Browse DeskDemon's KnowledgeDesk
Find the power of information right at your fingertips. KnowledgeDesk is a one stop nucleus for searching that vital piece of information, designed to make your search easier than ever before.
Back to Search List
How to Make a Desk Manual
We all like to think we're irreplaceable but, let's face it, keeping information organised in such a manner that a temp can come in to your desk or department and perform is the mark of a true office professional. One of the best ways to organise information for those you support, and therefore those who might be sitting at your desk one day completely clueless, is a little known document called the desk manual.
But What is it?
A desk manual is just that – a document that gives a temporary replacement enough information to be productive. After all, every company has their own way of doing things and ensuring a temporary replacement is able to work effectively speaks volumes about the person who left the manual behind "just in case".
Formatting Your Manual
If you're a ringed binder kind of person then, by all means, go ahead. We've seen them in notebooks, binders, and spiral bound books, the format you decide to use is generally up to you, but here's where it shouldn't be: in the computer – at least not exclusively.
Why not? Because in most cases your replacement won't even have a login password. This is one case where electronic isn't better, though you should certainly keep your master document in electronic format for easy revision. (And if this will be your first desk manual, there will be revisions aplenty!
Use tabs, title pages, and table of contents. You can make your desk manual as elaborate as you like. However, what is really important is that the information it holds is clearly organised and easy to cross-reference.
Start at the Beginning
It's really not so hard to figure out what goes in a good desk manual. Recall your first day on the job? Start a list of the things you didn't know on that first day, add to it the things you've implemented since you took your position and finish off with corporate standards. Font sizes, memo templates, the location of logo files, should all be within easy reach of someone who's filling your seat for a temporary run.
Let's assume that you need to document your process for creating a sales team meeting. Jot down a list of all the things you need to do to create the meeting; try not to forget those items that you might do routinely. Remember, Trish the Temp won't know that it's your job to stop at the bakery and pick up croissants unless you tell her.
Mentally, take the process from start to finish: whom to email, what actions you must take and which actions you must oversee that are being taken care of by others. Is there a need for a meeting agenda? Where does that information come from? Do you need email confirmations from potential attendees? Where's the email list to be found? Is the conference room reserved ahead of time or does it need to be done prior to your meeting? Where does that coffee come from? In fact, where is that coffeepot anyway?
How to Create a Desk Manual
It's easy to see why lots of office support professionals are apprehensive at beginning a desk manual, isn't it? The process can quickly become overwhelming! One good thing is that most desk manuals are self-generated. Very few managers will come to you and demand you create one; doing so is professional business practice and clearly communicates you are part of the business team, intent on making sure things happen properly, even if you can't be at your desk on a given day. It shows your ability to be a professional, even when you're not at the office.
As you begin to document your processes, simply add them to your desk manual on a daily or weekly basis, until you've got a running list by day of the week of duties you accomplish and how you get them done.
Organising the Information into Something Useful
As you begin the documentation process you'll find that you tend to generate lots of small lists, and that's fine, but after you've documented for a few weeks, you'll need to boil the data you've collected down into an easy to use format.
First weed out duplicate information. For instance you may have ten lists that say “Send a memo to Sales and Marketing, use Memo Template XYZ, which can be found at C:word/Templates/Memo1.doc.â€
Begin to separate out the "hard goods", from the "soft goods". For instance, you may want to create a section of your manual that lists email addresses by department or duty. If your Monday morning meeting is the same eight people, create a list, set up a section for email Lists and define them alphabetically. For instance:
Sales Meetings, Marketing
Sales Meetings, Salesmen
The "soft goods" section of your desk manual separates the wheat from the chafe when it comes to communication of information. Most of us have little bits of information that help us excel, little secrets we've learned that cause people to tell us how wonderful we are – things like knowing the boss likes two sugars in her coffee or that Ted in Sales can't stand to have calls forwarded to him without them being announced first. Most of these things come with experience, and most of us are often afraid to give up that little bit of information for fear that "just anyone could do my job, if they know everything I know!" However, sharing this type of information can make the difference between you, the working professional, having a successful time off or coming back to chaos.
Create a basic running list and call it "Things you might find helpful." Include those running items that are useful in your busy day but avoid personal statements. For instance a proper "soft goods" entry might be: “Announce all calls into the Sales Department.†Never "Ted gets really upset if you don't announce his phone calls." Remember, you are communicating how you do your job; this is a professional document and may well be viewed by lots of people when you're away! So keep it simple, and on as professional a level as possible without leaving out that "special touch" you give your daily duties.
Consider this scenario. You've entered a contest at DeskDemon and won a fabulous trip to Paris for the week. The boss's none too pleased that you'll be gone for a week, but she gives in and authorises the time off for you and brings in a temp. If he/she performs well, has most of the answers at hand, will it be easier to get time off if you should need it again? You bet! Is your position diminished in any way by leaving the information for another individual to provide useful support for your employer? A resounding NO!
And a well-written desk manual says you have your boss’s (and therefore your company's) best interests at heart. Letting someone know the boss likes two sugars, or that the corporate standard for font at your company is Arial 12 pt, isn't going to cost you your job. But having the boss get no tea at all, and forcing her to answer simple routine questions about daily operations, is a sure way to communicate that you're the only one with all the answers; not a good thing from management's point of view!
A Caveat: What Should Never Be There!
Your desk manual should never contain computer passwords or logins. Most company IT policies forbid the sharing of this information, sometimes under penalty of termination. Instead, give the name of the proper contact person to obtain the information. We stress, never create a listing of security logins or passwords. If you work at a smaller company, get the boss’s input on how he/she would like sensitive information passed to a temporary person. At a larger company, HR and IT will give you information on the company standard for dealing with this type of information.
Where to Leave it?
Desk manuals should be clearly marked, and the boss should be informed of where it is kept; remember, even without those computer logins included, email addresses, memo formats, etc., are company property, so a good rule of thumb is to tell the boss where you've put it and make sure it's updated as often as possible.
Will you get everything? Possibly. We've seen desk manuals that contained everything from maps to the ladies room to lists of close restaurants that deliver, to day-by-day documentation of every task undertaken. It's a growth process and the longer you're in your position the more important it will be to have a proper manual put together.
A Final Benefit of Desk Manuals
Creating a desk manual has a terrific side effect. It helps you to quantify your duties. This is helpful when you're trying to explain to the boss that you need extra help, or even when you're trying to tell someone that you don't have enough to do. At performance review time, it can be a terrific tool for documenting your work processes in a format that can be easy to refer to when you need to make a convincing series of statements about your job description or workload.
Besides, who wants to come back to a grumpy boss who didn't get her sales meeting set up properly or any sugar in her tea?
But What is it?
A desk manual is just that – a document that gives a temporary replacement enough information to be productive. After all, every company has their own way of doing things and ensuring a temporary replacement is able to work effectively speaks volumes about the person who left the manual behind "just in case".
Formatting Your Manual
If you're a ringed binder kind of person then, by all means, go ahead. We've seen them in notebooks, binders, and spiral bound books, the format you decide to use is generally up to you, but here's where it shouldn't be: in the computer – at least not exclusively.
Why not? Because in most cases your replacement won't even have a login password. This is one case where electronic isn't better, though you should certainly keep your master document in electronic format for easy revision. (And if this will be your first desk manual, there will be revisions aplenty!
Use tabs, title pages, and table of contents. You can make your desk manual as elaborate as you like. However, what is really important is that the information it holds is clearly organised and easy to cross-reference.
Start at the Beginning
It's really not so hard to figure out what goes in a good desk manual. Recall your first day on the job? Start a list of the things you didn't know on that first day, add to it the things you've implemented since you took your position and finish off with corporate standards. Font sizes, memo templates, the location of logo files, should all be within easy reach of someone who's filling your seat for a temporary run.
Let's assume that you need to document your process for creating a sales team meeting. Jot down a list of all the things you need to do to create the meeting; try not to forget those items that you might do routinely. Remember, Trish the Temp won't know that it's your job to stop at the bakery and pick up croissants unless you tell her.
Mentally, take the process from start to finish: whom to email, what actions you must take and which actions you must oversee that are being taken care of by others. Is there a need for a meeting agenda? Where does that information come from? Do you need email confirmations from potential attendees? Where's the email list to be found? Is the conference room reserved ahead of time or does it need to be done prior to your meeting? Where does that coffee come from? In fact, where is that coffeepot anyway?
How to Create a Desk Manual
It's easy to see why lots of office support professionals are apprehensive at beginning a desk manual, isn't it? The process can quickly become overwhelming! One good thing is that most desk manuals are self-generated. Very few managers will come to you and demand you create one; doing so is professional business practice and clearly communicates you are part of the business team, intent on making sure things happen properly, even if you can't be at your desk on a given day. It shows your ability to be a professional, even when you're not at the office.
As you begin to document your processes, simply add them to your desk manual on a daily or weekly basis, until you've got a running list by day of the week of duties you accomplish and how you get them done.
Organising the Information into Something Useful
As you begin the documentation process you'll find that you tend to generate lots of small lists, and that's fine, but after you've documented for a few weeks, you'll need to boil the data you've collected down into an easy to use format.
First weed out duplicate information. For instance you may have ten lists that say “Send a memo to Sales and Marketing, use Memo Template XYZ, which can be found at C:word/Templates/Memo1.doc.â€
Begin to separate out the "hard goods", from the "soft goods". For instance, you may want to create a section of your manual that lists email addresses by department or duty. If your Monday morning meeting is the same eight people, create a list, set up a section for email Lists and define them alphabetically. For instance:
Sales Meetings, Marketing
Sales Meetings, Salesmen
The "soft goods" section of your desk manual separates the wheat from the chafe when it comes to communication of information. Most of us have little bits of information that help us excel, little secrets we've learned that cause people to tell us how wonderful we are – things like knowing the boss likes two sugars in her coffee or that Ted in Sales can't stand to have calls forwarded to him without them being announced first. Most of these things come with experience, and most of us are often afraid to give up that little bit of information for fear that "just anyone could do my job, if they know everything I know!" However, sharing this type of information can make the difference between you, the working professional, having a successful time off or coming back to chaos.
Create a basic running list and call it "Things you might find helpful." Include those running items that are useful in your busy day but avoid personal statements. For instance a proper "soft goods" entry might be: “Announce all calls into the Sales Department.†Never "Ted gets really upset if you don't announce his phone calls." Remember, you are communicating how you do your job; this is a professional document and may well be viewed by lots of people when you're away! So keep it simple, and on as professional a level as possible without leaving out that "special touch" you give your daily duties.
Consider this scenario. You've entered a contest at DeskDemon and won a fabulous trip to Paris for the week. The boss's none too pleased that you'll be gone for a week, but she gives in and authorises the time off for you and brings in a temp. If he/she performs well, has most of the answers at hand, will it be easier to get time off if you should need it again? You bet! Is your position diminished in any way by leaving the information for another individual to provide useful support for your employer? A resounding NO!
And a well-written desk manual says you have your boss’s (and therefore your company's) best interests at heart. Letting someone know the boss likes two sugars, or that the corporate standard for font at your company is Arial 12 pt, isn't going to cost you your job. But having the boss get no tea at all, and forcing her to answer simple routine questions about daily operations, is a sure way to communicate that you're the only one with all the answers; not a good thing from management's point of view!
A Caveat: What Should Never Be There!
Your desk manual should never contain computer passwords or logins. Most company IT policies forbid the sharing of this information, sometimes under penalty of termination. Instead, give the name of the proper contact person to obtain the information. We stress, never create a listing of security logins or passwords. If you work at a smaller company, get the boss’s input on how he/she would like sensitive information passed to a temporary person. At a larger company, HR and IT will give you information on the company standard for dealing with this type of information.
Where to Leave it?
Desk manuals should be clearly marked, and the boss should be informed of where it is kept; remember, even without those computer logins included, email addresses, memo formats, etc., are company property, so a good rule of thumb is to tell the boss where you've put it and make sure it's updated as often as possible.
Will you get everything? Possibly. We've seen desk manuals that contained everything from maps to the ladies room to lists of close restaurants that deliver, to day-by-day documentation of every task undertaken. It's a growth process and the longer you're in your position the more important it will be to have a proper manual put together.
A Final Benefit of Desk Manuals
Creating a desk manual has a terrific side effect. It helps you to quantify your duties. This is helpful when you're trying to explain to the boss that you need extra help, or even when you're trying to tell someone that you don't have enough to do. At performance review time, it can be a terrific tool for documenting your work processes in a format that can be easy to refer to when you need to make a convincing series of statements about your job description or workload.
Besides, who wants to come back to a grumpy boss who didn't get her sales meeting set up properly or any sugar in her tea?
|
|