Why SOPs for your organisation?

It’s also important to note that standard operating procedures is different from policies and procedures. While SOPs lean more towards a standardized way to get things done within an organization, policies and processes give employees more leeway to improvise. As a result, policies and procedures can generate the possibility of producing standardized products or services, but an SOP guarantees that a product or service is produced the same way, every time.

SOPs, in their truest forms, support the right people in the right environment to do the right thing (including at the right time). SOPs are there to not only help your business evaluate its current processes, but also determine its future actions. For example, if your organization is looking to implement a new employee collaboration software, this is a brief rundown of what your thought process would look like.

Determining what collaboration software to buy would involve knowing how employees would use the software and its effect on the business’s processes. If you have a comprehensive, existing SOP, it’s easier to use them to evaluate the proposed new software’s strengths and weaknesses.

Fully understanding your company’s current operational processes would help you make the best decisions for the organization.

Standard operating procedures, at a minimum, offer the following benefits:

SOPs help with communication

One of the major benefits of SOPs is the clarity and communication it brings to your operational systems. With SOPs and periodic operating procedures updates, it makes it easier to communicate process changes to employees.

SOPs support consistency

‍The number one benefit of SOPs is the consistency it brings to the way people in an organization perform tasks. The more consistently a process is carried out, irrespective of the assignee, the less chance of delivering substandard products or services to customers.

SOPs minimize errors

‍SOPs are a detailed set of instructions crafted for carrying out a specific task. As long as your team members perform tasks or activities based on how it is documented in the SOP, there’s little to no chance of making errors (plus those that could cost the company gravely).

Top Benefits of effective SOPs:

1. Produce reliable results with SOPs

2. Maintain consistency across your organization

3. Improve quality assurance & safety

4. Standardise customer service

5. Improves efficiency of the staff

6. Helps to transfer work easily

7. Better Return on Investment (ROI)

8. Serves as a checklist for proper performance

9. Easy training for staff

10. Meet legal requirements