Just like every well-oiled machine, business have something known as Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that help ensure consitency and efficiency . Mrs. Samriti Grover, a professor at Bada Business, os committed to making SOPs easy to understand and uses step-by-step executions that any company can put into action. If you own a small business or a multi-national organization, SOPs are crucial for focusing all the effort towards achieving an objective and ensuring no information is lost in translation to employees.

What are SOPs?

SOPs are strategic instructions or guidelines that help with the workflow and intricacies of an organization. The primory focus is to maintain consitency in product quality, service delivery, and overall workflow. An SOP is essentially a roadmap, providing clarity on how various tasks should be performed.

For small businesses, the CEO and team may initially take care of decision-making. As an organization expands, they hire more staff and subdivide functions into departments. This is the phase where SOPs emerge as the “Holy Bible” of the organization. With clear SOPs in place, the structure becomes transparent to the employees which helps them understand what is expected and how best to achieve it.

Why are SOPs Important for Your Company?

SOPs provide benefits to an organization and are extremely useful to implement in any organization. Here are some of the advantages your company will reap from implementing SOPs:

Consistency:

SOPs are critical to the standardization of organizational processes and tasks. This standardization, in turn, ensures consistency, which impacts the outcome of such operations. As an example, an HR department will be able to carry out functions like payroll processing efficiently if there are clear instructions or steps known to be followed when acquiring the relevant details.

Reduction of Errors:

Employees are expected to make fewer errors when SOPs are in place because they provide directions on how to complete any task, essentially telling them what steps to follow to achieve the desired output.

Enables Proper Onboarding & Training:

Having SOPs in place makes it easy for employees to be on-boarded as they will understand what is expected of them. SOPs also help to pinpoint areas that require more attention in order for employees to be able to perform their roles effectively.

Improved Communication:

SOPs also help in communicating the newly developed processes and procedures that need to be adopted as a result of the growing and rebranding of the business. These new developed processes will be easy to share with employees using SOPs as a reference.

Time Management:

Employees become more efficient when they manage their time better due to well defined processes. A set of SOPs also acts like a checklist to track whether there are issues like non-compliance or non-internal case training and sorting.

Record for Existing Processes:

SOPs are a record of existing processes which can also be great for new hires. It enhances the speed at which changes can be made because there is a certain standard of how things are done.

Types of SOPs

There are various types of SOPs that can be adopted irrespective of their degree of difficulty or the nature of the processes.

Step-by-Step Method:

This is a simple format where processes are written in a sequentially numbered or bulleted list. This method is suitable for simple processes that need to be done in a particular order. For example, tasks such as the setting up of equipment or the maintenance of machines can be captured in this format.

Flowchart Format

A flow chart works best when a single process can result in different outcomes. For example, a supervisor’s SOP may have different steps when a certain item is either found or not found. The format is helpful in visualizing decisions and actions which emanate from the same point or center for a decision to be made.

Implementation of SOPs

Like all Standard Operating Procedures, implementing SOPs avails one with painstaking attention to detail. Listed below are some of the effective steps an organization needs to implement when putting in place effective SOPs:

Determine Your Goal and Desired Results:

An SOP is best started with determining a specific purpose. Is it to achieve efficiency, quality, or customer service? For instance, if improving product quality is the goal, then the SOP should focus on the processes that ensure product standards during manufacturing.

Determine the Stakeholders & Step Creators:

An SOP is not created by one person. It is almost always created by top management or the CEO because he/she integrates the SOP to the strategic plan of the organization. Management leaders have a handle in defining the need at his/her level while junior staff have direct input as they are the ones doing the processes finally.

State the End-User:

An SOP can be constructed from various inputs and contributions, however it is important to tailor it towards the end-user, which in this scenario are the employees that will ultimately use the SOP. For example, if an SOP is targeted for a customer service representative, then it’s linguistic construction should allow for easy comprehension on the part of customer service representatives.

Choose The Format The SOP Will Take:

Each SOP has specific processes to follow and for these, you may have the option of using a flow chart or a step-to-step document. Always select the method that will suit the assignment best.

Draft an Outline of the SOP Document:

Draft an SOP document with comprehensive headings detailing each process starting with the center of focus. For a customer service call center SOP, the document should include:

• What is the SOP about?
• Date of SOP Creation
• Who is making the SOP?
• Who is the end-user of the SOP?

On the subsequent page, give a short purpose of the SOP in a 2-4 line description. Next detail the relevant positions and functions of the end-users. Now, the next thing you can do is list the steps of the processes and describe each of them.

For instance: In the Customer Service Call Center SOP:

Step 1: Pick up the customer call and welcome the customer.

Step 2: Pay attention to their problems and document everything.

Step 3: Thank them for their patience and tell them when the problem will be fixed.

Step 4 : Reassigning to a higher level if required.

Train Your End Users:

This is the time to train your employees now that you have prepared the SOP. Make sure that all relevant employees know the SOP and instruct them adequately so they know how to execute it correctly.

Test and Implement the SOP:

After working on the SOP, observe how employees interact with it. Make any revisions needed should they face problems or unclear portions in the document. Flexibility is an essential component of effective SOPs, particularly in responding to alterations within the organizational context’s external environment.

Conclusion: SOPs

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are integral to ensure uniformity, minimize mistakes, and streamline processes in the workplace. Following the outlined steps will aid in the creation of SOPs for your company that enhance productivity, onboarding, and communication. It is good practice to regard an SOP as a document that evolves with time and, therefore, should be periodically examined and modified to continue meeting the objectives of the company.