Writing work instructions concisely and clearly will guide employees to do a certain task and job correctly. This will improve efficiency in the workplace and maintain quality standards.

Work instructions are documents that refer to guidelines for performing assignments. They provide precise descriptions of tasks to reduce potential mistakes, inconveniences, and setbacks. You might hear of them as job aids, work guides, or user manuals, as they usually refer to that as well. Manufacturing, healthcare, transport, science, and research are some industries that rely heavily on work instructions. 

But you might find it useful if you aren't from those specific industries. So, we will give you all the details about work instructions, how to create templates for those, and how you can implement them in your business.

Work instructions are essential to a business's success as they help support processes that would make up the company's day-to-day activities. 

By making work instructions, employers ensure that the best way of doing a specific task is clearly understood, communicated, and implemented. Regardless of the task owner, it guarantees a consistent outcome of projects or common tasks. This will ensure that operations and business processes are running smoothly.

Project managers usually confuse work instructions with SOPs. Both communicate business procedures and ensure the correct procedure between quality management systems, but they aren’t the same. 

SOPs outline the steps involved in doing a task from start to finish. Meanwhile, work instructions detail how workers should perform an individual standard operating procedure. To summarize, detailed work instructions will tell you how to execute SOPs.

But only SOPs that require more than a couple of elaborative steps should have them. The easiest way to start documenting a procedure is to outline the SOP steps. Once completed, you can go back and write work instructions for items requiring greater detail and clarification. This will ensure that everyone understands it.

Now we will see a step-by-step guide to how to write work instructions properly. It can be daunting at first, but by following the next tasks, you will be able to do it with no issues.

Write a Title

It would be your introduction, so it is crucial to get this part right. Try giving some context and briefly explaining the process the task is part of. Also, identify who the task owners are and state the output, briefly mentioning the purpose of the work instruction.

Lastly, the title must refer to the job or task performed. For example, how to disinfect your hands.

Describe the Purpose

Ask yourself why you are preparing this process documentation and its purpose. These questions will help you to step back and think about what you are trying to accomplish. 

The answer to these questions shouldn't only state the output that you already clarify but help you deepen your understanding before jumping into further details. 

Following our previous example, the purpose of the "how to disinfect your hands" instructions would be clear "to avoid spreading bacteria and prevent the risk of others getting sick."

Describe the Process of “How to Do It”

First, you must state a list of materials required to do the job. List them using bullet points to better distinguish which materials are provided and which aren't. You might include other relevant documents or helpful references directly to the text in hyperlinks. It will help your readers to clarify things.

In the description, there are three basic formats that you should use: flowcharts, a decision table, and the cookbook format. Some formats might work better for specific tasks, according to their complexity. People are visual learners, so whenever you go with a flowchart or a decision table, include images, as it will be the best approach for your readers.

Make It Clear and Easy to Read

The entire document serves as an educational tool. Try putting yourself in your reader's shoes and think about ways to improve their work instruction reading.

There are some pieces of advice that you can follow to help you with it.

• Choose format and stick with it.
• Try to break down steps into a number sequence. If it consists of many steps, like 10, you should divide the different topics. One step should describe one action that doesn't take more than 15 seconds to perform.
• Use drawings and images, and ensure such image fits the text. You can keep the image on the paper's left side and the text on the right side.
• You can emphasize important and relevant information using bold, upper case, and italicized text.
• Turn any list into a numbered or bulleted list.

Keep It Simple

The key to writing clear work instructions is to keep them brief and simple. You can use the following recommendations to ensure you are doing it that way.

• Write simple and short sentences, no longer than 15 words, and without clauses.
• Use a simple vocabulary with short words. Make it easy for your readers to understand.
• Try to avoid acronyms. If you use it, spell it out the first time you use it, and enclose the acronym between brackets. Then, you can use the acronym from then on.
• Include a list of abbreviations the reader can refer to.
• Determine which term you will use to describe something and stick with it. You shouldn’t use different words to describe the same thing. 
• Use active sentences and not passive ones. For example, going back to disinfecting your hands, you should write "dry your hands thoroughly" instead of saying "your hands should be dried thoroughly."

Add References

Add footnotes or an appendix at the end of the document. It is always helpful to give additional sources of information and suggestions for further learning and reading.

Test the Work Instruction

Ask a colleague to perform one of the tasks by following your work instructions. This will help you to see if there is any part that might be confusing or need further explanation. Ask your colleague to read the draft and give feedback about the work instruction. 

Request to do the job following your work instructions without giving further explanation or help. Observe and note what should be added or changed to your work instruction document.

This template is specially designed to write down security measures when performing certain tasks. Use this work instruction template for those jobs that could prove a health risk for your employees.

You can download it from TemplateLab as a Word document.

ISO-9001 Work Instruction Template

It provides detailed instructions for projects that comply with the 9001 and related quality management systems. The template has comprehensive details that outline the instructions involved in a 9001-compliant process. 

You can download this template as an Excel spreadsheet from Project Slac Stanford.

Work Instructions Template

This template is designed in a basic work instruction format and provides a standard outline for work instructions. It also provides standard sections used in all work instructions and directions to provide section-content guidance for those who generate or update work instructions.

You can download it as a Word document from the NASA website.

QA Work Instructions Template

This template provides guidance and step-by-step instructions for good documentation practices to be used on official documentation at QA tasks.

You can download this document for Word from TemplateLab.

Manufacturing Work Instructions Template

This template helps to lay out the framework and instructions to improve business processes. You will be able to provide directions for each manufacturing procedure. It is easy to edit and will help you eliminate confusion by outlining each manufacturing job and all its details.

You can download it for Excel from the Smartsheet website. 

Work Instructions for Writing Documents Template

This template will help you set the work instructions to define the criteria for properly making documentation structures. It will help you to establish a consistent layout and format to produce uniformly structured documentation.

You can download it for Microsoft Word from TemplateLab. 

Construction Work Instructions Template

This template is designed to write comprehensive and logical instructions for a construction project. It has many fields to document individual steps, projected or actual completion dates, authorizations, and master production schedules. 

You can get this Excel template for free from Smartsheet.