You have the information your people need to do the job they have to do. But where do you store it?

If it's critical information that people use frequently (i.e. "Red means STOP!") it needs to reside right there in their memory, where it's ready to be retrieved when needed. The only way to get it there is through hands-on, performance-based training, and practice, practice, practice.

But if information is used infrequently, or if there's just too much of it to store in people's memories without information overload, the best place for it is in a manual. Your people have enough on their minds. A task-oriented, user-friendly, step-by-step manual can be the perfect delivery solution for just-in-time information and training, helping your people do the job correctly first time and every time, whether it's done once a year or once a day.

Classroom training is costly and time-consuming, and unless the trainees use the information they learn immediately on the job, they forget it within days or weeks. Whenever possible, we recommend collecting and storing practical but infrequently used information in step-by-step manuals, and making these available for use - when needed!

Getting things in writing also helps to standardize procedures. It's amazing how when you just write things down, efficiencies seem to jump up at you!

North Pacific has created dozens of step-by-step manuals, job aids, paper-based tutorials, and Policies & Procedures documentation to international industry standards. Because sometimes the best thing you can do is read the manual.