How To Implement Standard Operating Procedures for Business Growth

Every business has operating procedures meant to teach employees how to execute specific tasks in a standardized manner. These procedures also work to onboard new hires and promote team knowledge sharing. When handled effectively, standard operating procedures (SOPs) can improve team productivity, ensure compliance, and even reduce employees’ sense of frustration by minimizing the amount of time spent searching for information. 

The issue is that most companies fail to create procedures for all business processes, and those that do often fail to maintain the processes that exist. After spending four years at Uber, during its integral time of scaling globally, I witnessed just how paramount effective standard operating procedures are to the success of businesses and their ability to scale. 

Creation and Upkeep of SOPs

According to The State of Business Process Management reportOpens a new window , only 1.5% of companies have standardized and documented every procedure within the company. And while 25% of companies have reported implementing some procedures, they have failed to keep up with evolving and new procedures as their business scales. 

When it comes to creating and implementing procedures, what is stopping companies from putting in the work on such a vital resource? It is a chore. Often process documentation is time-consuming, overwhelming, and secondary to core tasks. And if that was not enough of an inconvenience, SOPs have a slim window of viability before becoming obsolete. 

Workflow documentation tools are crucial for businesses to streamline the creation of documentation. With the utilization of workflow documentation tools, SOPs can be captured while team members work, making documentation a byproduct of great work rather than an additional requirement. To alleviate the inconvenience of keeping procedures up to date, businesses should find flexible process documentation tools. The flexibility allows for updates and changes in the initial SOP without having to recreate the entire process. Furthermore, including visual elements can make SOPs more digestible for viewers; workflow documentation makes this easy to incorporate into your process documentation.

Onboarding and Retaining Employees 

Well-written SOPs help bridge the communication gap and make processes comprehensible to employees. This is even more important when it comes to onboarding new team members. When onboarding new hires, supply all relevant SOPs or access to a knowledge management platform to standardize training, accelerate the learning curve, and reduce errors. With the SOPs as guidelines, foundational tasks become second nature, freeing team members to innovate on other business operations. This is also an ideal time to audit and update SOPs. As new employees use the SOPs, ask them to flag any steps that are unclear or outdated; this will pinpoint inefficiencies. 

Additionally, SOPs can directly influence the retention of employees by increasing individual employee satisfaction. Providing employees with the information they need when they need it enables them to complete tasks efficiently and instills a sense of belonging; employees who don’t feel valuable don’t stick around. 

See More: 4 Strategies To Become a More Employee-Centric OrganizationOpens a new window

Improving Productivity

Employees waste hours trying to figure things out when they could be more productive by referring to effective process workflows. On average, employees spend 19% of their workweek searching for information, according to McKinseyOpens a new window . If businesses kept a central repository of their SOPs, they could reduce the overall time their employees waste searching for information. That time saved searching for information translates directly to increased productivity. Employees that understand how to execute their job duties efficiently become more productive. 

Implementing SOPs for the sake of knowledge management enables companies to capture the best practices from top-performing team members. With a documented process proven to deliver results, its dissemination will improve efficiency and success for everyone.

The Consequences of Neglecting SOPs

Businesses that fail to implement and maintain SOPs often fall subject to procedural drift, gradually compromising results. With no standardized procedures to reference, it becomes all too easy for employees to execute tasks suboptimally. Procedural drift can also occur if SOPs are not kept up to date, if they do not truly capture the way work is really done, and most of all, if leadership allows it to happen. Many businesses do not realize that this results in inconsistencies that could harm the reputation of the business and ultimately affects the customer experience.

Effectuating SOPs

To get the best results from SOPs, operating cadence must be a pillar of company culture. Leaders within the company will need to nurture the operating cadence by encouraging team members to utilize SOPs as the resource they are and execute them accordingly. Non-compliance costs companies billions of dollars every yearOpens a new window . By encouraging employees to abide by the SOPs your company has outlined, expensive mistakes can be avoided, decreasing that profit loss. 

Times will arise when the process does not go as planned, and for these instances, exceptions to the normal process flow should be listed. Employees may have to deviate from the normal process flow that has been outlined for them, and in these situations, that is permissible. To minimize these occurrences, analyze the steps that could potentially go awry in the process. Then list potential solutions: if X happens, do Y instead of Z. By doing this, your employees are somewhat prepared to act accordingly without having to take matters into their own hands. 

While encouraging team members to provide feedback on SOPs works to improve the efficacy, it is also a great way to increase the likelihood of team members utilizing the procedures. Team leaders should ask subordinates if a process was easy to understand and follow, as well as if they have any suggestions to improve the content.  

Poorly written and unkempt SOPs cost companies time and money. Employees who lack sufficient training generate less work and of lower quality. However, a business that takes the initiative to create SOPs for employees to utilize as manuals will inevitably see drastic improvements in team productivity, company compliance, and individual employee satisfaction. 

What steps have you taken to implement SOPs in a way that ensures business growth? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . 

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