Documentation – An Important Tool to Increase Income & Ease Stressful Situations

You can’t truly succeed in the building industry without great documentation. It’s just that simple. You hear about the importance of documentation, but for you and your team to truly get on board, you need to understand why documentation is such an integral part of your business. Here are some reasons why documentation is the key to your business success!

1) Training time and costs are reduced.

Say farewell to relying on new team members to learn about your business via osmosis. With proper documentation, a new employee can quickly learn your company’s processes, procedures, and your customer relationship dynamics without constant shoulder tapping to make corrections.

In addition to a reduction in errors, other team members contribute less time to assist with the learning curve and explanation of how tasks are completed, maintaining their focus on profitable activities. With clear documentation for a new member to easily reference, rather than receiving information only stored in the repository of someone’s mind, the onboarding process is streamlined and new employees start off on a solid beginning.

We all know that hiring new staff can sometimes be pricey, to successfully minimize your new hire’s time learning basic trainings, and maximize their time exploring the job and adding value to the team. With average documentation it takes about 10 weeks for a new employee to become 80% productive. But with a great documentation process in place, that can be cut to just 4 weeks!

Let’s say, for instance, you hire someone at an annual salary of $60,000. You may be shocked by the impact documentation can have on the real cost breakdown:

Average Documentation Great Documentation

80% effective in 10 weeks 80% effective in 4 weeks

272 hours onboarding 98 hours onboarding

Hard Cost $11,696 Hard Cost $4,214

Opportunity Cost $23,392 Opportunity Cost $8,428

Total Cost $35,088 Total Cost $12,642

Amount saved = $22,446

The opportunity cost is the cost of a new employee not being able to produce for your company and assumes a target gross margin of (+) 50%. Meaning you are looking at, with average documentation, a true cost of 1.5 times their salary for the first 10 weeks. These numbers show the true economic value of having a great documentation process in place. The $22,446 from above is also not only money saved, but also facilitates increased potential growth for your company due the new employee producing quality work sooner.

2) Employees do not have to be “mind readers”.

The most efficient way to get someone to do something is to document it. By documenting your process and procedure, you are ensuring efficiency, consistency, and peace of mind for everyone involved. This standardization of your processes ensures everyone in your company is working the same way, towards the same outcome. This not only benefits your clients, who are receiving consistent, quality service, but also removes variances from your bottom line.

3) More money.

TIME IS MONEY! The faster and more consistent you can complete tasks, the more you can achieve. Documenting your important information means less time trying to locate it. A large waste of time for a new employee, as well as a long-time employee, is searching for information. Documentation is also a competitive advantage. When your processes and procedures are showcased, your clients and customers won’t be choosing your services solely based on a price tag.

4) Documentation demonstrates a heightened level of professionalism.

Great documentation practices show your customers, clients, and prospects that you are dedicated and committed to your role as guardian of their mission-critical information. Clients will often pay premiums for the benefit of this level of confidence.

Documentation plays a pivotal role in ensuring your business’ success. Great communication is and will always be at the heart of any business. Great documentation simply takes that communication and puts it into a manageable framework that everyone can access for success. With great communication and documentation within your company, your bottom line will continue to grow.

Your company’s documentation plan makes each task easier to accomplish because your employees have a roadmap of what is needed and how to complete the task at hand.

Remember: “Time is Money.” By strategizing a proper documentation plan that fits your business, and implementing that plan, your company will save time, the workflow will run smoothly, your employees will be less stressed, and your bottom line will show the increase that you are seeking.

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