Employee Training Manual Template (Free Template)
Most small-business training manuals are either a 60-page binder nobody reads or nothing at all. This template helps owners of cafés, restaurants, shops, salons and cleaning companies put together the middle option: a short manual that covers how you work, plus a set of task procedures staff can open on their phone. Build it once, then update one section at a time as things change.
Free, no sign-up. Edit it, print it, share it with your team.
What you'll need
- A list of every task in the role
- Your house rules (breaks, phones, uniform)
- Photos of key equipment and stations
The steps
Write a one-paragraph welcome that says what the business does and who it's for.
Keep it human. New staff want to know what a good day looks like here, not your mission statement.
List the house rules on one page.
Start times, breaks, phones on shift, uniform, staff food and drinks, swapping shifts and calling in sick.
Add who to contact for what, with names and phone numbers.
Schedule questions, pay questions, broken equipment, emergencies.
Write out the safety basics for your workplace.
Emergency exits, the first aid kit, how to report an injury, chemicals and hot or sharp equipment. Follow the rules where you operate.
Watch out: Keep safety separate and at the front, not buried inside a task procedure.
List every task in the role, grouped by when it happens.
Opening, during the shift, closing, weekly and occasional. This list becomes the manual's table of contents.
Write a step-by-step procedure for each task on the list.
One task per procedure, one action per step. Start with the tasks that cause the most mistakes.
Add a photo to every step where seeing helps.
Settings, finished results, where things are stored.
Describe your customer service standard in five lines or fewer.
How to greet, how to handle a wait, how to apologize, when to call a manager.
Add a first-week plan that says which sections to learn on which day.
A manual without a plan gets read once, on day one, and forgotten.
Add a sign-off list so trainers can mark each task as learned.
Date, trainer and the new hire's initials or confirmation.
Put a review date and an owner on the front page.
Whoever owns the manual updates it when equipment, products or the menu change.
How to adapt it
- Keep the manual short and the procedures detailed. Nobody reads policy, but everyone looks up how to do a task.
- Use the words your team uses on shift, not formal job titles.
- Ask your newest hire what was missing from their training, and add it.
- Split it by role if front and back of house do very different work.
Turn this template into training your team will actually open
In ShowHow, your staff read each step on their phone, with photos, in their own language, and you see who has confirmed it. Start from this template or film yourself doing the job.
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