The situation: Your business is growing fast. Jobs are getting done quickly because your team is communicating more efficiently than ever. And you have people waiting to hire you because they love the recent projects on your site.
So you need to hire some help and get them up to speed, like yesterday. But you’re busy managing all the moving pieces and don’t have a ton of time to train them on the nitty-gritty. If only there were something out there to help…
Luckily, dear reader, you’re in the right place. Our checklists were designed to help our users create standardized, transparent, and easily repeatable outlines for their work.
And they work incredibly well for training because they lay out clear expectations, giving you peace of mind that the work will get done the way you hope without having to be on-site with your crew all the time.
Here are some tips on putting checklists to work so you can get back to doing the same.
Spell It All Out
List out everything your trainee needs to do once they get to your shop or a job site. Do they need to load up specific gear? Check in with a site manager? Write it down.
The more you can get out of your head and into lists, the more you set your new hire up for success. They don’t know what they don’t know.
Plus, thinking about processes might help you streamline your standard operating procedures and find redundancies that you can cut out.
Build Your List
Organize these tasks in the order they need to be completed. Then start adding them to your new checklist in a project.
Pro tip: If a task takes more than two hours to complete, consider breaking it into its own section with smaller steps underneath.
Another reason to use checklists in CompanyCam is that you can require photos to be posted to the task in order for it to be checked off. Not only does this help you cover your butt, but it also allows you to peek in on their work while you’re away.
To Require Photos or Not?
More often than not, you should require a photo for completion. You’re already using our app to document your work, right?
We suggest you require photos for tasks like:
- Site check-in and checkout
- Installation progress
- Anything that adjusters or agencies may need to see
But for less visual or internal tasks — like calling to check in with you or stopping for lunch — there’s probably no need to require a photo. That is unless you really want to see what they brought to eat.
Track Their Progress
Whether you’re in the office or at another job, you can quickly get an overview of how things are going. If you see them stuck on something, @ mention them in the project comments to see if they need help.
You can also check out their photos and leave notes and feedback on the images if you need more or clearer details.
Refine Your Process
After your new employee starts getting the hang of things, they might find some efficiencies and unnecessary tasks. But there’s no need to start from scratch — you can go back to your saved templates and edit, remove, or add tasks and sections based on their feedback.
Once it’s where you want it, save it as a template so that you can replicate it on the projects your trainee will be working on.
Pro tip: Create a template for the administrative tasks in the onboarding process. Include things like what to bring on the first day, the location of your shop, and other logins or access they may need.
Checklists were once one of our most requested features. Now they’re live in the app and helping our Pro and Premium users work and onboard their new hires more efficiently than ever before.
Ready to get started? Make a checklist in the CompanyCam app or on the web today.
