Employee training is pivotal to employees attending such sessions. When they have the training manual with them, they know the schedule for such sessions and what the course will contain. These are the reasons due to which an employee training manual is important:

Won’t bother the superiors all the time:

Such a training manual can be given to employees to ensure that they know what the company has in store for them.

The training manuals can prevent employees from asking their superiors every time they get confused about company policies. A training manual can also contain information about the policies and procedures intrinsic to a company such as the lunch hours, dress code, company’s timings, leave policies, and reporting systems. Having such information can make sure employees don’t disobey rules. An employee can’t check his emails all the time to get informed about company rules.

Domain related knowledge:

Other kinds of training manuals are those through which employees get information about the respective developments in their domain. Such training manuals can help employees know how they will be enlightened about such developments through synchronous sessions so that they can seek the manager’s permissions to attend the same. When employees tend to forget what has been taught to them in a training session, it’s mandatory for them to recall everything where such manuals are useful. Such manuals can be in the form of handbooks so that employees can carry them anywhere. The new employees should be kept in the loop about everything regarding what training is going to be held for the entire organization and specific departments. Having such knowledge makes them feel like they are an indispensable part of the organization. There can also be information added about which courses are obligatory and which are not, so employees can chalk out time based on it.

Employee training manuals help make salespeople understand the crucial steps in generating a sale. They not only get ample product knowledge, but also understand how to consult the company’s intranet to get the required JIT.

General knowledge about a company:

There can also be scenarios included in such manuals in the form of podcasts. Through such podcasts, employees can understand where to park the car because any parking slots are reserved for certain employees. Also, employees can only enter through such certain doors because the rest of the doors might be for public entry. Writing the training manual is also critical because employees grasp information through it. Hence, when a general training manual is written, HR should be clear about the rules and describe the ramifications when they are violated.

Therefore, these are the situations in which a training manual turns out to be a crucial resource:

When an employee quits:

When an old employee leaves the company, another employee can substitute him, and he gets the required knowledge through such training manuals. An experienced employee also might be forced to leave the job due to transfer or a sudden illness, due to which his job duties have to be reassigned. The need for the training manual is however lesser when the leaving employee has adequate time to provide proper knowledge to the employee replacing him, which is not generally the case. The former employee might not have time to provide hands-on training to the other worker, and that’s where the latter can consult the training manual.

When the company wants to go digital:

A company might decide to provide its employees with an LMS. So, it has to put all the internal information on it hence a manual is useful to the e-learning vendors and IT employees in such a situation. When a manual is in place, an HRIS can also be developed accordingly because it can send reminders to employees after tracking their attendance per day, i.e. when they are arriving late. Also, the HRIS sends automatic salary slips to employees based on the leave policy of the company. That’s because the IT employees have the training manual to input such policy details into the HRIS.

When the HR leaves:

Companies might change their leave policies in the future, and hence the past training manuals come in handy at that time. In case the HR is replaced, the companies still have the old training manuals with them to know about the relevant procedures.

How to create such training manuals?

But when department-specific training manuals are put into words, it’s better, that the help of departmental heads is taken who have comprehensive information about processes and software. They can draft such documents, but screenshots can be arranged by juniors. The help of the creative team is also needed to ensure that the information is presented correctly with diagrams. Training manuals can also be given to employees based on their roles in the company. This ensures that the employees have a perfect growth plan highlighted for them based on what will make them sustain and grow in their positions. Such kind of training will make them more productive and adapt to a new role if they have been just hired or promoted. The employee training manual helps employees learn about their corporate training plan, which has been prepared for them.