If you’ve started hearing the term ‘playbook’ in relation to business, you might be wondering what is a company playbook – and, more importantly, whether your own business needs a playbook.
This blog post takes a closer look at playbooks for businesses and gives you all the information you need to help you decide if a company playbook is right for you. It covers the areas below, giving you all you need to get started on a playbook right away if you want to.
- What is a playbook?
- Does your business need a playbook?
- How to create a playbook
- Resources for making your own playbooks
What is a Playbook for Business?
The term playbook comes from American football, where every play and strategy used by a team is documented in a notebook or ‘playbook’. It is given to the players to study and memorise before the season begins.
This means that everyone is on the same page, literally, about what’s expected in every set of circumstances. This allows the team to keep performing as a whole and at its best, even as things change around them.
High performance in business already borrows liberally from the sporting world. Think coaching, team-building strategies, winning mindsets and visualising success. Playbooks are a more recent cross-over, but it’s a safe guess that they will become increasingly relied upon.
Documenting all the important ‘moves’ a business or team has in its repertoire means that everyone has clarity on the procedures, strategies and who’s who within a business.
Importantly, it means no one drops the ball when key people aren’t around, because everyone knows what needs to be done when – and exactly how to do it.
Do you need a playbook?
Having a playbook gives your business stability and predictability, and this means you can scale your organisation successfully. So, yes, a playbook is for you if:
- You’re already successful and want to scale up.
- You’d like to be less involved in the day-to-day running of the business.
- Core business activities sit with a few key people. You’re worried about how the business would cope if they leave.
- Your business has grown rapidly and now’s the time to standardise best practice.
Creating a playbook doesn’t have to mean a lot of work. It’s really about recording what your business already does, rather than devising systems to put in the playbook.
Here’s a closer look at how to put one together.
What goes in a business playbook?
A company playbook outlines how your business does what it does, down to each role, responsibility and business strategy. It should capture your business processes, policies and standard operating procedures.
Playbooks can also contain your orientation for new employees, as well as an overview of everyone in the business and what they do. You can also include documents on training for each role and responsibility.
Creating a playbook in 3 steps
Audit: Start by auditing what you do. This means writing down the processes that your team runs regularly, like your roster of meetings, what they’re for and who runs each one. If your business makes regular deliveries, your playbook could detail how to pack and ship items and manage returns.
Capture: Get the people who perform tasks or roles particularly well to describe what they do and record this version. This will formalise the best version of this process so that consistent results are delivered going forward.
Share: Show the playbook to people before you finalise it, and see if they can follow tasks they’re not familiar with simply by using the playbook. If they can, you’re good to go. They can also give you feedback on what needs more explanation, or what’s missing from the playbook.
Who should write your playbook?
Just because you’re the leader, that doesn’t mean you have to build the entire playbook yourself. In fact, quite the opposite.
Putting together a playbook should be a team sport. The people who know certain processes better than anyone else are vital when it comes to creating a record of what your business does and exactly how it’s done.
Ideally, everyone should document the piece they’re responsible for. This means that HR processes are compiled by whoever looks after HR and recruitment, while successful sales strategies are written out by the sales team (ideally the top performers).
This way, creating the playbook doesn’t all fall to one person, though it can be helpful to have one individual pull it all together and keep the project on track.
Once you’ve published your playbook, you’ll be surprised how helpful it is, for everything from onboarding and training the next staff, to covering team members who are away.
Playbooks can also shed light on areas that need tightening up, and reveal gaps in processes like data gathering and storage, or business continuity for example.
Your playbook should be checked and updated every six months or so, to keep up with changes within your business or team. If you decide to sell your business, bring in investors or hire new senior staff, the playbook provides an invaluable snapshot from the inside, to complement financial figures and other data.
Staff benefits and playbooks
Playbooks are especially valuable to new starters, so they’re an excellent place to record the details of your staff benefits and perks.
Communicating what rewards are available to staff is nearly as important as offering them in the first place because they’re only of benefit once they are used. Research shows that staff members use an average of four or more benefits. Offering a range of benefits, and communicating effectively about how to access them, can actually save you money through NI savings.
Read: How employee benefits can save your business money.
Take a look at our full range of staff benefits here. If you’d like to find out more about signing up for our extensive rewards or expanding the ones you already offer, please get in touch.
Resources for playbooks
- The online design platform Canva offers templates for playbooks that you can download. Cava has a free version and you can pay to upgrade for more options.
- Trainual also offers free templates for company processes and policies. Click here.
- Harvard Business Review: How tracking successful plays increased sales success.
- Read more: What is a playbook, on LinkedIn Pulse.
About Enjoy Benefits
At Enjoy Benefits, we have great experience in helping companies of all sizes introduce benefits that are suitable for their workplace.
Benefits are easy to set up and ongoing administration is then run through a hub, allowing employees to manage their own benefits while the employer can see which benefits are proving popular and what level of take-up each has had.
If you would like an obligation-free chat to discuss which benefits might work for your business and your employees, please contact us by calling 0800 088 7315 or using our Contact Form.
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