This post was originally published by Mitch Causey on lessonly.com
We’ve heard that there can be confusion regarding the differences between employee training manuals and employee handbooks. Many companies will overlap information between the two and create their own definitions for the two. Each business will have their own unique employee handbook and training manual.
Let’s clarify the major difference between the two:
Employee training manual
The purpose of a training manual is to organize how you are going to train your employees throughout their employment. Having a training manual helps create a standardized plan that is going to take your employees to success. A training template guarantees that employees do not miss important lessons. Companies can share their training manual with employees. Employees are able to hit every step to climb to success.
89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service. A customer care training manual gives employees a knowledge of basic concepts, practices, and policies relating to customer service. This allows new hires to understand the expectation of serving the customers.
If a company decides not to share their training plan, they still must provide their employees with a company handbook. A few pages about training can be included in the employee handbook if a company is not using a training manual.
Employee handbook
Every company needs to have an employee handbook. A handbook outlines employee policies, freeing yourself and your employees from liability. Describe in detail employee expectations, substance abuse testing, leaving procedures, etc. Educate your employees on general and sexual harassment. When writing a handbook, consider what company behavior you want to make up your company atmosphere. Focus on keeping that atmosphere through the guidelines that are set. Clarify the amount of paid and sick time employees may take off. We have provided a free employee handbook with more information highlighting employee handbook subject matters.
An employee handbook means you need fewer new employee forms. The employee forms can be included in the handbook instead.
You may be thinking our company does not have a training manual or a company handbook. Well, I better go to Google and find one to copy. Wrong! Many companies make the mistake of doing an internet search and resort to copying other employee handbooks. A staff handbook is something that needs to be unique to each company. No employee handbook should be the same as another!
Every company has different expectations and distinctions. You can use other company staff handbooks as a guide but not an exact replica.
We at Lessonly by Seismic want to help you and your company. Want to start building a training manual? We can help! We provide resources for you to make an employee training manual. Or, get a demo to see we can help you train faster.
