June 21, 2023
Apparently workers in Japan can pay a company to quit their jobs for them. While we support every employeeâs decision to leave a job when theyâre ready, save yourself the money and just talk to your manager. Promise they wonât bite.
Hot off the SMB press this week:Â
HOW TO BUILD A BUSINESS PLAYBOOK
You may hear us talk about business playbooks and think to yourself, âHey, that sounds a lot like a wiki/learning management system (LMS)/[insert knowledge management system here].â (We get those comparisons a lot.) And youâre kinda right â but thatâs not the full story.
Yes, you can document your company knowledge in a wiki. And yes, you can train your teams with an LMS. But you can do those things with a business playbook and more â it was designed to help small businesses organize their information effectively while still allowing orgs to make adjustments as things naturally shift and change with growth.
The business playbook is also:
And thatâs just the tip of the iceberg â you can learn everything else the business playbook is capable of in chapter 3 of the âHow To Build a Business Playbookâ masterclass (and why itâs the best âknowledge management systemâ fit for your SMB).
đ Access the full masterclass now.
DITCHINâ DOCS
Google Docs are so convenient! I store most of my training there.
Thereâs no doubt Google Docs kills in some areas, such as cross-collaboration and drafting ideas. But when it comes to getting your new hires up to speed, itâs just plain awful.
Of course, Google Docs is free (that's half the appeal). But your company's wasted time isnât, and the costs add up quick. When standard operating procedures (SOPs) are hard to find, you spend $4K per employee per month on lost productivity. Oof.Â
If youâre training your team with Google Docs (or are keeping even some of your company knowledge in there), odds are youâre experiencing some of these business symptoms⌠and itâs time to #DitchTheDocs:
Symptom #1: Your company knowledge isnât all in one place.
Raise your hand if youâve heard one of these lately: âWhere can I find that process? Do you know which Doc has that information? Can you just tell me how to do this?â If your handâs up, this is your first sign that Google Docs just isn't cutting it anymore.Â
You need to equip your team with the information they need to do their job (the right way). So, be sure to keep the answers to their questions in one centralized place â which keeps your employees from sitting around waiting for the answers (or making things up as they go along).
Symptom #2: Getting an answer takes more than a minute.
Letâs say your employee can find the information they need in a Google Doc (yay!). The caveat: It took 15 minutes to hunt down (yikes!). If it takes you or a team member more than a minute to find what you need (go ahead and time it), it's too long. Move it!Â
Getting the answers you need should be as simple as a Google Search (oh, the irony). But Google Docs proves time and time again that itâs not searchable or organized enough to store employee manuals. So save your employees the frustration and store the answers in something better (ahem â Trainual).
đ Have you seen any of the other ten signs?
STARTER PACK
Show of hands: Who has sat in a meeting that went off on a bunch of tangents, only for time to run out before you had a chance to fully discuss what the meeting was supposed to be for â and then you had to schedule another meeting to make up for it?
Itâs not the most productive use of time (and we say that with full sarcasm).Â
Weâve all lost time to these types of meetings â time that would be better spent actually working on the project you needed to discuss in the first place. Itâs holding up your progress and ultimately affecting your bottom line. So, what can you do to set yourself up for success with your meetings and prevent these productivity sinks?
đ Focus on objectives and maximize your employeesâ engagement in meetings with our Creating Meeting Agendas Process template. It outlines the most efficient way to set up your future meetings, saving you time and actually setting you on the path toward accomplishing your business goals.
âWant more templates to help you build your business playbook? Check out our entire template archive of free, multimedia-enhanced, and customizable policy, process, and role starters. New to Trainual? Try for free.
LETâS GET SH*T DONE
Great, another âhow to be productiveâ article.
Guilty. But hear us out: Any day running a small business can turn to chaos in a snap. What you imagined of your work day might be completely derailed by another emergency, roadblock, or complication â especially if youâre trying to grow.Â
So, a little more productivity on those ânormalâ days will add up in the long run â establishing a more consistent output, delivering more revenue, and helping you scale faster.
Okay, Iâll bite. But a lot of those tips donât work for me.
Thatâs likely because that advice didnât work for your current working style. Letâs state the obvious: Everyone is different, so it makes sense that we would all work differently. Plus, the standard 9-to-5 workday is no longer standard for everyone, as remote and hybrid work has become more popular â adding another complex layer to how people work these days.
So, the typical productivity hacks are no longer going to work for everyone. But, for every personality type, there are still ways to improve your productivity at work:Â
For the multitaskers:
Say it with us: Multitasking does not make you work faster. In fact, switching between tasks and figuring out where you left off actually makes you slower â and more prone to mistakes.
So, shift from multitasking to monotasking. Set up your work environment to help you focus on one task at a time, like sticking to one screen or using anti-distraction programs to keep you away from temptations like social media and email.
For the procrastinators:
We were always warned about procrastination in school, and for good reason: No one wants to deal with a huge load of work at the end of their day (been there, done that â not fun).
If youâre prone to procrastination, find an accountability partner who will reward you for achieving your goals, while expressing disappointment when you donât. Also, work on your to-do lists. Strive for six to eight goals that you can reasonably get done in a day (and donât try to secretly fit 10 tasks into one big goal, like âfinish projectâ â thatâs right, we know your tricks).
đ Find more productivity tips for your working style.
TL; DR