What an SOP is and when a small business needs one

A standard operating procedure, or SOP, is a written set of steps for a routine job. Staff use it so the job gets done the same way each time.¹

You may hear other names. "Safe work procedure" is one, used a lot in Australia, and the source says it's also called an SOP.² The name matters less than the habit of writing the job down.

What an SOP is for

• Teaching. A new starter can check the page instead of interrupting a supervisor to ask how the job is done.¹
• Consistency. Two people doing the same job should get the same result, whoever is on shift.
• Memory. A page holds what one person knows, so the business doesn't lose it when that person is away or leaves.
• Safety checks. For jobs with hazards, a safe work procedure generally lists the hazards in the task.²

What goes in one

Keep it plain. A page that people skip is worse than no page.

• A title that says the job, such as "Close the till at night".
• Who it's for, so nobody wonders if it applies to them.
• What you need before starting: tools, logins, forms.
• The steps, one action each, in the order they happen.
• What to do if something goes wrong, or who to ask.
• An owner and a review date, so the page doesn't go stale.

When a small business needs one

There's no size at which a business suddenly "needs" SOPs. Ask these questions about each job instead.

• Does it repeat? One-off jobs rarely earn a page. Weekly and daily ones often do.
• Does it go wrong in costly ways? Refunds, food handling, locking up and handling cash are common candidates.
• Does more than one person do it? The more hands, the more ways it drifts.
• Do you keep explaining it? If you've said the same thing three times, write it down.
• Would a stranger cope? If a casual worker couldn't do it from the page, the page isn't finished.

Some industries have outside requirements. The standard ISO 9001, for example, essentially requires manufacturers to determine the processes that could affect product quality, and those can be written as SOPs.¹ Whether a rule applies to your business is a question for your industry body or regulator.

Start small

Pick the one job that causes the most trouble. Write it as a short checklist, since a good one should be easy to read, hold only the checks that are needed, and be as short as reasonably practicable.³ A checklist is a way of making sure no step is left out of a procedure.³

Then try it. Ask someone who doesn't know the job to follow the page while you watch. Where they stall, the page is missing something.

AI tools can speed up the writing, but a person still has to check every step. How AI helps write a procedure covers what they can and can't do.