Included in every session will be one or more Skill Set exercises to help you engage with the Big Ideas presented. While this is optional, don’t cheat yourself and move through the Roadmap without applying the concepts you’re learning! Challenge yourself to complete every Skill Set activity and see what changes in your business as a result. We promise good things will happen.
Do you have an Owner’s Manual that outlines the processes and procedures that run your company? The Owner’s and Painter’s Manual examples described in the Roadmap to Profit come directly out of the Walls By Design manuals that are used everyday in that company. Learn more about how to use the Walls By Design manuals as templates in your own company, or consider using the section below to better refine your own process!
Owner’s Manual
Consider the following sections that should be included in an Owner’s Manual, and review the questions designed to get you thinking about building these processes in your company.
Section 1: Company Overview
- What is your company’s basic mission/vision?
- What kind of team do you have?
- Who is your ideal customer/target market?
- What is your essential service?
- What do you want your employees to know about the value of working at your company?
- What are the expectations of employees who work at your company?
- What is the leadership structure like?
- Consider including common items from standard employee handbooks in this section
Section 2: Policies
- List all the roles in your company. Are these the roles you need to have, or the roles you created while your company was still young? If you need to update the roles list, bring your leadership team together to discuss.
- Create job descriptions for all roles. Have your employees help! This will mostly cover management, administrative, sales, and office roles. Painter and project management roles will be built in the Painter’s Manual, but can be combined in the more comprehensive Owner’s Manual.
- With each job description, describe how these roles interact with other roles. Use the RACI model of role interactions explained in the “job description” section below
- This is a great time to review pay ranges for each of the roles in your company. If you are considering revising pay ranges, bring your leadership team together to discuss.
Section 3: Procedures
- Describe how management, administrative, sales, and office tasks work in your company
- Remember to include simple processes like clocking in, tracking time, safety, and equipment care/tracking.
Section 4: Forms
- What forms are in use? How are these organized? Are they available on your website? Make sure they are listed in your Owner’s Manual.
- Are there other forms that would be useful to have available for your staff during this stage of your growth, or to prepare you for your next stage of growth? Bring your team together to discuss.
Painter’s Manual
Consider the following sections that should be included in an Painter’s Manual, and review the questions designed to get you thinking about building these processes in your company.
Section 1: Company Overview
- Provide this section from the Owner’s Manual
Section 2: Policies
- Follow the steps listed in the Owner’s Manual section
- Include all field and project management positions
- Are these the positions you need in your company to grow? If not, what other positions do you need to add to your company in the following year?
- Have your employees assist you in developing job descriptions and role interactions utilizing the RACI model below
- Clearly defined pay ranges and bonus structures give employees something to shoot for. Consider further exploring the piece-rate bonus structure introduced in the R2P program!
Section 3: Procedures
- Describe how field and project management tasks work in your company
- Remember to include simple processes like clocking in, tracking time, safety, and equipment care/tracking.
Section 4: Forms
- What forms are in use? How are these organized? Are they available on your website? Make sure they are listed in your Painter’s Manual.
- Consider forms like pre-work damage report, equipment tracking, and change orders. If these forms are available on your website, employees can have access to them 24/7.
Job Descriptions
Human resource professionals often use the RACI system to help create job descriptions that describe how roles interact with each other. For the tasks and roles you have outlined for your company, determine who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. This will help provide clarity and boundaries. Studies show that when employees know what they are responsible for, they form more resilient teams.
- Responsible: The person who does the work to achieve the task. They have responsibility for getting the work done or decision made. As a rule this is one person; examples might be a business analyst, application developer or technical architect.
- Accountable: The person who is accountable for the correct and thorough completion of the task. This must be one person and is often the project executive or project sponsor. This is the role that responsible is accountable to and approves their work.
- Consulted: The people who provide information for the project and with whom there is two-way communication. This is usually several people, often subject matter experts.
- Informed: The people kept informed of progress and with whom there is one-way communication. These are people that are affected by the outcome of the tasks, so need to be kept up-to-date.
