Work instruction template

A work instruction reduces the potential for risk or errors when executing a process, therefore boosting business efficiency and increasing accuracy. By breaking down the complex procedures and workflows of a process into detailed step-by-step instructions, the work instruction streamlines work processes, increases communication and decision making, and illuminates the job for anyone who follows the document.

Additionally, a work instruction provides many more benefits to your company when it is applied. A work instruction can help you do the following:. Describe how to perform specific tasks within a larger process, with more detail and greater clarity.

Define all parts of a process or task, such as responsibilities, requirements, tools, and other important information. Track purchases and describe all of their key components, such as quantity, unit price, and shipping dates.

Writing a comprehensive, clear, and educational work instruction can be a daunting task because it requires thorough attention to detail and immense knowledge about the given task or process. To take the guesswork out of writing a work instruction, follow these easy-to-follow steps:.

Write the intro. Give context to the project, identify owners of the project, and clearly document the task or job at hand. Describe how to do the job. Break down each step into smaller, easy-to-follow directions to ensure that every action is clear and understandable for whomever reads it. Include all components needed to complete the job, such as materials, references, and images or visuals that support the written steps. Validate information. Consult subject matter experts SMEs and key stakeholders to make sure that each step within the instructions is accurate and current.

Format for easy reading. Once all of the steps are written, ensure that the instructions are user-friendly. Check that the instructions are sequential, steps are bolded to stand out, and the instructions include numbered or bulleted lists for each step. Simplify and rewrite, if necessary.

Reread the document and make sure everything makes sense. Simplify the steps if there is confusion, and rewrite or reword steps when necessary to ensure consistency. Test it out. Give the document to a coworker or colleague and have them follow the steps. Determine if there is any confusion, or if the instructions are unclear or lead to the wrong end goal.

Save and share. After you complete all of the steps above, save the document, send it out to your teams, and store it where anyone who may need the instructions can access it. Use the same terminology and the same style for organizing information. Follow the same layout for every instruction, too. This will make it easier for employees to understand the subsequent tasks they need to perform. Work instructions can take many formats.

You can create them as long Word documents. Or use web-based tools like Google Docs. Interactive guides, where a person can decide how they consume the information, are likely to be used more regularly. Got it. Why Stonly? Use cases. Solutions Self-serve support. Product adoption. Support agent performance. How it works. Knowledge Base. Stonly Widget.

Customer knowledge base. Add guides to your KB. Chatbot alternative. Custom contact forms. NPS survey. Feature adoption. Scripted agent guides. Internal knowledge management. Have you ever purchased an unassembled piece of furniture, got home and tried to follow the assembly instructions and got totally confused?

If yes, you are not alone. For this reason, good technical writers are highly desired. Technical writing is a big topic and beyond the scope of this article, but here are seven steps to improve your work instructions:. Well, quite a lot actually. It is crucial to get this part right. To do so make sure you do the following:. Why are you preparing it? Asking why is about deepening your understanding before jumping into the details. Read more about the value of the questions why here.

First of all, you need to list the materials required to do the job. Order your bullet point list logically. For example, in the case of disinfecting hands:. Include any relevant or helpful references directly into the text as natural hyperlinks. This makes it easy for your reader to clarify things. To describe how, for example, employees should disinfect their hands you must first choose a format to explain this. There are three basic options. The cookbook format, the decision table and the flowchart.

You might choose different formats for different jobs, perhaps according to their complexity. Remember here that many people are visual learners so tables and flowcharts, perhaps with images, might be the best approach. Think of your work instruction document as an educational tool. Either add footnotes or have an appendix at the end of the document. To make sure your work instructions are easy to understand and follow, ask a colleague to perform the task by following it.

This will tell you if certain parts or explanations are confusing or need further clarification. These are mostly for more advanced factory settings:.

Just start and learn and improve as you go. This will ensure your work instruction is well received. Here at Gluu, we believe in writing work instructions within an integrated system to manage business processes. To do this, there are a lot of software options you can use. For instance, you can host the templates on Google Drive or Dropbox , and share access with all your employees. You can also use a tool such as SweetProcess to host your work instruction template, procedures, and processes.

What this means is that your employees must participate actively in the process. Ask for their input, and let them explain exactly how they perform any specific task in the company. The end goal is to ensure that your employees believe in the credibility and accuracy of the template. An example of this condition in action is the Warehouse Work Instruction Template. Having a consistent work instruction template is also important. Hence you should make sure that the font type, font size, images, layout, and so on are consistent throughout.

The storage facility work instruction template is a good example of consistency in action. These days, we consume more visual content compared to text. So ensuring that your work instruction template is visually appealing will help your employees understand it better. Some of the things you can include to make your work instruction template visually appealing include images, videos, screenshots, charts, and so on.

The visual work instruction template, which we provided in this article, is visually appealing. It shows all the safety steps that must be followed when climbing wooden poles in still images. If you have a large team with different sub-groups, you can assign the task to the most experienced person in each department. The first step you should take when writing a work instruction template is to ensure that the title is clear and easy to understand.

The next thing you should do when writing a work instruction template is to include a descriptive introduction. This will guide your employees and help them understand what the template is all about, and what they need to do with it.

This introduction will provide more context about the task, identify the employees responsible for it, and outline how the task should be completed in a step-by-step guide. This is where you should include it in your template. Doing this will help you identify the purpose that it serves in the first place.

In this case, the first thing you should do is to mention all the materials needed to complete a task. In the case of fixing an AC compressor, some of the materials needed to complete the task include:. The next thing is to break down how to complete each task in an easy-to-follow direction that is clear and understandable. To do this, you should reach out to key stakeholders in the company, especially experienced employees, who have a firm grasp of the workings of each department.

Also, you can consult subject matter experts to verify if all the steps in the instruction are current and accurate. A good practice is to leave the template for some days after creating it before you go ahead to edit it. When doing so, make sure that you reread the document from scratch to ensure that everything makes sense. That way, you can provide your employees with more sources that they can visit for further reading. Before sharing the work instruction template with your employees, it makes sense to test it out with a trusted colleague first.