5 Reasons Your Non-Techs Need Documentation Too
BY IT GLUE | January 22, 2019
Guess what? Your non-technical employees love saving time too. The problem of time waste is unfortunately not just limited to solving tickets; it’s everywhere. It’s in marketing, sales, human resources, finance – the list go on. What’s the solution? The same solution you’ve gotten your techs on board with. Documentation. Here’s why:
1) Shared knowledge
When information is stuck in the head of individual employees, nobody benefits. Instead, documentation provides a shared bank of knowledge. Think about your hiring process. When a new employee comes in, how do you get them effective in their job as quickly as possible? Regardless of their position or department, it’s likely a senior employee who steps in to help with training. With SOPs and other procedural documentation in a central location, new hires can get up to speed far more efficiently.
Leveraging documentation as a source of shared knowledge isn’t limited to hiring processes, though. It’s effective anytime an employee goes on vacation, has to take a sick day, or simply to become more efficient in the day-to-day. The less your employees have to shoulder-tap to get answers, the more time they’ll save in their jobs.
2) Efficiency
Time waste is a problem no matter what your job title is. The tasks may be different, but any department can benefit from having streamlined processes and standardization.
3) Transparency across teams
The importance of documentation isn’t confined to individual departments. It has benefits for the collective organization. Recently we spoke with a partner who uses IT Glue across all of his teams. He emphasized the cross-team transparency it provides his MSP, offering the ability for everyone to be in tune with all parts of the company.
4) Security
Every department uses passwords. Probably a lot of them, too. So how are your teams sharing passwords among colleagues? When every member of the team is documenting passwords in one secure location, it reduces the likelihood of poor password practices like sharing a password in an email. Security permissions will ensure that the right people have access to the necessary passwords and that you can keep track of this access after an employee leaves.
5) Competitive advantage
Think about it. You’ve seen the benefits of documentation from your techs. Now imagine those same benefits across your entire business. Better yet, documentation is something that not everybody is doing (even if they should be), which means that you have a competitive advantage when you get your entire team on board. Think about your sales team. Rather than using sales calls to focus on price, focus on the documentation. Documentation is proof of process. In other words, your documentation showcases to your clients exactly how you’ll hit your SLAs, and stay accountable for what you’ve said you’ll accomplish.
So how do you get your non-techs documenting? Pretty much the same approach you took with your techs. Show the value that documentation will bring – the time savings, the efficiency, and then continue to be the documentation evangelist all of your teams need.
Interested in learning more about what IT Glue can do for your MSP? Sign up for a demo today.
Documentation is a source of competitive advantage. When your processes are well-documented, they move from being individual knowledge to team knowledge. You execute consistently and do not waste time looking for information, because it’s always at your fingertips. Companies with a high level of documentation maturity enjoy higher revenue growth, increased cost savings and superior valuations. IT Glue can help you get there.
