Business

7 Tips for Creating a Professional Employee Handbook

Published

4 years ago

March 1, 2021

An employee handbook might seem like a small detail in the grand scheme of running a business, but it can have a major impact on your business’s inner workings. From processes and execution to employee confidence and consistency, a good handbook has the potential to change everything.

Why Create an Employee Handbook?

As a small business owner, you have to be intentional about what you spend your time on – otherwise, you risk being pulled in a dozen different directions.

So at first glance, it might be tempting to write-off an employee handbook as proverbial “busy work,” but we’d implore you to give it a second thought. Doing so could provide your growing company with a wealth of ongoing value.

As The Hartford explains, “An employee handbook is a compilation of all your company’s policies and protocols, as well as employees’ legal rights and obligations. Having an employee handbook makes it easy for you to communicate rules and responsibilities to employees, so there’s no question about what’s expected from them — or from you, as the small business owner.”

An employee handbook is an easy and convenient point of reference. It empowers your team and helps them address issues in real-time without having to involve other people and take them away from the work they’re doing.

7 Tips for Better Employee Handbooks

If you’re going to go through the effort of creating a handbook, you need to ensure it’s useful. A poorly executed employee handbook can do more harm than good, inciting confusion and feeling overwhelmed.

With that said, here are a few tips you may find helpful:

Make it Accessible

The problem with most employee handbooks is that they’re inaccessible. When an employee has a situation where they need the handbook, they don’t know where to find it. This causes the employee to either ignore it or send an email to HR (which hurts productivity and defeats the entire purpose of having a handbook in the first place).

In order to get the maximum value out of your handbook, you should invest in both digital and print copies. Digital copies can be stored on your company’s cloud drive or social intranet. Print copies can be printed on-demand and given to employees as part of their initial hiring package. (We recommend using spiral bound book printing to get the perfect blend of cost, durability, and looks.)

Keep it Engaging

A good employee handbook should be compelling enough to keep people engaged. You can do this through a combination of high-quality visuals, storytelling, and interactive elements (such as checklists).

Include the Basics

The beginning of the employee handbook should provide a one-page rundown of the company’s values, mission statement, and other basic elements like taglines and elevator pitch statements. Every employee should be required to memorize this page within the first month of being employed.

Address FAQs

An employee handbook should be more than an endless stream of policies and legal language. You want this to be a resource that employees can turn to in order to get answers to all common questions regarding processes and standard operating procedures. By centralizing your knowledge into a single resource, you cut down on the confusion people have with where to go. This trains them to visit the employee handbook first. Then, and only then, should they bring someone else into the issue or question they’re working through.

Explain Feedback Loops

While a handbook can cut down on 75 to 90 percent of questions employees have, even the most thorough resource can’t solve every problem. However, a good employee handbook can provide information on the proper feedback loops and chains of command so that employees know where to go with their inquiries.

Include Disclaimers

Finally, any good employee handbook must include disclaimers and other caveats pertaining to employment law and company policies. (This is as much about educating employees as it is about protecting yourself. Should an issue arise, the fact that you have well-documented disclaimers will show a good faith effort to educate.)

Consider including disclaimers as they relate to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment laws, family and medical leave policies, equal opportunity policies, etc.

Well-Organized

An employee handbook is not something that one of your team members is going to read from cover to cover – it’s a resource. When it comes to designing your handbook, be sure to include a clear table of contents and a reference section. This empowers employees to find what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds.

Empower Your Team to Succeed

An employee handbook won’t solve all of your problems or replace the need for training and development, but it does provide a centralized resource that empowers your team to be more productive. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to create a handbook for your team!

Business

Transform Your Expertise into a Profitable Online Coaching Business with Jon Penberthy

Published

3 weeks ago

November 3, 2024

Matthew Wiles

Transforming your expertise into a successful coaching business requires a strategic approach to monetizing your knowledge, with a strong emphasis on client satisfaction and adaptability to their evolving needs. By prioritizing these factors, you can build a coaching practice that flourishes, provides long-term value to your clients, and supports sustained growth for your business.

The potential for this growth is underscored by the global online coaching market, which was valued at $3.2 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $11.7 billion by 2032, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% from 2023 to 2032.

Jon Penberthy, founder of AdClients and a leader in online coaching, highlights the significance of the knowledge economy in today’s marketplace. He notes, “The knowledge economy is now worth over half a trillion dollars a year. That means every year, people like you and me are paying others—not for physical products, but for the exchange of knowledge.” This shift presents a compelling opportunity for those willing to leverage their expertise in this evolving market.

Penberthy’s philosophy emphasizes the power of positive thinking and challenges traditional views on credentialism and rigid professional roles. He asserts, “Nowadays you only need to be one step ahead of someone else for them to be willing to hand back some money to learn from you.” His success as a how-to coach exemplifies this approach, showing that with the right mindset, anyone can turn their knowledge into a flourishing business.

Essential Steps to Starting Your Online Business

At the heart of any business plan is the decision about what type of product you will provide in the online marketplace. Jon Penberthy explores various possibilities, from relationship counseling to pet care, ultimately settling on a widely sought-after internet offering: personal health and fitness.

“Let’s say you do not have a personal trainer certificate, but you have figured out a specific nutrition and exercise regime that works,” he states. “There are people out there who want to look how you look and are willing to pay you for your knowledge … the opportunities are endless – you just have to ask yourself what you know that is a little bit more than those around you. That’s the starting point for your own training program.”

The next step involves packaging your training for an online audience, and Penberthy recommends creating a series of recorded videos as an effective approach. This leads to the question of how much to cover in the initial video and the order of presentation.

He suggests finding friends and family who are interested in your topic and willing to learn more. By selecting a few volunteers and teaching them over several weeks for free, while taking diligent notes on what works and what doesn’t, the teaching process will gradually reveal itself.

Build a Sales Funnel

Regardless of how your business attracts customers, potential buyers often follow a similar path, asking common questions and taking comparable steps when deciding whether to make a purchase. A sales funnel is an effective way to visualize this journey, offering valuable insights into the customer experience. It helps you see the sales process through their perspective while also serving as a practical training tool for your sales team.

Penberthy highlights the importance of this approach, “A sales funnel helps transition potential customers from being strangers to ready-to-buy clients,” he explains. By breaking the process into a series of steps, the sales funnel gradually informs and engages potential customers, guiding them toward a purchase decision without overwhelming them with information.

Attracting Attention—The ‘Eyeball’ Factor

Once you’ve understood the initial steps for setting up your online coaching or course, the next challenge is attracting people to your funnel, often referred to as the “eyeball” factor. “Bringing traffic to your site involves content creation and deciding between organic (unpaid) traffic through various social media channels or, if your budget allows, paid traffic,” Penberthy explains.

Penberthy explains that with organic traffic, individuals will be active on social media, creating content designed to build an audience interested in their topic. He adds that if one can invest some funds, paid advertising—especially on YouTube—can be an excellent starting point, as it delivers instant traffic compared to the uncertain outcomes of organic posts.

Once the advertising strategy is established, the next step is to continually refine and enhance the course, making it more concise, message-rich, and easier for potential customers to understand what is being offered.

He emphasizes that this process isn’t just about feeling good about one’s work; it’s about boosting conversions. The more effective the campaign, the more referrals satisfied customers will provide when recommending the program. A stronger program also allows for higher pricing for the services offered.

After refining your online advertising strategies and advancing your course or coaching development, the next step is to scale up. Penberthy suggests that this may initially involve what he refers to as “the pop-up offer” or one-on-one coaching, enabling you to start selling your course in 48 hours or less.

He notes that this phase requires a significant investment of time but is crucial for growing your business with clients who will not only pay for your expertise but also recommend your courses to a broader audience. However, he emphasizes the need to leverage your time effectively, as there are only so many hours in a day.

The key to success in online courses lies in combining “low-ticket” (mass appeal) content with “high-ticket” one-on-one training. “I take the stand-alone low-ticket coaching and wrap it around the one-on-ones to create the concept of “high-ticket” group coaching, which is a limited-subscriber webinar-based training pitched at high-end clients who are willing to pay a premium to overcome their seeming lack of success in the online marketplace,” Penberthy says.

By implementing this strategy, he adds, you can not only maximize your time in the business space and free up energy for friends and family but also potentially increase your monthly income to four or five figures, ultimately leading to an annual income of six to seven figures.

Jon Penberthy’s insights provide a clear roadmap, emphasizing the importance of understanding your audience, leveraging effective marketing strategies, and continually refining your offerings. By combining low-ticket and high-ticket training approaches, you can maximize your reach while delivering exceptional value to your clients.

As you embark on this path, remember that your knowledge and passion can not only lead to financial success but also empower others to achieve their goals. Embrace the opportunities ahead, and watch as you build a thriving coaching business that makes a lasting impact.