03 · Endless training
Training is in people’s heads, so it leaves when they do.
We document each job once, so every new starter learns it from the process.
What owners told us
What you want
A new starter opens the process for their first job and does it, with the video and the steps in front of them. They check in with you, and nobody has to sit beside them for weeks.
Your best people stay on their own work. When someone leaves, the job stays written down for whoever comes next.
What owners told us they want
They stall because the job is still in someone’s head.
Shadowing
The new starter learns one person’s version, shortcuts included, and nothing is written down for the next one.
Showing them once
They forget parts of it, and have nothing to check against.
A staff handbook
It covers the business in general and leaves out the jobs, and it’s soon out of date.
Hiring experienced people
They arrive with their own way of doing it, and yours still isn’t written down.
Training videos
A long video is hard to search, and it shows one run of the job without the checks or the reasons.
Asking the team lead to document it
They’re busy doing the job they’d be documenting, so the documents never get finished.
Why it happens
When training happens by telling and showing, you repeat it for every new starter, and it’s lost when people leave.
Document it once, to a standard someone new can follow, and everyone who comes next learns it from the process.
Repeating the training costs more than it seems. If each new starter needs your best person beside them for two weeks, every hire costs you two weeks of their work. Multiply that by last year’s hires.
Worth knowing
Most owners hire first and train as they go. When the job is documented first, the new person learns it from the process, and you only need to check in.
It also makes hiring easier. When the know-how is in the process, you can hire for care and attention to detail.
When you train by telling and showing, you repeat it for every new starter. Once the job is documented, they learn from the process and you check in.
The person doing the training skips steps without noticing, because to them much of the job is common sense.
You need the documents when a new hire is starting or the busy season is close, and that’s when you have no time.
And keeping it current is a job of its own. If nobody owns the updates, the documents go stale and the next hire is back to shadowing.
How we get you there
Start with their first weeks
We document the jobs a new starter does first.
Show us once
Your best person records each job as they do it, and we ask about everything they take for granted.
Video, images and written steps
New staff watch the video, then work from the marked-up images once they know the job. Experienced staff skim the steps.
Every question becomes an update
A new starter’s questions show us the gaps, so each question makes the process better for the next person.
What changes once it’s documented
2 to 4 hours a week of your time. To your standard, or you don’t pay.
Tom R
Medical training
As the business grew, SOPs made it possible to pass off duties to new people.
“Growth in the business has been insane, and I’ve been delegating and hiring key people. So far I have offloaded CFO duties, hired a new Director of Logistics and Operations, and a Chief of Sales and Marketing. ... Creating SOPs has been integral to being able to pass off duties.”
Result: 3 key roles handed over
Shannon
Beauty clinic
Two new hires worked through the clinic’s documented onboarding, then gave their feedback.
“We hired two new people and transferred our onboarding ... The girls just completed it and we asked for feedback. They said it was the best onboarding they’ve ever had in any job. And they also said that all the work we put in shows how much we care and they never want to let us down.”
Result: Best onboarding they’d had
“Being able to remove myself from the business.”
Medical supplies
Very little. Show them where the processes are and check in often in the first weeks. Most of what they need is in the process.
We judge every process against the recordings and examples you gave us. If one falls short, we revise it at no charge. If it still isn’t right, you get a full refund.
Yes. We use what you have as a starting point, then build each job out into a complete process with the steps, images and checks.
Very little. Your best person records each job while doing it, and answers our questions. Our team does the documenting.
Longer reading, if you want the detail.
A new hire placed into undocumented work is left to guess how the job is done. That’s unfair on them, and it rarely ends well for the business.
Hire once the job is documented and running. The new person steps into a process that already works, and can start on the problem they were hired for.
Good onboarding is short: a welcome, the logins and tools, an overview of the business, then a real job on the first day, done from the process.
New starters learn faster from doing a real job with the steps in front of them than from a week of watching someone else.
Someone new notices the gaps the rest of the team has stopped seeing.
Answer their questions in the process, and the next new starter won’t need to ask.
Documenting how your best person works can feel like it makes them replaceable. In practice, it takes work off them.
Other people can then train and answer questions, and your best person gets back to their own work.
A short video
Jamie explains how we get the work out of your head and document it with you.
The free assessment
28 questions and a few minutes for a scored report on where your business stands.
Take the assessment
Bring your next hire’s first job, and anyone who shares the decision. We find what to document first, and if we’re a fit, you get a fixed price on the call. You leave with a plan either way.
To your standard, or you don’t pay
1,121 businesses since 201796 industries24 countries16 client exits
