Standard operating procedures key for organisational sustainability

26 Jun, 2022 - 00:06 0 Views
Standard operating procedures key for organisational sustainability

The Sunday Mail

Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere

Every sound, strong and sustainable business under the sun follows laid down procedures in their day to day operations. Processes, procedures and standards simplifies how work is done and ultimately produces standard products and services while promoting operational efficiency.

No matter the effort you put in your business, without standard operating procedures, you’re just going in circles. At times there will be a lot of activity without progress being made. There should be a way of doing things that is clearly laid out for everyone to follow.

Most of the manufactured gadgets world over comes with an operating manual. If you trace back to how they were manufactured, a manual was also used detailing every procedure that must be undertaken in order to come up with such products. This clearly shows the importance of having some operating standards and procedures in place. Never assume people know. Have it written down.

What do we mean by Standard Operating Procedures?

Those who have been in the industry might have an understanding of the term but to the majority of SMEs out there, it might be a different story altogether with regards to these SOPs. A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a document that provides clear-cut directions and instructions as to how teams and members within an organisation must go about completing certain processes. They provide a practical explanation of what needs to happen to ensure a given process goes as planned

Britannica defines standard operating procedure (SOP) as standing operating procedure, set of written guidelines or instructions for the completion of a routine task, designed to increase performance, improve efficiency, and ensure quality through systemic homogenisation.

Standard operating procedures provide the policies, processes and standards needed for the organisation to succeed. They can benefit a business by reducing errors, increasing efficiencies and profitability, creating a safe work environment and producing guidelines for how to resolve issues and overcome obstacles.

SOPs are utilised in various contexts by most entities, including those in the areas of business, education, government, health care, industry, and even the military. Although categorical variations are inevitable, all SOPs have in common the systematisation of the individual steps performed in the implementation of a repetitive task to create an overall quality system. These are also imperatives in SMEs.

How to write a standard operating procedure

An effective standard operating procedure clearly explains the steps taken to complete a task and informs the employee of any risks associated with the process. The manual should be brief and easy to understand, with a focus on how things should be done rather than what needs to be done.

Once written, the SOP should be analysed and kept updated so that it remains relevant to the standards and requirements of the organisation and any changes made should be recorded.

The standard operating procedures usually answers the questions, who performs what role? What does each role do?

What is the goal or outcome of each role and person? Has what needs to be done clearly explained?

To decide on which procedures requires an SOP, organisations should make a list of all their business processes.

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Managers should discuss employees’ day-to-day responsibilities and tasks to ensure all procedures are accounted for. Any tasks that are repeated by multiple employees should be considered for SOP creation.

Begin with the end in mind

Define what the end result or the goal is for the SOP you want to come up with. For example, if you are writing a document that describes the procedures for inventory management, the goal is to make sure that the organisation has the right stocks and the right price, at the right quantities and managed in a proper way with the lowest possible rate of shrinkage.

Most formalised organisations have processes and procedures that are repeated daily, weekly, and monthly. As you define your goals, ask whether an SOP document is needed for that particular goal.

Or, see if an SOP has already been created to accomplish the goal and maybe you just need to review it and looks for ways to improve it.

Ask yourself if there is a specific reason why this goal should be accompanied by a standard operating procedure document. When you know what you want your SOP to accomplish, it’s much easier to write an outline and define the details.

Benefits of Standard Operating Procedures

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) establish a consistent way to perform given processes to achieve desired output. While providing employees with documented procedures won’t guarantee positive employee performance, it will go a long way to creating a culture of routine reliability and quality control

Avoid unnecessary mistakes

Left on their own, your team may fail to do work the way you would. So SOPs define the “right” way to do everything and get every employee working like your best employee.

Get ahead of the curve

SOPs orient teams toward preventing problems rather than reacting to them. They make sure nothing falls between the cracks.

Deliver what you’re supposed to deliver

Standard operating procedures are a natural quality management system that ensures your team’s work is up to par every time. This helps you avoid delays and redoing work.

Get everyone on the same page

Miscommunication can happen in two ways, the person talking might use the wrong words while the person listening might misunderstand therefore a simply providing a single, vetted source of information could reduce errors by as much as half. That adds up to huge savings in time and resources.

Covers your shortcomings

Even in well-run facilities, something will go wrong. Keep the blame from falling on you by proving that you have SOPs and that those SOPs are followed.  It also protects the whole company from fines and litigation. Most importantly, giving your team all the information they need in a detailed SOP prevents accidents from happening in the first place. That leads us to our next point.

Leave nothing to chance

It’s easy to forget to mention details when assigning tasks on busy days. That becomes a big deal when those details are health warnings, safety measures or environmental hazards.

To ensure you remember every relevant detail every time, SOPs are how you write them down once and easily attach them to assignments.

Give better training

With standard operating procedures, you can start onboarding new employees to their jobs in an orderly way. Since the SOPs are at their fingertips at all times, new hires can work independently sooner, freeing up experienced professionals to focus on their own workloads.

Do more with less

Right now, your employees are wasting time tracking down the same information again and again. Instead, your team can direct that energy toward getting the job done. By providing assignments with full, detailed instructions, standardization frees up resources.

 

Conclusion

 

It’s about time that SMEs start doing the right thing by coming up with their own standard operating procedures. I know it can be difficult at first but eventually they will get to realise their importance. Will have another instalment on SOPs next week for this is a more important issue that SMEs must understand and adopt.

 

 The writer, Dr. Kudzanai Vere is an entrepreneur, author of four books, business and personal development, multiple award winning entrepreneurship and business coach. Dr. Vere has coached more than 5000 entrepreneurs globally and continues to impact people in the areas of entrepreneurship, business and personal development. He is the CEO of Kudfort Group./Contact Dr Kudzanai Vere for transformational entrepreneurship and business coaching and training on [email protected] or +263 719 592232

 

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