Training Manuals With A Training Plan

Providing on the job training for employees is necessary for any business wanting to maintain a focus on both customer service and staff motivation, but what is a training manual and what should training manuals include?

An Employee Handbook is required to detail your policies and procedures. A Customer Service Manual will outline how your customer service skills are to be delivered and the Operations Manual with guide management in particular administration tasks. A Training Manual is dedicated to the training and development of staff at every stage of their employment.

Documenting Your Own Training Program

Taking on any new member of staff is a big investment on your part and to realise your best return on that investment warrants giving the training and induction process the time it deserves, particularly as staff turnover can be even more costly for a business.

Set out your training materials to consider the ‘life’ of the employee, such as;

1.             Recruitment

2.             Initial Trial

3.             Induction

4.             Probation

5.             On-Going

6.             Appraisals

7.             Termination

You may have your own preferred training methods but it’s important to be mindful that people all learn best in different ways, some only need be told, where other’s must be shown and naturally there is no substitute to actually doing the job, but sometimes this will not be possible to allow without a certain level of competency displayed at least in theory by using multiple training techniques to gain a safe understanding of what parts of the job will require.

Set a minimum standard for Foundational Training

To quickly and efficiently bring a new employee up to speed on the way you require them to perform as part of your team, breakdown each part of every task you expect every team member to be able to do, into their individual sub-tasks, with an allotment of time you expect anyone to do each job part in. This is your timing standards.

Use the buddy system

Make staff training & development the responsibility of every level of your team. Pair up anyone of a higher level with a new person during their induction period and block out 2 hours at a time together with several employees if possible in their first week to work through the Foundational Training Tasks, so that the job of staff inductions does not rest solely on management.

Does Your Business Come With Its Own Owner’s Manual?

Do you ever wish you had an instruction manual for your own business?

The idea of a user guide with operating instructions a business owner or their managers can follow to ensure none of the essential administration tasks are left to chance, should not be as strange as the question of having a manual of operations may first sound.

So if you were to create an Owner’s Manual for your business needs, what areas of the business should you look to cover in it?

Most of the day to day running should be documented in a separate Employee Handbook as expected to be performed by everyone in the team, but your Operations Manual is designed to expand on the detail required for those taking on more management responsibilities for specific tasks.

An example a salon business might use as a guide to help organise your operating instructions manual, follows in this list;

SALON INTERNAL OPERATIONS

OPERATIONS FILE          

Invoices

Mail

Marketing            

Messages              

Job Applicants/New Employee Forms

Reports

Stock Management

Takings

Used Client Records           

OPERATIONAL SYSTEMS             

Float

Takings

Banking

Petty cash

Back up

Customer Refunds & Exchanges

Faulty Goods

Mistaken Sale or Incorrect Product

Customer has changed their mind

Services refunds and redo’s

Guidelines for Procedure of Complaints

Client Information Cards (CIC’s)

Client Profile Cards (CPCs)

In Tray

Out Tray

STOCK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS             

Stock Bin

Salon stock

Stock Management

Stocktaking

Ordering

Receiving

Merchandising

Merchandising rules

EMERGENCY SYSTEMS

Break in or vandalism

Robbery

Theft

Incident

Fire

Bomb Threat

Training Staff About Customer Service

It’s great to be able to invite an industry professional in to provide training and development to improve customer service, but it’s not always practical to get the entire team together to schedule training for staff and maybe harder to still to pay for quality training.

Here are some tips for putting together your own Customer Service Training Manual.

The first rule to Customer Care is consistency!

Consistency in your customer care is key, because even low end, budget customer services will attract a trusted following, so long as they can know what to expect and this is delivered every time. This is called the Customer Experience and so long as each customer experience consistently delivers what is promised, the result will be customer satisfaction.

Next - change the way you answer: What is a customer?

The best way to keep the rule of being consistent in all your customer relations, is not simply define your customer as anyone who pays for your services, but as those who want a repeat of the customer experience you provide. This is to be ever mindful of the ‘life’ of the customer, which means how many times will they pay for your core services or customer support?

What is customer service vs What is the customer experience?

When someone pays for your service, customer service just happened! No matter if it was good customer service, bad customer service, exceptional or hardly perceived at all. When we as consumers pay, we have agreed to take whatever the service is and we are protected in law that the service is fit for purpose, with certain consumer rights if it is not. So if you have found someone willing to buy your service, providing customer service only requires you to meet those basic obligations. The point is there’s nothing special about customer service – except of course getting paid!

Now a restaurant waiter may argue – I’ve gave great customer service for over 2 hours while the customers dined, or you may have just paid for your holiday yet won’t set off for over 2 months, so feel you’ve only bought the promise of future customer service. 

These scenarios are actually part of the Customer Experience. The promise of food whilst waited upon and the promise of the purchased inclusions at the holiday destination of your choice is the customer service you are willing to pay for, but the actual customer experience will determine how prepared you are to do it again or recommend it to others. This is why the customer experience and how consistent it is to be trustworthy of being repeated is the all-important focus of your customer service training manual.

Now we know the importance of how we think about the terminology we train our staff, here is a quick practical list of what to include in your Customer Service Training and Development Manual;

SERVICE SYSTEM           

Consistency is the key!      

SIGNATURES    

The touches that set you apart

SERVICE OPPORTUNITY SESSIONS

Client Record System

Non Verbal Language       

Client Appointment Cards

Identifying Client Belongings           

Remembering Refreshments            

Consultation Recommendations    

Confirm Rebooking           

Retail Recommendations 

Future Rapport Notes        

Chemical & Technical Histories      

Salon Focus and Seasonal Promotions          

When the phone rings

For price enquiries

Setting an appointment

Confirming client’s appointment

Late clients

MEET & GREET

Waiting area

CONSULTATION              

Great example consultation questions to ask your client

Skin allergy test procedure

THE SERVICE   

Conversational F O R M Topics

Explaining Products

 “FAB” when recommending products and services

BE CONFIDENT & PROFESSIONAL           

THE FINALE      

REBOOKING      

Great reasons to Rebook

Make Your Operations Manual Policies Fit For Purpose

Clearly communicating your company policies and procedures within an employee handbook is now an essential HR Policy to have in place, but how much should be included within the pages of your employee manual?

Here are some quick guidelines to help ensure your staff training induction material covers not only what you are required to state at the beginning of employment, but also leave none of your staff policies to chance. With a good set of procedures and policies set out in black and white, the unwritten rule is, there are no unwritten rules.

Taking the time to create an Operations Manual for your business means you can set your Policy & Procedures exactly the way you want your company to run. However there are some must have employment policies that every employer is responsible for providing their team.

First a word on employment contracts

All employees have an employment contract with their employer. As soon as someone accepts a job offer they have a contract with their employer. An employment contract doesn’t have to be written down. A contract is an agreement of the employee’s:

•     employment conditions
•     rights
•     responsibilities
•     duties

These are the ‘terms’ of the contract.

Employees and employers must stick to a contract until it ends (e.g. by an employer or employee giving notice or an employee being dismissed) or until the terms are changed (usually by agreement between the employee and employer).

This is different from a person agreeing to do some work for someone (like paint their house), this isn’t an employment contract but a ‘contract to provide services’.

The employee handbook can form the ‘terms’ of an employment contract

The legal parts of a contract are known as ‘terms’. An employer should make clear which parts of a contract are legally binding.

Contract terms could be:

•    in a written contract, or similar document like a written statement of employment
•    verbally agreed
•    in an employee handbook or on a company notice board
•    in an offer letter from the employer
•    required by law (e.g. an employer must pay employees at least the National Minimum Wage)
•    in collective agreements - negotiated agreements between employers and trade unions or staff associations
•    implied terms - automatically part of a contract even if they’re not written down

Examples of an implied term include:

•     employees not stealing from their employer
•     the employer providing a safe and secure working environment
•     a legal requirement like the right to a minimum of 5.6 weeks’ paid holidays
•     something necessary to do the job like a driver having a valid licence
•     something that’s been done regularly in a company over a long time like paying a Christmas bonus

If there’s nothing clearly agreed about a particular issue, it may be covered by an implied term, but for the avoidance of doubt, you can decide to include it in operations manual as a written company policy.

Written statement of employment particulars

An employer must give employees a ‘written statement of employment particulars’ if their employment contract lasts at least a month or more. This isn’t an employment contract but will include the main conditions of employment.

The employer must provide the written statement within 2 months of the start of employment.

What a written statement must include

A written statement can be made up of more than one document (if the employer gives employees different sections of their statement at different times). If this does happen, one of the documents (called the ‘principal statement’) must include as a minimum:

•     the business’s name
•     the employee’s name, job title or a description of work and start date
•     if a previous job counts towards a period of continuous employment, the date the period started
•     how much and how often an employee will get paid
•     hours of work (and if employees will have to work Sundays, nights or overtime
•     holiday entitlement (and if that includes public holidays)
•     where an employee will be working and whether they might have to relocate
•     if an employee works in different places, where these will be and what the employer’s address is

As well as the principal statement, a written statement must also contain information about: 

•     how long a temporary job is expected to last
•     the end date of a fixed-term contract
•     notice periods
•     collective agreements
•     pensions
•     who to go to with a grievance
•     how to complain about how a grievance is handled
•     how to complain about a disciplinary or dismissal decision 

What a written statement doesn’t need to include

The written statement doesn’t need to cover the following (but it must say where the information can be found):

•    sick pay and procedures
•    disciplinary and dismissal procedures (except in Northern Ireland where it must be included)
•     grievance procedures

Policies and Procedures to consider adding to team member handbooks

This list is should provide some inspiration of what else you can or should document a written Policy Procedure on;

1. Salon Organisational Structure
2. Company Vision
3. Recruitment Policy
4. Training environment
5. Career opportunity
6. Expected standards
7. Mission Statement
8. Customer Guarantee
9. Service Philosophy
10. Initial Trial
11. Induction
12. Probationary Period
13. Daily Meetings
14. Weekly One to One’s
15. Weekly Management Meetings
16. Monthly Staff Training Sessions
17. Employee Reviews
18. Opening Hours
19. Breaks
20. Job Flexibility
21. Maternity, Paternity or Adoption
22. Parental Leave
23. Compassionate Leave
24. Giving Notice to End Employment
25. Administration of Payments and Deductions               
26. Overpayments
27. Income Tax and National Insurance
28. Conduct & Non Negotiable
29. Harassment
30. Grievances
31. Serious Misconduct
32. Gross Misconduct
33. Disciplinary Appeal Procedure
34. Cash Handling Procedures               
35. Communications Policies
36. Confidentiality
37. Copyright
38. Data Protection
39. Use of Computer Equipment
40. E-Mail and Internet Policy               
41. Social Networking Sites and Blogs  
42. Virus Protection Procedures
43. Inventions and Discoveries
44. Bribery                  
45. Safeguards
46. First aid
47. Safety Training
48. Smoking
49. Fire
50. Day to Day Running
51. Toilets
52. Communication board
53. Team suggestion program
54. Messages
55. Memos
56. Parking
57. Appearance
58. Uniform
59. Protective clothing
60. Personal hygiene
61. Equipment
62. Wastage
63. Team perks and bonuses
64. Family discounts
65. Education & excellence bonuses
66. Services bonuses
67. Product bonuses

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.

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