since processes are documented) and has all the right tools (task manuals) is a force to be reckoned with.
Process encourages accountability
Your documented workflows and processes will serve as the framework for your business’s official method of operation. Or to put it in layman’s, your business’s way of doing things. This helps ensure that the job your staff is doing is up to standard more often than not.
Documenting your workflow is simple and can make running your office a lot easier. So when something fails, you can simply review the task manual. From there it’s as easy as:
- Retraining required for an incorrectly completed step;
- The manual is out of date, it needs to be revised;
- Or the process is out of date due to software, structure or legislation changes and a new process needs to be built.
Where can you document your workflows?
In order to make your business more sustainable, scalable, and profitable, STAFFLINK has designed a learning platform where you and your staff can enroll themselves to acquire new knowledge. These learning courses can also be specifically tailor-made to complement your business needs.
If you can’t find the course you need, STAFFLINK can build a learning platform for your brand and assist in developing the courses necessary for the training of your staff and the growth of your organisation.
By documenting your workflows and processes, you can save your business time and money, which is better spent growing or saving your business.
STAFFLINK offers free courses on how to build your systems and document your processes. Click this link to access your free course now.
