People leave their jobs because they quit, are laid off, retire or are discharged. The annual employee turnover rates across all industries was an eye-watering 44.3% in 2018. The cost of this is borne by both employers and employees.

All businesses need to find and keep the right employees. Keep reading to learn 10 hiring tips that will help your business retain people at all stages of the employment lifecycle.

Why is Employee Retention Important?

Some companies operate as if keeping employees isn’t important. They hire people with little effort or thoroughness. Then, they lose them just as carelessly.

Is there a reason why you should care about retaining people? Perhaps there are some benefits to having a lively turnover of employees … not really. What is the real cost of employee turnover?

There is a reason to care about your employee turnover and it’s not a misguided notion. It’s a serious commercial reason and one that could be the difference between your business being successful or failing.

In America, our poor employee turnover performance costs $160 billion a year. But, do you think it’s the mediocre and poor performers who leave your company? No, it’s your best people that are snapped up by the competition and the mediocre performers who hang around dragging your business down.

High-flying performers don’t appreciate being held back by their poor-performing associates. They deliver up to 400% more for you than your average employees. So who can blame them for seeking out opportunities where they are appreciated more. You are losing the soaring eagles amongst your employees and encouraging the turkeys to stay.

It’s time to do something about this sorry state of affairs. There are strategies that the best employees follow to attract, select and retain great employees. Do some or all of these and you’ll improve your employee retention rate and your business performance too.

1. Develop from Within

Some organizations have a policy of promoting from within. But, developing from within is not the same thing.

Promoting from within sets up an expectation amongst your employees that if they stay around for long enough, their turn will come. It encourages a culture of entitlement rather than high performance. People get promoted because they have served their time rather than because they are right for the job and the company.

Developing from within is a culture where your employees understand that there is a culture of opportunity. People have the opportunity to develop so that they can compete with external candidates.

A learning culture is one where everybody is always working on improvement. This helps people to get better at both their current job and perhaps prepares them for a future job in the company.

This has several benefits for your business apart from the obvious performance improvement. People stay where they get the opportunity to develop. They appreciate the investment in them and love being good at what they do.

Seeing people around them getting promoted and knowing that they have the same opportunity, encourages your people to stay focused, deliver results and grow.

2. Encourage Employee Referrals

When you have good people, they tend to attract other good people. Your good employees appreciate being on a team of high performers. Implementing an employee referral program allows your people to bring other good people to you.

An employee referral program encourages employees to sell the benefits of working for you in the employment market. Employees in your competitors’ companies soon learn that you’re a great place to work.

You can even incentivize the program by paying a bonus to anyone who introduces a successful candidate to your business. It’s best to make the bonus playable on completion of the new employees’ probationary period.

3. Give Candidates a Great Time

For some reason, many employers are careless about the experience they give prospective candidates for a job. They forget that any unsuccessful candidates go back into the employment market with a negative impression of that company. Like an unhappy customer, they tell their friends and family what a dreadful company it is and how happy they are not to get the job they applied for.

Next time you are recruiting, that candidate may be perfect but because of their experience, they are unlikely to reply to the recruitment advertisement. Not only that, they will have put off several other possible candidates from applying.

When job candidates come into contact with your company give them a great time. The candidates’ experience should be a positive one, even if they don’t get the job. Leave them feeling that working for you would have been a wonderful employee experience.

These candidates are then far from disappointed and disaffected. They become an active salesforce for your employment brand.

4. Exit Interview

When you lose somebody from your workforce, you should regard it as a learning opportunity.

Organizations often treat someone who resigns as if they have betrayed them. It feels like a personal insult or even a bereavement. The result is that communication stops or is uncomfortable for both parties.

Far from avoiding communication, you should open up the communication. There is much to be gained from a really good exit interview. Ask your employee for a meeting to discuss their reasons for leaving and make it clear that it will be a constructive meeting.

Just as onboarding is important for new employees to establish a great relationship from the start, off-boarding is important too.

Ex-employees can be a source of referrals for future jobs. If they leave feeling good about you and the company, why wouldn’t they encourage people to join your company?

These employees may even return to your company at a future date with more useful experience. If they are talented, why wouldn’t you take them back? Leave the door open for a future relationship.

Also, take the opportunity to learn any lessons you can about why you couldn’t retain this employee. This is especially important if they are a high performer. Take action if there is a problem you can do something about.

5. Take Diversity Seriously

Diversity isn’t just an ideal notation in human resource policy statements. It’s still less about keeping your company out of the courts and discrimination litigation. It’s an opportunity to attract and retain talented people.

Some potentially excellent employees are difficult to recruit and retain unless you are serious about actively supporting a diverse workforce. Remote working, flexible working, and part-time working are all ways you can appeal to some sections of the employment pool that find it difficult to work conventionally.

Child care and elder care can limit some very able people from working conventional hours. Think creatively about how you can organize work so that you can leverage this untapped talent pool.

Take seriously the likelihood that unconscious bias against some potential employees may be reducing your talent pool. Check your employment profile against the demographics of your locality. Are you failing to attract or retain any specific groups?

Explain to your management that unconscious bias is likely to be present. Demonstrate the evidence for it with objective data. Act to reduce the effect and tap the talent that is being missed.

6. Use Selection Centers

Interviews are a popular recruitment method. This is despite the fact that the conventional recruitment interview is a notoriously poor way of picking the right candidates. Both the candidate and the interviewer are on their best behavior.

A much more reliable method for selecting the best candidates is to use a multi-dimensional approach. Have an interview by all means, but don’t rely solely on it.

A selection center approach is one that uses psychometric questionnaires, group exercises, ability tests, and interviews to really get a well-rounded impression of candidates. Be clear about what you are measuring and what criteria candidates need to meet. Don’t be swayed by one person’s preferences but instead use a team of recruiters.

7. Set Clear Expectations

Be clear with candidates about what they can expect from the job. Don’t oversell a job and then under deliver. This is unethical but it is also a sure way to have a high turnover of candidates in the first few weeks.

Have a clear job description and share it with candidates. Many people will rule themselves out when they see what the job actually entails. Describe the job accurately including the mundane or tough aspects of the job.

It’s as important to be clear about what the behavior expectations are for people working for your company. A poor cultural fit is as likely to result in an early exit as poor job performance.  

If your culture is people-oriented, then let people know that they will be expected to behave in line with that. If it is a long-hours culture, let people know before they take the job.

When a candidate has been successful, continue to be clear about the expectations for job performance. Sometimes employees don’t deliver what is expected because it is not clear to them what that expectation actually is. Sometimes employees don’t understand what the consequences of not performing are either, so be very clear.

8. Recruit Great Attitudes

A great attitude is difficult to train. You can train skills and knowledge, but attitudes are formed in early life and affected by major life experiences. Recruiting people with a great work ethic or authenticity and training them in the skills they need is easier than the other way around.

Don’t be seduced by the idea that you can ignore poor attitudes if the candidate only brings knowledge, skills, and experience. These people are likely to undermine your culture, challenge your values, and bring down morale, not to mention cause top performers to leave the company 

9. Engage Employees

Truly engaged employees are more productive and more profitable. This is such a powerful effect that companies should put more effort into engaging their people. With only 15% of employees being engaged, it’s an untapped resource for many companies.

A further benefit of having engaged employees is that they tend to stay with you. Employee turnover is lower and absences decrease too. It makes so much sense to engage your people, but how do you do it?

Survey your people. Ask questions about their employee experience. Focus on the stuff you can do to improve engagement.

Empower people and managers to make a difference in the workplaces. Ask for people’s opinions and listen to the answers.

Make “engagement” a key performance indicator for managers. It’s such a key factor in performance improvement that this commitment to engagement is a strategic goal.

10. Be Consistent

You shouldn’t accept second-rate performance in any area of your company. The same is true in employee recruitment and retention. It’s not clever to recruit and keep poor performers. So don’t compromise a business performance goal simply to hit a recruitment and retention goal.

Recruiting and retaining just anybody may not meet the needs of the company. Hard-to-get and hard-to-keep people may be what you need. Be consistent in driving for what the company actually needs.

Check that pay and benefits are competitive with the market. Also, check that you are providing the appropriate training and development. Check that the job design and opportunities for career development are attractive.

Make sure that all your human resource strategies are aligned and moving in the same direction.

Apply These Hiring Tips!

Recruiting and retaining good people is a worthy objective. Apply these hiring tips and give your company a shot at excellent benefits. It’s worth the effort. 

We invite you to talk to us about your staffing needs!

The good news is that 85% of American workers are actually happy with their jobs. But that doesn’t mean employers can’t and shouldn’t do more to motivate their employees. 

One reason to utilize employee motivation techniques at work is that disengaged employees cost American businesses around $550 billion annually. Meanwhile, businesses with highly engaged teams produce 21% higher profits. 

It’s worth learning how to increase motivation in your workplace. But if you’re not sure how to motivate employees, we can help. 

Keep reading to learn our top 10 most powerful employee motivation techniques to use in your workplace. 

1. The Easiest of All Employee Motivation Techniques is to Ask What Motivates Them

You’ll never know how to motivate employees unless you ask them directly. So, it’s best to find out what makes them get out of bed every morning. 

Ask them what they’re passionate about, including their goals, dreams, and interests. These can include both personal and professional passions. 

Great Leaders Show a Genuine Interest 

The more you know your employees, the easier it is to know what motivates them. Also, it’s a sign of a great leader when they show an interest in their employees.

This is known as emotionally engaging your employees.

Ways to Engage Employees

There are many ways to get to know your employees such as:

• Introducing a bring-your-pet-to-work day
• Playing games designed to get to know each other better
• Create a bucket list quiz

You can even just take a walk with your employees. Furthermore, walking helps relax people and promote brainstorming. 

2. Schedule One-on-One Time with All Employees

While games and walks are fun, a more intimate way is to engage with all your employees on a one-on-one basis. This setting allows you and each of your employees to create clear and consistent goals and expectations together. 

Take time to hear their suggestions, problems, issues, and ideas. Discuss any performance issues and their work. 

Structured Meetings Deliver the Best Results

Make sure that these meetings are well-structured so it works out to your advantage. Here are some ways to do that:

• Take action on the feedback you receive
• Create a zone free from distractions
• Ask your employee ahead of time what they want to discuss

Do your best to avoid giving them minimal feedback. Employees want to know how you think they’re doing. 

Prevent Potential Problems

Giving feedback once a week helps people quickly recover from, and correct mistakes.

It helps no one if you wait for six months before bringing up an issue. Instead, a weekly meeting is a chance to prevent possible ongoing issues and grievances before they start. 

3. Create and Implement an Onboarding and Retention Program

Being a new hire is stressful enough. You want to ease the transition and ensure that all new employees feel welcome and smoothly transition into your corporate culture. So the best way to do that is to create and implement an onboarding and retention program. 

The onboarding process should be designed to teach new staff members about their job duties and responsibilities, and also about your company’s culture. Let new hires know how they can thrive and contribute to your company’s culture. 

The training and support you and your team provide to a new hire from Day One set the tone for the duration of that employee’s tenure at the company. It also helps your company avoid staffing issues. 

4. Offer Wellness Programs

The average return on investment (ROI) for workplace wellness programs is $3.27. So, for every dollar you spend on a wellness program, you save $3.27 in reduced healthcare costs. 

You save an additional $5.82 in lowered absentee costs for every dollar you spend on wellness programs. And 87% of employees take health and wellness offerings by potential employers into consideration when deciding to take a job. 

Wellness Programs to Implement

Some wellness programs you can easily implement at work are:

• Stress management programs
• Financial wellness resources
• Gym access

You can also provide incentives for engaging in healthy behaviors or offer other physical wellness options. 

5. Recognize Great Work

While employees get paid for their work, it’s also nice to be recognized for hard work in other ways. In fact, providing timely and meaningful recognition is a powerful tool you can use to inspire your team.

Don’t just recognize the big wins. It’s the smaller wins that lead to those bigger wins, so recognize those as well. 

Ways to Show Appreciation 

You don’t have to throw a big party for every little milestone. Here are a few ideas to express your appreciation and gratitude to your team:

• Write a personalized note of appreciation
• Use the internal portal to send a shout out
• Have a team lunch

Highlight how their efforts made, and continue to make a difference. Focusing on what your team does right (rather than what they do wrong) helps motivate them. They are also more likely to focus on achieving their goals. 

6. Emphasize Collaboration Over Competition

In the past, competition in the workplace was viewed as a healthy way to increase production. According to research, 25% of people wilt in a competitive atmosphere.

Another 25% are neither negatively nor positively impacted. The remaining 50% benefit from it. 

However, men tend to embrace competition while women, being more risk-averse, tend to avoid it. Also, younger generations do not enjoy the competition and prefer collaboration instead. 

Sharing Rather than Hoarding Ideas

Instead of hoarding good ideas, they’re shared and built upon. Employees work together and uplift each other. 

Together they’re more focused on the greater goal. The end result is a wealth of resources, ideas, and differing perspectives that can increase productivity and sales.

Ways to Effectively Collaborate

• Clearly define your purpose
• Choose your preferred collaboration method
• Involve the right people from each department
• Share how collaboration benefits each member
• Encourage collaborative behavior among team members

It’s hard to collaborate with a team member if they refuse to return messages. So, you should also set clear communication guidelines.

7. Set Small, Measurable Goals

As you look at the top of a mountain when you’re at the bottom, it looms above you. It looks tall, imposing, and sometimes, impossible. 

However, the only way to reach the top of a mountain is by taking one step after another and following the trail markers. Eventually, if you keep taking steps in the right direction, you will get to the top. 

Goals Can Feel Impossible

Goals are like mountains. They can seem impossible and you may be tempted to avoid them at all costs. 

And when that happens within a company setting, that translates into projects that drag on forever with no end in sight. It’s demoralizing to feel stuck. 

But it feels great when you’re making visible progress. Progress also signals that your work is making a difference. 

Setting Measurable Goals

Measurable goals act as a roadmap to achieving success. Start by setting goals that actually motivate your team. Then implement the SMART strategy:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

Put the goals in writing. The physical act of writing down the goals makes it seem both tangible and real. 

Have your employees create an action plan. These should be the small steps they must take to achieve their goals. 

8. Encourage Cross-Functional Teaming

Imagine your business was a machine. Like a machine, there are various parts that make up your business. 

You may have a sales team, a marketing team, human resources, and an administrative team. A machine may have wheels, gaskets, and a motor. But if those parts of the machine stop speaking to one another, problems arise. And the same is true for any business. 

What a Cross-Functional Team Does

A cross-functional team is a group of employees who possess different specialties and/or skills. This team is responsible for carrying out all phases of a program from beginning to end. 

Bringing people together from different departments to share ideas and achieve specific goals increases communication across departments. And it creates a cohesive work environment. 

You’ll find it leads to faster and more effective results. And it aids in motivating your teams when they all work together to attain commonly shared goals. 

Ways to Develop a Cross-Functional Team

Here are a few steps to take to ensure that you create a cross-functional team that produces the results you’re looking for:

Assemble the Right Team

Find team members with the shared skills needed to create a well-oiled machine. The best candidates are independent self-starters who are authorized to make important decisions. 

If possible, find members with previous experience. Those who require hand-holding won’t work well in these conditions.

Collaborative members should be able to work in a less-defined space. 

Designate a Leader

It’s more beneficial when a leader is designated. Make sure the leader is able to ensure each team member is an accountable self leader. 

It’s the team leader’s responsibility to educate, delegate, and give autonomy as well as following up on the team’s progress. 

Establish Clearly Defined Rules

Create a charter to define the project’s priorities. The next step is to create and approve a budget to provide everyone with a financial roadmap. 

Clearly define the outcomes you want and the time frame you want them achieved. Once all of these guidelines are established, the team members can do their work knowing what’s expected of them, when it’s due, and what resources they need to finish the work correctly and on time. 

Make sure that team members are all able and willing to communicate effectively together. Meeting together weekly helps keep levels of communication open and clear. This is especially necessary if cross-functional teams are not all working under the same roof. 

9. Provide Employees with the Right Resources

The most important question you can ask your employees is, “What do you need right now to do your job better?” Then, taking steps to honor their response will act as a huge motivational booster.

The right resources can be anything from needing more access to information so they can make the right decisions to moving to a new workspace to requiring better equipment. 

Offer Training Opportunities

Don’t just offer training opportunities that are required for technical, compliance or safety reasons. Also, give your employees the opportunity to gain new skills or knowledge in other areas. 

This will let employees leverage their natural strengths to advance their careers. While they may use these skills to transfer to another company, if you serve and value your employees well, most will stay. They will then utilize their skills for new projects to benefit your company. 

Create Mentoring Opportunities

Part of your continued onboarding process should include a mentorship with a senior employee. These mentors can offer guidance and act as a sounding board for new employees. 

It also helps make newer employees feel more welcome at the company. Mentors also benefit from this program by hearing fresh viewpoints from new hires. 

But, it’s best not to select an immediate supervisor to act as a mentor. You want free communication within these mentorship pairings.  

10. Celebrate Results

fun part of setting small and measurable goals is that you now have reasons to celebrate all the hard work everyone is putting in. No, you don’t need to go overboard and clap just because a usually tardy employee actually makes it into work on time for once!

But you should let every team member know exactly how much each of them contributed to helping the company move forward. Be specific when you’re celebrating. 

What to Say When Celebrating Achievements

Saying “good job” isn’t enough. And don’t stop at “amazing job,” either. Applaud an employee’s success and point out how it contributes to the bigger picture. 

A good example is: “Great job on the social media campaign – it’s going to help promote our brand.”

Let Us Help You Do Business the Right Way

Employee motivation techniques help owners, supervisors, and employees feel valued and appreciated. It also helps improve communication throughout the company. 

But you may need some help in implementing these ideas. That’s where we come in. 

How We Can Help

We provide everything from staffing solutions to HR training and development to helping companies increase their profitability while reducing HR risks. And we work with a  variety of industries. 

Building your business the right way means fewer growing pains. So, contact us to see how we can help you manage your business. 

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are a necessity for businesses large and small. They outline how processes and procedures essential to your company’s daily operations are to be performed.

Often providing step-by-step instructions on multiple components of a business, SOPs provide a guide for efficiency and consistency. When properly written, they reduce miscommunication and errors that can undermine your business practices.

The ultimate goal of your procedures is to keep team members on the same page. This is crucial as employees transition into new positions and new employees come on board.

If it is your first time creating SOPs, it may seem like a daunting task. In a way it is, but in the end, the time spent will be well worth it for the success of your business. 

In this article, we will walk you through how to write Standard Operating Procedures. If you’ve been tasked with writing SOPs, whether for your company or someone else’s, keep reading to learn more about what should be included when writing SOPs.

Standard Operating Procedures are Specific to a Business

Standard Operating Procedures documentation is not a one-size-fits-all document that you can download from a template website. Your SOPs need to be specific to your business industry, size and structure. It also needs to reflect your goals and desires for the type of culture you want to build.

Although it is a professional and oftentimes technical document, it reflects rules, positions, and the overall operations unique to your company.

A business with ten thousand employees will not operate the same as a business with ten employees. Although you may offer the same services, your SOPs will be uniquely different. 

When gathering information for your document, focus on what your business has to offer and how you want to see it operating. Your business SOPs will be essential to your operations and will grow over time as your business grows and your experiences shape your culture.

What is Included in SOPs?

There are many components to an SOP document. There are no rules on the number of pages, sections or words. Your document can be as in-depth or simplistic as you want it to be. It all comes down to the messaging and style in which you want to present the information.

The following are the most important components of any SOP and reasons why they should be included. 

In the beginning stages of writing your SOPs, you may not think of everything. As you get into writing the document, things you never considered will come to mind. At those moments you will need to consider their importance to the operation of the business. 

Operational Compliance

Outlining compliance topics is vital in your standard operating procedures. You should:

• Create a section on this topic alone 
• Review industry standards 
• Review your information technology (IT) and how you would handle data security impacts 

Understand how you will satisfy compliance requirements and then explain them in layman’s terms so readers fully understand. 

Other general compliance issues include:

• Benefits: who gets them and who does not, eligibility rules, etc.
• Harassment: definitions and penalties
• Hiring, evaluations and termination processes
• Holiday and overtime pay: specify days observed and when OT is permitted
• Payroll: specify pay schedules and dates
• Worker’s compensation: rules on how to apply

Once you have these worked out, it’s time to get into topics like safety, licensing, permitting, risk assessment, and other technical components of compliance.

Displacement

There may come a time when your business is displaced. This happens for various reasons and generally is out of the business owner’s control.

If you’re in a facility not owned by the business, there is a chance that you can become displaced. Or you could find yourself at a point where you need to expand out of your current location into a larger space.

Whatever the reason you need to move from your place of operations, be it temporarily or permanently, there must be a contingency plan. By having a standard operating procedures manual in place, you’ve already given thought on how to handle the situation.

It will not only show where your employees will report to, especially in the case of an emergency displacement, but it will provide other valuable information.

Communication

Start out by having an emergency phone number that employees should call in the event the building is not accessible. There needs to be a message with vital information that is updated as situations change.

For a planned displacement, decide if employees will be notified in writing, via email, an all-staff meeting, or some other method.

With today’s technology, you can utilize text messages. There is also the opportunity for employees to work remotely until a stable office is set up in a physical location.

Downtime

Downtime deals with power outages and the inability to access computer servers or specific software. 

Not only do you need protocols in place to address your employees, but also your customers and your industry partners. Some outages are temporary, while others can last for days. 

Included will be any back-up systems you may use and who is responsible for handling the issues. This can include contact information for utility companies, the software manufacturer, or the person or company responsible for your technical infrastructure.

The SOPs will list the designated roles responsible for making external calls, providing a clear chain of command and responsibility when people know their roles during emergencies.

Environmental Concerns

Although your business may not be directly related to environmental industries or policy-making, you could be directly impacted by environmental issues. 

These issues could involve:

• A chemical spill
• Dumping of hazardous waste
• Recycling
• Disposal of ink cartridges
• Cleaning up bodily fluids

As an employer, you are charged with the safety of your employees. So, your company needs to adhere to governmental rules and laws.

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters can take many forms. Every business should have a plan for unforeseen natural occurrences. Depending on the geographical region your business operates in, you could deal with hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, or wildfires.

Your SOPs will include how the business will operate leading up to, during, and after a natural disaster strikes. These include:

• The designated staff that are required to be on-site or on-call
• Emergency evacuation procedures.
• How to secure the structure, equipment, vehicles, etc.
• Emergency call-in number
• How to communicate with employees
• Who is responsible for sending out such communications
• Human Resources issues and responses related to a natural disaster
• Employees’ pay during a natural disaster

Other things to consider are your insurance protections during the temporary or permanent loss of your physical structure. How will the business perform until insurance kicks in and the relocation of your offices?

Production Goals

Goal setting is essential in every aspect of life. As a business owner, you want to have clearly defined goals for your company. These goals, whether one year or ten years out, should be outlined when writing SOPs. 

Goals can be a part of a mission statement that also lays out the values the company wants to exude. This becomes important because it not only gives you a roadmap for where you’re heading, but it also shows your employees the vision for the business.

In writing production goals for each department within the company, you set the tone for productivity and efficiency.  

Safety

In this section of the SOPs documentation, you’ll discuss safety in the workplace. The most vital components of this portion involve employees that work with heavy machinery and those who drive company-issued vehicles.

You’ll talk about licensing, access to driving records, and training. In addition, safety flows out to every department in a business. People can injure themselves with a stapler or by picking up a box of copy paper.

Outline for your employees who’s to be called when furniture or equipment has to be moved. When and who should call for an ambulance? What should an employee do when an injury leads to blood exposure?

Scheduling

Hours of operations will go on your SOPs as well as scheduling. Multiple departments may have different hours. A business that operates beyond eight hours a day will have shifts. 

Scheduling needs to be intentional to ensure full coverage during business hours. It is also important to have adequate coverage to maintain production quotas.

While outlining shifts, consider if there will be shift differentials in hourly pay. How are employees expected to call-in or communicate with managers or Human Resources outside their regular business hours?

Training

New hires are typically greeted by the company through orientation. This is a session put on by HR to introduce new team members to the company’s policies and procedures. Although many do not distribute the SOPs manual to employees, they do get a brief overview of what is contained in it and where it can be accessed 

The training sessions new hires receive should be outlined in the manual, as well as any other ongoing training. These sessions should be related to the actual roles they will be performing. You may also include other courses that help strengthen the culture of the workplace environment.

Create a Team

Collaboration is a key factor in completing a project that encompasses a lot of information that will impact your business. The writing of the standard operating procedures for a company is an undertaking that should not be handled by one team only. Even if your business only has a few employees, you should get some assistance with this formidable task.

For organizations with more than one department, ask for insights from those who know how things are done in their areas. This will ensure that you don’t miss important steps. A business owner may also learn a lot about how things are being done, which he or she may not have been aware of. 

Most importantly, with the added help, you can delegate responsibilities and get the project completed much faster. 

Create an Outline

Now that you have a good idea of what goes into the SOPs, the next step is to create your outline. The outline is to help you organize information and stay on track.

There is no magic order of how information should appear. You could start with what is most important, place items in alphabetical order, or group them based on the subject matter. 

It is okay to have a topic header followed by subtopics. Graphics are always a good way to keep people engaged when lengthy text is involved. You can also use infographics if it will help bring cohesiveness to the order of your daily operations. 

Once you know where you’re going and have everything you need, it’s time to put all the information together.

Select a Format

Next, you’ll want to create a format for your SOPs. Your format goes beyond how the information will appear in the manual. The format includes text fonts, color schemes, graphics, and the form in which the manual can be accessed.

In the digital era, there is no need to have printed copies tucked away in a binder, and pushed to the back of a bookshelf. The SOPs now come as a digital file housed in an online portal or intranet.

Included in the format or layout, you need to have a heading with the following:

• Company name
• Creation date
• Modified date
• Contributors
• Reviewed by
• Approved by

Following the headers, insert your purpose and table of contents.

Know Your Audience

In writing SOPs, it is essential to know your audience. This will drive the level of language used and how technical the information needs to be.

Also, consider how likely your employees are to seek out the SOPs to answer questions. This will play a part in how you format the manual and what graphics are included. 

Bringing It All Together

You now have the steps to create Standard Operating Procedures for your business. This makes the process easier and your goals clearer. If after reading this article you still aren’t sure about how you can get the job done or need help, it’s okay. There are services available to write the perfect SOPs to fit your individual needs.

Are you looking for assistance with SOP documentation? Contact us to learn more about  SOPs and our other business services we have to offer.