What Are Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)?
A standard operating procedure is a set of written instructions that can describe how to perform a task or activity. They’re in-depth rules that could be followed by anyone and should leave very little ambiguity around what needs to be done.
An SOP is efficient, to the point, and can be used to organize nearly any work task you can think of. People use them to help their business with operations, business development, finance, legal affairs, and more.
Benefits of Writing Standard Operating Procedures
Now that you know a bit about what SOPs are, we can take some time to talk about the benefits of having an SOP. Businesses in any industry could benefit from using an SOP, but some business owners are hesitant to invest in creating them.
Having an extensive network of SOPs can help eliminate disorganization from your business, improve operations, and much more.
Once you see the benefits of having SOPs in your business, you’ll wonder how you’ve gone so long without them.
1. Promote Positive Change
Do some of your employees complain that they’re confused about what they have to do at work? Have managers mentioned that they’d like more structure around promotions? Do you want a way to ensure that things are being done well?
The right SOPs can help promote the change people want to see at the office. They’re meant to improve the way things are done at work, and they can be easily changed when it’s called for.
When you write an SOP, you’re giving people the efficiency, reliability, and predictability they need to succeed. When there are fewer questions about how and why things are done, people can start performing the way they’ve always wanted to.
2. Produce Reliable Results
Consistency is the key to running a successful business. Companies may sell different things, but overall, they rely on the consistency of the products and work they produce so their customers stay satisfied.
When you write SOPs, everyone is following a standardized procedure to produce results. It leaves little room for error and is designed to produce consistent results.
If there aren’t procedures in place, it’s easy for employees to forget key steps, make mistakes, and slowly lower the quality of what you produce.
When you have an SOP, you’re setting yourself up for success. You’ll reduce room for error and make sure you’re providing the best end results for your clients.
3. Improve Employee Training and Management
When you have standard operating procedures, you make hiring and retaining employees a lot easier.
New employees could use SOP to learn important things about your business. They’ll be able to understand how often processes need to be done, what it takes to complete a process from start to finish, and how everyone in their department plays into the process.
This can be a tool that helps them get up to speed on their own time and take the pressure off of you. You’ll be able to spend fewer hours training, and give everyone on your team more time to let the new employee get used to things.
Overall, the SOP can act as a guide that can help everyone on your staff improve their work and ensure that everything is running correctly. You can remove the ambiguity from some tasks, and make the desired outcomes of tasks very apparent.
Employees will be able to be more productive. This can help you save money on overtime fees for extra work and can reduce the possibility of errors in the work they produce.
4. Find Loopholes
You’d be surprised at how many business problems you can solve when you carefully write down your procedures. When you take the time to write down the way people do things, it gets a lot easier to see where you have gaps in service.
You may find that you’re forgetting an important step in the billing process that could improve your records.
It’s possible that writing down steps to your employee onboarding process could show that you’re leaving out important information about operating procedures.
See how many things you change about the way you operate once you take the time to examine how you do things. You never know what you can find when you write everything down.
5. Increase Safety
Employee safety is important for every business. Regardless of what industry you’re in, you want to make sure that you’re doing whatever you can to make the workplace safe for your employees.
An unsafe environment can do more than just result in injured employees. Equipment or merchandise could be damaged, or in some cases, customers and clients could get hurt.
You won’t have to worry about any damage to your business, your customers, or your employees. When employees follow an SOP, they’re following procedures that are proven to be safe and efficient.
Writing an SOP can also help you with compliance. Having the proper SOPs in place can help ensure that it’s easy for your employees to follow compliance procedures, and keep you from getting fined.
6. Improve Efficiency
Take some time to think about how much a simple question in how to do things can delay a business decision.
A contract may not get signed because someone isn’t sure who has the final say. You could lose out on hiring talented employees because someone in HR doesn’t know who can approve the salaries for new hires.
SOPs can eliminate a lot of questions that can slow down important business decisions. When you have an SOP for your most important tasks, you make it easier for your employees to follow directions and get things done right the first time.
7. Standardize Customer Service
If someone were to have a complaint about a product or your service, do you know exactly how it would be resolved? Companies that don’t have SOPs could find that their customer service is lacking when they need to solve a problem.
An upset customer may not get contacted because there are no procedures about proper follow-up times. Requests for service could be lost because there are no procedures in place to let people know about new customer service inquiries.
This ties into what we said about reliability. It doesn’t just produce the right results for customers, it also helps ensure that employees are doing the right thing for your customers.
Please find another post in where I've discussed about How to Write Fantastic Standard Operating Procedures?
Comments