One of the fastest and cheapest ways to improve the performance of your business has to be creating an Employee Handbook in MS Word and rolling it out to your team. This tool is extremely easy to put together and very cost effective.
Employee Handbooks
Plenty to Choose From
You the business owner has a lot of information in your head already. The best thing you can do is get it out on paper or written form and get your team to help you develop it into the best employee manual ever.
Used Again and Again
Awesome Tool For Business Owners
This tool, if you use it correctly, will be something you can use again and again, over and over as new staff arrive at your business. They are incredibly helpful if created well and updated on a regular basis.
You need to have a lot of detail in it – enough to explain in detail to someone that is new in your business how to perform a particular task.
So it will take some significant effort to create each task. But think about how you do things and write it down step by step.
Then, make sure you use it. You might need to wear a t-shirt like the one to the left so your team know you are serious about the importance of your employee manual. They will get it after a while and remember that their job needs to be performed to the standard expectations of your business.
Think of the Future
Fast forward 12 months from now, and as business owner, you will certainly be glad you created your employee handbook today. It does take a lot of effort to create a handbook and you build it up over time.
But in 12 months from now, you will look back and be glad you started it.
Why MS Word Works Well
Easy and Fast
Creating your employee handbook in MS Word is easy. It takes barely nothing to get started. In fact, you could open a blank file and get started straight away. Even a basic welcoming letter, where the toilet is and how to lock the business after a days work is going to be a start.
Stop Repeating Yourself
Tired of repeating yourself every day? Then start documenting your procedures, policies, instructions and all other things that make your business tick and before you know it you will have an extremely useful tool that you cannot live without.
How to Create Your Employee Handbook
You could easily break it up into sections. Once it starts getting too big, then look into some sort of online website that you could use to make it perform even better.
Online Intranets
Some of the online websites such as MS Sharepoint are pretty horrible though if you think about using those for a handbook tool. They are not user friendly and you end up with duplicate information in several spots which then makes it really difficult for anyone to know what is actually the correct information.
Do yourself a favor and have the guidelines in one place only where there is one spot for whatever you are trying to achieve. The key about a successful business is to keep it simple. Not make it more complex.
Check out our Handbook Templates above or our standard template below.
How to Find Free Employee Handbooks for Your Business
Free Not Always Best
If you are looking to improve your business for free, then consider any free option of create an employee handbook.
It is going to be difficult to find a specific handbook for free for your business. Obviously, you would have to tailor it to suit. However, you might be able to find something close online that would allow you to create an employee handbook pretty quickly.
If not, you probably don’t need to outlay much to get hold of a template that you can customize relatively easily. For example, consider our employee handbooks as they are easy to purchase and customize.
Google Says – Free Employee Handbooks
Simple Google Search
A simple Google search reveals that the first listing are all ads. 4 ads before the organic result! That’s amazing. Anyway, let’s take a look at the organic results.
Free Employee Handbook Templates
5 Free Options to Consider
Let’s take a look at the results at time of writing. There are certainly a few free options, however most website are trying to get you to sign up to a repeat subscription so they can continue to make cash from you on a monthly basis. Fair enough!
At Digital Documents Direct, we have a one off payment only! Don’t get roped into something you don’t need.
Option 1
First Organic Result
The first link is a link for workable.com. See below. You can also download a .doc file and read more about Employee Handbooks. Have Fun!
Option 2
Second Organic Result
The second link is a link for Xtension.com. See below. Looks like some free options but also a paid option too.
Option 3
Third Organic Result
The third link is a link for Lessonly.com. See below. Looks like some free options but also a paid option too.
Option 4
Fourth Organic Result
The fourth link is a link for Wonder Legal. See below. Looks like some free options but also a paid option too.
Option 5
Fifth Organic Result
The fifth link is a link for Betterteam. See below. Looks like some free options but also a paid option too.
So there are certainly a few options around if you are looking to get hold of a free employee handbook template to kick things off in your business. However, you are likely to need to have to customize it a fair bit.
What Content is Best to Start With?
Vision and Mission
So if you are starting out creating your employee handbook then consider what information is going to be easiest to get together first. You could easily put together a Vision and Mission statement. The basics would do it.
Then jump into actual processes and procedures. These things are going to make your life easier as business owner and you should get as much of this done as you can as fast as possible.
Example
Check out below the first page of table of contents below from our standard template. You can see it starts with a bit about your business, who you are and your values.
These things are important to create direction, standards and expectations in your business.
Then you can get stuck into your workplace requirements and take things from there.
Whatever you do, take the time to start today as you won’t regret it in 6 months time. This is a perfect tool to help you operate your business and is like a ‘silent partner’ in your organization – helping to guide your team in the right direction.
Why You Need an Employee Handbook in Your Business
Only As Good As Your Last Customer
If you operate a small business, you might already realize you are only as good as your last job or customer.
This means you need a new customer or new job to keep your business going OR a repeat customer to come back again and again.
You don’t have the massive budgets of the large corporations that spend millions on marketing every day. It is highly unlikely you have your product market sewn up so you are the only operator as well.
Retain Your Existing Customers
THEREFORE – you must keep your existing customers really happy. The means making sure everything you deliver is done really well to please them.
The problem comes when you have to rely on your team to do this. Train them. Teach them and use an employee manual to help all of you get it done the right way every single time. It doesn’t matter if you sell coffee, operate a childcare, a construction company, a bakery or retail shop. The principles are the same.
Deliver quality every time to get that repeat business.
How to Start off with a Vision and Mission
Creating a vision and mission should be relativity easy. It really depends on your type of business, however don’t get distracted with way out there ideas when your business delivers a basic service.
For example, if you are a coffee shop, it wouldn’t really make sense to state that your mission is to establish a colony on Mars?
Your mission statement and vision need to be realistic for your team and your organization.
Coffee Shop Example
If you had a coffee shop for example, you could have something like you want to be the best provider of coffee in your local area and also have a community based aspiration of helping homeless people while you do this.
This will allow you to contribute to your community and also provide good quality coffee at the same time. Everyone that comes in contact with your coffee should should know about your mission and vision and this would then provide a good foundation to establish your coffee shop in your local area.
So it really depends on the type of business you operate and what your personal aspirations are.
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Your Experiences
Got any experiences with procedures, handbooks and policies in your organization? Start the conversation below.
