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Why your techs ignore the procedures you wrote

2026-08-24

Owners usually explain this as an attitude problem. Occasionally it is. More often the document is the problem, and four things about it are fixable this week.

It is too long

A two page procedure gets skimmed, and skimming produces the same behavior as not reading while giving you paperwork that suggests otherwise. Seven steps is roughly the ceiling for something read on a phone with one hand.

It is written in a voice nobody uses

Procedures written in formal English read like they came from somewhere else, and they get treated as somebody else's rules. If your crew says disconnect, the document should say disconnect. Translating shop language into corporate language costs you compliance and buys you nothing.

It is not there when the work is

A procedure in the office is not available in a crawlspace. A procedure in a folder on a laptop is not available on a roof. If reaching it requires a login on a phone with one bar, it does not exist.

The version that gets used is the one on a QR code on the van door, or a link that keeps working after the signal drops.

It is wrong and everyone knows

This is the one owners miss. A procedure that describes a tool the shop replaced two years ago tells the crew that the document is decoration. Once one step is obviously stale, the rest become optional in the reader's mind.

The fix is to let the crew flag it. A technician who has found a better sequence is the most valuable input you have into that procedure, and a shop where suggesting an edit is normal ends up with documents that describe how the work is actually done.

The uncomfortable test

Pick your most important procedure. Ask three technicians, separately, to describe step four. If you get three answers, the document is not the problem you thought it was.