How do you handle repeat "how do I do X?" questions from your team?

[Frans VH]

Those of you with small teams - how do you handle training and "how do I do X?" questions?

I'm curious whether most people just rely on shadowing/asking colleagues,
or if you've found something that actually works for documenting processes.

(Context: thinking about this for a business owner I'm helping, not selling anything)

 

[UKSBD]

There are a lot of good suggestions in the replies above: setting up wikis, develop SOP, write employee handbooks... Those can help for your full time staff. However, like fisicx mentioned, this doesn't work for a bunch of summer interns. Trying to get them through a training is also difficult: people forget most of what they learned after a few days. So employees ask their senior colleague or their team lead, which takes time.

What do people do in those cases? What works/doesn't work?

From what you describe it doesn't sound like it's the temp workers that is the problem, it's not having enough more senior colleagues and team leaders.

How can you expect a seasonal, temp to have knowledge on over 30,000 products and not need to ask questions?

The alternative is to simplify categories

 

[UKSBD]

The solution is likely to be the employment of more full time staff who can be properly trained.

Or employ someone whose primary role is as a questions answerer

 

[zenithpa]

Honestly, in a lot of small businesses it still tends to be “just ask someone” or shadowing, which works up to a point but becomes difficult as the team grows.

What seems to work best is keeping simple process documentation alongside short screen recordings/videos for common tasks. Not overly corporate manuals, just clear step-by-step guidance people can quickly refer back to.

We’ve found it also reduces interruptions and stops knowledge sitting with just one person in the team.