One of the problems I found, with the more than 100 staff I employed over the past nearly 25 years, is that if you employ people smart enough to think for themselves, you have to expect that they will, on occasions, think about what they are doing, come up with conclusions you might not have reached, and then do things in a way that you wouldn't, to your annoyance or worse.

Unless your procedures are written down.

People who can't think for themselves need to be told what to do anyway. And you generally don't have time to explain things to them, especially in large organisations. In any event, people often don't remember things unless they are written down.

Most procedures need to be formalised whenever you leave your business in the hands of staff: safety procedures because of OHS legislation and sexual harrassment and dismissals to meet other workplace legislation, but also redundancies, office energy efficiency and resource management, data colletion, office procedures, staff discounts in retail situations, bonuses and commissions, even who locks up and when. If there are specific training methods, you'll need to describe them as well, particularly if occupational safety is involved.

Product manuals on the other hand explain your product or service, with FAQs, repair information and technical back-up (and sometimes refund, privacy, spam and terms of use policies). I particularly assist non-English speaking software developers with final presentation of their software products.

A typical complete operations and training manual of 10,000 words, without graphics costs, including briefing time and research, between $2700 and $3300 including GST. Generally I allow half a day for you to brief me, a day for research and a day and a half to write.

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