Want to kickstart your company's operations? Here's how to get started. Look no further than this operational manual template.
Komal Ahuja September 2, 2024
It's one thing to start a business; it's another to run it smoothly and scale it further.
If you’re wondering what separates one from the other, here’s the short answer: strategically documenting business operations.
On average, companies lose 21 percent of their total productivity daily because of poor documentation.
An operational manual template can turn the tables in your favor to ramp up efficiency, reduce errors and optimize the team’s functioning.
Below you’ll find our start-to-finish guide on creating your own business operations manual and a ready-made template to get rolling quickly.
A business operations manual is like a guidebook that an organization uses to explain how things are done.
While every business has its unique take, an operation manual includes these six essential elements:
Include a graphic flow chart mapping your team's internal structure, outlining the hierarchy of roles, job titles and the reporting structure. Here's an example of an organizational chart:
Briefly describe all the roles within your company’s operations. Highlight primary tasks for each position and add a list of valuable resources. This helps team members understand their roles.
The main section of an operations manual template covers business policy, process and procedure. Dedicate a detailed section to your main policies and procedures. As a best practice, categorize these processes by department for better usability.
📌 Scribe top tip: Documenting business processes and procedures is a cakewalk with Scribe. Scribe can convert any process into a step-by-step guide, then lets you combine each guide in a manual and let AI do the rest. ✨ Try Scribe's AI Writer for Operations Teams to capture all of your operational processes, fast.
Includeing job aids makes your business operation manual a valuable resource. Job aids can take many forms, like:
Training job aids deliver more value in your company operation manual.
A good operations manual defines what to do when things go wrong—the emergency plan of action. Outline the steps to take and the people designated for solving an emergency.
An operations manual is incomplete without a complete record of every stakeholder’s contact information. It should include the contact details for employees, vendors, clients and other business stakeholders.
Here are free operations manual templates you can customize in seconds to personalize to your company’s operations.
Use this customizable operation manual template to outline your standard procedures and processes, including:
Use this template to ensure your business operations and maintenance processes are well-documented and standardized. Include your:
Tailor this Method of Procedure template to outline step-by-step instructions for specific tasks or processes:
This SOP manual template includes sections for important information such as job descriptions, steps for completing tasks, safety protocols, and quality control measures. Use this template to:
Use this job aid to outline step-by-step instructions, checklists and other tools that can be used to complete tasks quickly and accurately.
👉 Try this job aid template for free.
Develop a customized emergency action plan tailored to your organization's specific needs and risks with this emergency action plan template.
Develop, share and store scalable step-by-step instructions that improve safety for tasks. This safety work instructions template contains safety guidelines and procedures:
An employee handbook template provides information about your company's policies and procedures for employees.
Use this training manual template to design and deliver effective training programs.
Scribe offers more than 100 templates for all of your process documentation — from SOPs to fully-fledged training manuals. Check out our free template gallery for more free customizable templates.
If you’re ready to roll and design an operation manual template, we’ve listed the only seven steps you need to get cracking.
Start by brainstorming and finalizing the processes you want to document. This initial legwork will make the next steps easier and smoother.
Survey stakeholders at all levels to identify their main pain points. Use these points to narrow down the processes to include in your manual. This simple step will also help you decide on your goals — like to speed up the onboarding process or increase employee productivity.
Now that you know what processes you want to document and why, draw an operations manual outline.
More importantly, a layout enables end readers to find specific information quickly.
Here's an operation manual example by the University of Iowa that follows a proper outline listed in the table of contents that navigates to specific sections.
It’s always a good idea to define a content creation process and identify who’ll do what in this process.
Ideally, creating a business operation manual will involve four roles:
Remember to designate each role to the right people before you start the work to make sure you're managing and securing process documentation.
Now it’s time to start writing your operations manual. Creating a set of clear guidelines is one of the most effective ways to maintain consistency and minimize rounds of revisions.
Scribe instantly turns any process into a visual guide. Just download and turn on the extension, then go through your workflow. In seconds, Scribe will create a step-by-step guide — complete with text and annotated screenshots.
Use Scribe's generative AI to write your operation manual and even add additional context. Just type in what you're looking for, and let Scribe do the rest.
Here are a few things to remember when drafting and editing an operation manual template:
✨ Try Scribe's free operations manual generator to create your first manual in minutes!
You have your company operation manual outline. Now you need the right platform to publish and share the manual.
Most teams don't pay much attention to how they'll share their operations manual. So, it inevitably ends up in a Google Doc—a non-intuitive platform with limited features to create and share a complete operations manual.
You don’t have to look far to find this magic tool.
Scribe is your documentation builder to create a detailed operations manual without forcing your team to break their backs making it. It's super fast (15x faster, exactly) for documenting anything into interactive guides. Once done, you can share your Scribes as links, export them in multiple formats or embed them anywhere!
Briefly describe all the roles within your company’s operations. Highlight primary tasks for each position and add a list of valuable resources. This helps team members understand their roles.
The main section of an operations manual template covers business policy, process and procedure. Dedicate a detailed section to your main policies and procedures. As a best practice, categorize these processes by department for better usability.
📌 Scribe top tip: Documenting business processes and procedures is a cakewalk with Scribe. Scribe can convert any process into a step-by-step guide, then lets you combine each guide in a manual and let AI do the rest. ✨ Try Scribe's AI Writer for Operations Teams to capture all of your operational processes, fast.
Includeing job aids makes your business operation manual a valuable resource. Job aids can take many forms, like:
Training job aids deliver more value in your company operation manual.
A good operations manual defines what to do when things go wrong—the emergency plan of action. Outline the steps to take and the people designated for solving an emergency.
An operations manual is incomplete without a complete record of every stakeholder’s contact information. It should include the contact details for employees, vendors, clients and other business stakeholders.
Here are free operations manual templates you can customize in seconds to personalize to your company’s operations.
Use this customizable operation manual template to outline your standard procedures and processes, including:
Use this template to ensure your business operations and maintenance processes are well-documented and standardized. Include your:
Tailor this Method of Procedure template to outline step-by-step instructions for specific tasks or processes:
This SOP manual template includes sections for important information such as job descriptions, steps for completing tasks, safety protocols, and quality control measures. Use this template to:
Use this job aid to outline step-by-step instructions, checklists and other tools that can be used to complete tasks quickly and accurately.
👉 Try this job aid template for free.
Develop a customized emergency action plan tailored to your organization's specific needs and risks with this emergency action plan template.
Develop, share and store scalable step-by-step instructions that improve safety for tasks. This safety work instructions template contains safety guidelines and procedures:
An employee handbook template provides information about your company's policies and procedures for employees.
Use this training manual template to design and deliver effective training programs.
Scribe offers more than 100 templates for all of your process documentation — from SOPs to fully-fledged training manuals. Check out our free template gallery for more free customizable templates.
If you’re ready to roll and design an operation manual template, we’ve listed the only seven steps you need to get cracking.
Start by brainstorming and finalizing the processes you want to document. This initial legwork will make the next steps easier and smoother.
Survey stakeholders at all levels to identify their main pain points. Use these points to narrow down the processes to include in your manual. This simple step will also help you decide on your goals — like to speed up the onboarding process or increase employee productivity.
Now that you know what processes you want to document and why, draw an operations manual outline.
More importantly, a layout enables end readers to find specific information quickly.
Here's an operation manual example by the University of Iowa that follows a proper outline listed in the table of contents that navigates to specific sections.
It’s always a good idea to define a content creation process and identify who’ll do what in this process.
Ideally, creating a business operation manual will involve four roles:
Remember to designate each role to the right people before you start the work to make sure you're managing and securing process documentation.
Now it’s time to start writing your operations manual. Creating a set of clear guidelines is one of the most effective ways to maintain consistency and minimize rounds of revisions.
Scribe instantly turns any process into a visual guide. Just download and turn on the extension, then go through your workflow. In seconds, Scribe will create a step-by-step guide — complete with text and annotated screenshots.
Use Scribe's generative AI to write your operation manual and even add additional context. Just type in what you're looking for, and let Scribe do the rest.
Here are a few things to remember when drafting and editing an operation manual template:
✨ Try Scribe's free operations manual generator to create your first manual in minutes!
You have your company operation manual outline. Now you need the right platform to publish and share the manual.
Most teams don't pay much attention to how they'll share their operations manual. So, it inevitably ends up in a Google Doc—a non-intuitive platform with limited features to create and share a complete operations manual.
You don’t have to look far to find this magic tool.
Scribe is your documentation builder to create a detailed operations manual without forcing your team to break their backs making it. It's super fast (15x faster, exactly) for documenting anything into interactive guides. Once done, you can share your Scribes as links, export them in multiple formats or embed them anywhere!
The best part: you can create as many Scribes as you want and combine them in a single document with Pages. It’s the perfect recipe for a comprehensive operation manual.
To ensure your operations manual delivers value, ask your team to review it before the final launch.
A quick feedback round will show you some aspects you might have missed. Connect with a representative from every department to cross-check department-specific details. Collect and analyze their feedback to identify any crucial changes.
A best practice is having your legal advisors review your business policies.
With that, your operational manual is ready for launch! Give the final draft a final check and share it with the entire team. Be sure to adjust the permission settings for accessing and editing different parts of the document.
Once the operations manual template is in use, create a system for regularly updating and optimizing it. Assign an owner to regularly audit and update the template.
This individual will also be responsible for communicating these updates to all involved stakeholders.
An operation manual can help employees reduce errors, improve productivity, and speed up day-to-day processes. But that's not all. Here's how operations manuals set your team up for long-term success and operational improvement:
New hire onboarding can be a daunting task. The onboarding process can often require a significant amount of resources to train new hires and get them up to speed.
A comprehensive operation manual is a faster, hassle-free way to train new employees. The manual outlines the specifics of their role and responsibilities, helping them perform their duties accurately.
Employees spend 30 percent of their workday searching for the correct details to complete a task — eventually lowering productivity.
By centralizing the knowledge related to job roles and workflows in your team, your company’s operation manual is an easy reference point.
Accountability takes a hit when your team chases unrealistic goals, works without a clear roadmap, or operates without understanding their role and responsibility.
With a well-defined plan, you can:
Running your business like a well-oiled machine is almost impossible without documenting core operational processes.
Create repeatable success with a detailed operations manual. Include an overview of all essential details to streamline your team’s functioning and bring more operational efficiency into every process.
Scaling business operations management is no mean feat. It requires thorough research, planning and testing.
An operations manual empowers teams to build out their long-term plans and create a knowledge base to implement these plans. Think of it as your secret weapon to beat the bottlenecks in scaling your operations.
All things considered, an operation manual template comes in handy for teams of all shapes and sizes.
Not sure if you should even invest so much time and effort in creating an operation manual template? We talked to multiple teams who use an operations manual and curated this list of eight ways to use an operation manual template:
💡Scribe top tip: Create an operational-level agreement to keep teams in sync across departments. Use our customizable operational-level agreement template to quickly outline terms and expectations for cross-departmental collaboration.
Creating an operation manual template has many benefits—a well-informed workforce, more consistent and optimized workflows, greater efficiency and seamless employee training.
Use this guide to create a fail-proof operational manual template and reap all these benefits for your business.
