Want a high-performing workforce in which employees consistently execute tasks accurately and efficiently? Guided Workflows are the answer. They streamline processes, reduce errors, and ensure continuous improvement—without any fancy new tech. In this article we’ll explore the nuances of a Guided Workflow and help you understand why they're so powerful.

In a world of AI, chatbots and augmented reality, is an article about “Guided Workflows” really the best use of your time?

I mean, it just doesn’t sound very sexy, does it?

Maybe not. But let me ask you a question: can you imagine a business in which every important process executed by employees (think onboarding, compliance, sales, customer support, etc.) was completed smoothly, without delays, confusion, or errors?

In fact, let’s take it one step further: can you imagine a business in which the outputs from those processes could be evaluated in an objective, reliable manner, so the employee receives timely feedback on how to improve next time?

Sound like fantasy?

Well, it’s not.

And all of this can be achieved within an ecosystem of Guided Workflows.

We’ve been using Guided Workflows for many years. They’ve transformed how we work, especially when it comes to onboarding new recruits. Whether it was making a video, writing a proposal, or building a training course, when it came to core business activities, new starters would rely on asking each other for help, an outdated Google Doc, or “winging it” to get the job done.

The experience was frustrating and results inconsistent.

Of course, once we’ve built a certain level of expertise, one can fumble one’s way through most day-to-day tasks without too many hiccups.

But what about when we’re delegating tasks to others or undertaking those complicated, infrequent tasks?

It’s safe to say, Guided Workflows have transformed how our business operates and has given us confidence that whoever is undertaking a task, things will be completed to the required standard.

What tech do I need?

Before we get stuck into the topic, let’s deal with the elephant in the room:

Do Guided Workflows require fancy new tech?

The answer is a resounding “NO!”.

The beauty of Guided Workflows is they can be created with whatever tech you’re currently using. In fact, when we started experimenting with Guided Workflows, we used pen and paper and they worked great!

However, as tech evolved, so have Guided Workflows. And now you can benefit from even more effective workflows, for the reasons outlined later in the article.

During the article, we’ve provided a number of images to show you the different features within Guided Workflows. These were created using Notion, which is our weapon of choice for designing and managing an ecosystem of workflows.

However, we are tool agnostic. In fact, sometimes it’s faster to get started with tools you already have, such as Microsoft Word, Excel or Google Docs etc.

So, don’t let tech be the reason you don’t benefit from the power of Guided Workflows.

What is a Guided Workflow?

One way to think about Guided Workflows is like a checklist on steroids.

But even that doesn’t do them justice.

Guided Workflows are structured, interactive processes, integrated into the flow of work, that walk employees through important business activities in a super efficient way. Designed well, they provide a foolproof way to guarantee a task is completed to a desired standard.

The best Guided Workflows include four key features:

Guidance
Continuous improvement
Tracking
Automation

While incorporating these features into a Guided Workflow will deliver the best results, not all workflows require all these features. Sometimes, it’s more effective to implement a basic workflow without some features just to get started.

Something is better than nothing type-a-thing.

However, below is the definitive guide to designing a best practice Guided Workflow with all functionality:

1. Guidance

All Guided Workflows include "just-in-time" performance support such as instructions, images, videos and/or insights from others who have completed the task in the past. Depending on the tool you use, guidance can be optional—if users already know how to undertake a task within the workflow, the guidance can remain hidden (as shown in the image below within the toggles). But for new starters, or for someone who hasn’t undertaken this workflow for several months, the guidance ensures the task is completed to the required standard in the most efficient way—no more asking colleagues or hunting around for support guides, because the instructions are baked right into the workflow itself.

This means the employee is happy (they followed a process and achieved the outcome with minimal fuss) and the manager is happy (the workflow was completed properly, so they’re confident of a job well done).

In the following image (a Guided Workflow for a salesperson created in Notion), the expanded toggles reveal the additional guidance needed to complete the task:

2. Continuous improvement

Incorporated into the most effective Guided Workflows is the ability for users to suggest updates to the workflow as they use it. Users are encouraged to refine the process, improve the guidance, or contribute insights to improve the workflow, meaning improvements are quickly implemented so anyone using the workflow in future will benefit.

E.g., imagine you’re using the workflow to prepare for a product demo to a potential new customer. You notice the software interface has recently been changed and this has not yet been updated in the guidance. So, depending on your company policy, you can either update the guidance with an updated screenshot or make a note of the change and put in a request for an official update. If you also receive some customer feedback after the demo that you know would help a colleague deliver their next demo more effectively, you could also add that feedback into the relevant part of the workflow (see image below).

This feature not only ensures workflows are relevant but also makes it easier and more efficient to maintain them.

The following images show a task within the workflow prompting the user to add insights after they’ve delivered their demo, which will resurface next time someone uses the workflow.

This is one of the most powerful features of a Convergent Onboarding ecosystem because every time someone uses the workflow, they are prompted to record insights e.g., what questions the customer asked or any “lessons learned”.

Over time, the workflow becomes more and more valuable, and ensures the expertise gleaned by other employees isn’t lost in the ether.

This functionality is simple when built with Notion—we simply embed filtered databases into the workflows. Within other tools, we could link the workflow to a spreadsheet to provide the same funcitonality. Less elegant, bu equally powerful once set up.

This image shows how the workflow prompts users to add insights into the workflow itself:

The following image shows an earlier part of the same workflow with insights captured by salespeople who have previously used this workflow.

3. Tracking

Completion of tasks are recorded within the workflow as they’re undertaken, meaning the employee is less likely to miss a part of the process, and the manager (and colleagues where appropriate) can analyze progress.

The following image shows a dashboard for the sales team (created in Notion), which provides a visual of key Guided Workflows currently in progress. This means there is complete transparency within the team in regard to how core responsibilities are progressing. For a sales manager or senior salesperson who wants to monitor the progress of his new salespeople, this could be useful, because they can keep an eye on the progress of their new colleagues.

Again, this dashboard is integrated into the system within Notion, but we could use a combination of tools like Google Docs and Sheets, or Word and Excel, to create similar functionality:

4. Automations

Automations enable us to ensure workflows surface at the moment the task is assigned and/or requires action, prompting managers or senior colleagues to quality check the work after the task has been completed.

The same prompt is given to colleagues when they are responsible for completing part of the workflow, if the workflow requires involvement from more than one person.

This image shows how a Guided Workflow notification might look. In this example, Theresa has completed her Product demo workflow, which triggered an email to her manager to evaluate the quality of her product demo (maybe there’s a link in the email to a recording of the product demo).

This would enable the manager to give Theresa immediate feedback and suggestions on how to improve:

Different types of Guided Workflows

There are three types of Guided Workflows, each useful independently, but even more powerful when used in combination (e.g., as part of a Convergent Onboarding ecosystem).

1. Guided Workflow for “Core” tasks

A core task workflow focus on the most important tasks within an individual’s role. For example, for a salesperson these might be:

delivering a product demo to a potential customer
adding a new customer to the CRM, or
upselling an existing customer to a more expensive package.

All of these tasks would benefit from a Guided Workflow, which walks the salesperson through the steps needed to deliver a successful outcome.

Why are core task workflows useful?

Support provided “just in time” i.e., at the appropriate moment and within the context of the work that needs doing, rather than at a previous, unrelated moment e.g., “Week 1 training.”

Training focuses on outcomes versus consumption e.g., rather than watching videos about the client’s product, we provide new starters with meaningful tasks such as properly delivering an effective product demo to a group of peers.
Less “info dump” style training for new starters, and less training development required in total.
New starters add value to the business earlier in their tenure, increasing ROI and job satisfaction.
New starters require less mentoring and handholding from managers, freeing them up for higher-value work.
Processes are learned over time, meaning the person stops relying on the embedded training/support as procedures become habitual.
When changes are made to the workflow, users are automatically notified the next time they use the workflow so that they will follow the change rather than unknowingly executing outdated procedures.
All people in the same role are required to properly follow the relevant workflows, which maintains consistency and quality.

The following image shows how a Guided Workflow for a “core” task for a salesperson might look:

2. Guided Workflow for “Cyclical” tasks

A cyclical task workflow walks new recruits through repeatable business operations that need to be completed on a set schedule i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. These workflows surface as the cadence dictates. For example, a Weekly Guided Workflow can be set to surface every Friday morning, prompting the employee to complete the workflow that day.

So, how could this be useful? Well, let’s think of all those tasks that we should be doing as part of our routines, but we often forget because they’re not systematized. Let’s use an example, if we refer back to our salesperson,

E.g., for a new salesperson, a Guided Workflow for cyclical tasks may look like this:

Daily

Each morning, the new recruit is prompted to complete a “Start of day checklist” of responsibilities, for example:

Schedule the day’s planned sales activities
Reply to any unanswered emails

Each afternoon, the new recruit is prompted to wrap up their day by completing an “End of day checklist,” such as:

Update the CRM with the results from today’s sales activities
Reconfirm tomorrow’s sales meetings with an email reminder

The following image shows how a daily Guided Workflow for “cyclical” tasks might look:

Weekly

Every Friday, the new recruit is prompted to complete an “End of week checklist” which includes a different set of tasks e.g.,

Schedule next week’s sales activities
Review product functionality updates

The following image shows how a weekly Guided Workflow for “cyclical” tasks might look:

Monthly

At the end of each month, the new recruit is prompted to complete an “End of month checklist” which includes a different set of more strategic tasks, such as:

Schedule monthly check-ins with high-value clients
Send previous month’s results to manager
Provide forecast for the upcoming month to manager

While the “consequences” for people not completing these tasks depends on the organization, being provided with visibility into what best practice looks like on a recurring basis reinforces what’s needed to improve performance.

Not to mention, these workflows can be accessed by the manager, so they can review their people’s adherence to completing workflows. Automations can be created to alert managers and other relevant people to check outputs during workflow execution and after completion (see 3. Performance evaluation and feedback below).

Why are cyclical task workflows useful?

Guided Workflows for cyclical tasks that surface on a regular cadence, prompting people to complete tasks regularly.
Over time, these systems become second nature, leveling up the baseline of performance.
“Just-in-time” guidance and links to required resources/tools are embedded into workflows, which significantly reduces friction.
Workflows can be customized, increasing efficiencies and creating synergies.

3. Guided Workflow for “Conditional” tasks

A conditional task workflow (one that doesn’t fall into the “core” or “cyclical” task category) is a Guided Workflow that is only used when certain conditions are met.

For example, a “core” task for a recently hired salesperson might be writing great email responses to customer inquiries. But a “conditional” task might be for their manager to review their emails before they’re sent, and evaluate them for quality and feedback until that salesperson has demonstrated they always maintain the established standard.

This task is “conditional,” because it is triggered when a new salesperson is hired and disengaged when the set time or quality standard is met.

And so, this scenario would involve two Guided Workflows:

Guided Workflow for “Responding to customer emails” (executed by salesperson)
Guided Workflow for “Evaluating the quality of emails sent to customers“ (executed by sales manager)

Other examples of Guided Workflows for conditional tasks include:

A management review when a sales deal exceeds a set amount
Quality assurance investigation when a defect is discovered
Policy steering committee action on a situation not covered when a current policy arises
Security lockdown when a security breach or potential breach is suspected, or
Direct management intervention when a serious complaint is received from a key client.

The following image shows how a Guided Workflow might look for a “Evaluating the quality of emails sent to customers“ conditional workflow (executed by sales manager):

Why are conditional task workflows useful?

Prevents omission of important actions. Triggers for conditional workflows can be built into other workflows to ensure that established policies and procedures for extraordinary, occasional, and random events are followed when such events occur.
Reduces the mental workload of supervisors and managers. Knowing that triggers for special events that require their attention have been built into the workflows frees managers from the extra psychological burden of having to continuously monitor for such events.
Allows businesses to automatically ensure extra help is provided by automating certain processes to engage when extra support is needed and disengage when the required level of expertise is obtained.
Enables businesses to smoothly and rapidly switch workflows when the set conditions are met. This increases the speed and flexibility with which organizations can respond to changes in customer demand and market conditions.
Reduces compliance burden by only triggering compliance-related workflows when the conditions requiring oversight arise. This reduces waste by eliminating inefficient compliance monitoring while reducing the risk of overlooking important compliance-related events.

Systems Thinking for Guided Workflows

The most effective Guided Workflows are not implemented in isolation; they’re individual components that operate within a larger system.

If you’re new to systems thinking, consider a symphony orchestra. A violin can play a beautiful melody on its own. But when played within an orchestra, it contributes to a rich, layered symphony in which the combined instruments create something far more powerful and beautiful than a single violin could achieve.

The value of the orchestra is greater than the sum of it’s individual parts.

1 + 1 = 5.

This is called “synergy,” and it’s the reason systems thinking is so powerful.

When incorporated into a system (like a Convergent Onboarding ecosystem), workflows become more powerful. They interconnect, ensuring smooth transitions between different tasks and teams. Rather than existing in isolation, they become dynamic tools that adapt to context, pulling in relevant information and triggering automated actions. They provide structure, reduce friction, and create a seamless experience for both users and managers.

Just as an orchestra’s harmony depends on each instrument playing its part at the right time, an integrated Guided Workflow ensures that every step in the onboarding journey is synchronized, efficient, and impactful.

Should you consider Guided Workflows?

Before we wrap, let’s review the benefits.

Through the implementation of an ecosystem of Guided Workflows, businesses achieve:

Increased efficiency. Guided Workflows remove friction. Meaning delays, bottlenecks, and rework are significantly reduced, especially for those just getting started in their roles.
Immediate results. Because Guided Workflows re-engineer existing operations (documented or otherwise) and often leverage tools you’re already using, one can quickly create basic Guided Workflows that deliver huge value. These can then be upgraded with additional functionality over time.
Scalability. Well-designed Guided Workflows are awesome for delegating tasks to new recruits because you can have confidence that if they follow the workflow, they will be executing to your desired standards.
End-to-end process visibility. Guided Workflows can provide progress transparency to colleagues and management, ensuring everyone knows where they stand.
Better employee experience. People are swamped—why not create flow, rather than friction? Guided Workflows provide instant clarity over what “good” looks like. Your people have confidence in the quality of their work, leading to job satisfaction, increased motivation, and greater commitment.
Quality control. Guided Workflows can incorporate quality control, meaning that the workflow can trigger prompts for outputs to be reviewed before or upon completion. This reduces risk and increases motivation for the employee to deliver high-quality work.
Objective, timely feedback. Performance conversations are challenging for most managers, most of whom rely on memory and scattered notes to provide feedback. Not only that, they often happen infrequently, and thus are less effective. Automations can be set in a workflow so that when needed, managers will be automatically prompted to evaluate the quality of outputs, making timely, evidence-backed feedback feasible.
Flexibility. Guided Workflows can be as involved as you need. Guided Workflows for those high-priority activities can be optimized to include full functionality (see What is in a Guided Workflow? above). But what about the more routine, low-risk operations? Well, they can be super simple checklists with prompts. The beauty of the concept is that Guided Workflows increase in value as they’re used (see the section on Continuous Improvement above).

Conclusion

Guided Workflows are your secret weapon for making your business run smoother, faster, and more efficiently. They help teams stay on track, improve efficiency, and keep things flowing.

With the right setup in place, employees can work smarter instead of harder, and managers can be confident things are being done right.

Whether you’re streamlining onboarding or building operational rigor, Guided Workflows are the future.

Guided Workflows: The Only Way to Permanently Improve Employee Performance

What tech do I need?