Every business from every industry needs an operations manual. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive and massive, but it needs to be useful. This official document helps ensure that everyone within the company understands the company structure, its standard operating procedures, as well as emergency information.
The manual gives complete information and instructions related to business operations and is a great way to improve workflow, reduce accidents and human errors, and enhance the overall productivity of your team.
How Having an Operation Manual Helps
Running a small business is not child’s play, and even if it runs without a glitch now, having a good operation manual can help streamline things, while helping to identify future challenges. It takes a significant amount of time, effort, and dedication to keep a small business running. Management and operation deficiencies are some of the most common reasons why many small businesses fail in their initial years.
While these manuals will not solve some specific issues, they will help you identify and anticipate them far sooner. An operations framework is especially vital as your business expands. Hiring new staff is an exciting step for any entrepreneur.
However, recruiting, training, and then managing this team can take up a considerable amount of time, which you might be able to channel to some other aspects of your business. When you have an operations manual in place, all these processes are quicker, more efficient, and cost-effective.
What to Include in Your Operational Manual
While larger companies can have detailed and big manuals, a basic document for a small business could fit within 30 pages. This guide for all your day-to-day operations is like a how-to guide for various repetitive tasks your employees will be handling. Things to include in it are:
- Business overview
- Emergency procedures
- Office policies
- Contact lists for your employees and vendors
It should also have a guide for each one of your business systems, such as marketing, sales, client management, order fulfillment, recruitment; administrative, training, etc. The guide needs to include checklists, templates, documents, and processes required to complete all details and that go into making your small business work.
An organized operations manual is necessary for your business, but you also need to hire good printing services for it. This document is a reflection of your professionalism, and you must make the effort to plan it well.
When printing operational manuals, it is not a job you can entrust to just anyone. Look for a company that will provide good quality printing services on high-grade paper so that you have a manual that will look professional and your employees will look forward to using it.