How to create a company operations manual

This template is required to improve productivity and profits in a coffee shop. A school operations manual template can be adapted in your school to make activities easy for both staff and students. It is a collection of most of the legislation governing common school system operations, as well as other laws influencing school operations. Administrative rules that have been adopted to improve the laws are also included to guide and govern schools. The warehouse operations manual template simplifies how humans operate manual warehouses and storage systems, which includes storage locations and racking systems that are not accessed by automated systems.

It helps you to pass the information surrounding the warehouse to your employees. It includes statements of purpose for the warehouse, staff needs, storage facilities, and other documentation.

An employee operations manual template helps you to pass important information to employees regarding the standards that are required of each person. This details how to execute a job activity or handle a specific circumstance in the workplace. It can also be used to improve the productivity of your employees. A church operations manual template helps in the administration of the church and includes sections on how the church is controlled, how money is handled, and harassment and abuse policies.

It also specifies departmental information, policies and procedures, contact information, and their operations. A construction operations manual template is used to carry out construction activities. It explains the scope of the project and the type of construction to be used and as-built drawings in a format that has been agreed upon.

It also contains plans for services, register of assets, operation and maintenance instructions. The flight operations manual FOM template is used to keep in check all activities that are related to flights and air attendants. They are essential for keeping your flight department organized. The policies and procedures of the organization, as well as standard operating procedures and training needs, are all included in a decent flight operations manual.

A FOM improves safety and efficiency while lowering operational expenses. The help desk operations manual template helps you direct all help desk officers in your company and serves as a single point of contact for users to contact IT with requests.

The home-based business operations manual template helps you to organize, coordinate and direct your home-based business. Recently, homework has taken on a new meaning. The desire to achieve economic independence has prompted a great number of people to sell their abilities and talents from the comfort of their own homes. The IT operations manual template helps you to handle all businesses surrounding the information security policies and procedures document which includes an acceptable use policy, a computer usage policy for employees, a BYOD bring your own device policy, IT security planning, IT risk assessment, and IT security auditing methods, among other things.

A franchise operations manual template helps you as a franchisor to use the franchise operations handbook as a how-to guide for communicating system standards and criteria to franchisees. It also helps you to manage your employees and guide them to be productive and exhibit professionalism. A hotel operations manual template helps you as an owner of a hotel to adopt an SOP that your employees follow. This aids in the consistency and quality of service delivery and sets standards for your hotel.

It also helps in the organization of role assignments for the effective performance of each employee. The non-profit operations manual template explains and guides you on how to perform your duties as a non-profit organization. From project planning to impactful idea generation and funding, this template has you covered. It contains the standard operating procedures that you can use to describe your organizational hierarchy, prepare important staff contact information, and create emergency protocols.

The office operations manual template helps you to coordinate the affairs of your company and employees so that they can perform at their highest professional capacities.

With it, you will create and manage office procedures to attain efficiency with every stakeholder in your office, i. The company operations manual template helps you to form the processes and procedures that your employees should follow to work at their best. With this template, you can create a framework that stands as a work communication platform between you and your workers so that tasks are delivered accurately, efficiently, and without waste of resources.

The small business operations manual template serves the sole purpose of reminding your employees of when and how to perform their duties. This is important because, in a small business, you wear many hats. Having this in place will put many tasks on autopilot, which helps you to spend more time on other urgent activities. When people adopt a particular operations manual template, some questions pop up in their process of aligning it to the needs, functionalities, and specifics of their business.

Below are answers to some frequently asked questions about the operations manual templates. But if these are important to you, then you must create an operations manual. Also if you want to create employee training material for your employees, the operations manual will help new employees become more acquainted with how your business functions before they get into the main details of the professional training.

Preparing these documents from scratch requires a lot of effort and resources. Before creating an operations manual template, you must have a deep understanding of how your entire business process works. Once you do, make sure you define the business policies that guide your organization and specify the job roles and organizational hierarchy.

Afterward, you can begin writing the details of your operations manual template. Here is a video that outlines everything you must know in order to create an operations manual outline for your business.

This has happened to other organizations but they were able to find success using SweetProcess. Take, for instance, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services DFPS , a government agency that focuses on adult protective services, child protective services, childcare investigations, prevention, and early intervention. They use SweetProcess to take full control of their operations.

The problem DFPS had was that they process over 40, records a year which is a lot of work. To overcome this, the department created work manuals using tools such as Microsoft Word, SharePoint, and Excel. But all of these were inadequate in meeting the demands of the job. With bits of information stored in different places, there was a lot of back and forth that made their work complex. One was over pages.

The other one was about pages… This operation is complex. Then they found SweetProcess. They knew it was the one they must subscribe to because of its unique features. Heather, an employee of DFPS, describes the software as a process machine. SweetProcess helped them to streamline and improve their business process documentation. The organization documented its business processes in manuals, but they were cumbersome and all over the place.

Reduce text and increase pictures and graphic; add videos, if necessary. Whatever it takes to move from the world of de facto SOPs or de facto work instructions, do it. Your focus should be on conveying as much information as possible in a small space; the PowerPoint slides and bullet points from the pictorial standard operating procedure template above are a good example of this kind of economical communication.

And make sure that you include all necessary details. In reality, there may be 15 steps across a process that you need to capture. What else should you know to write SOPs with confidence? Here are some important elements to keep in mind:. Sometimes, employees avoid SOPs because the documents contain difficult jargon and uninspiring layouts.

Thick manuals full of obscure terminology were once staples of engineering and manufacturing environments. Whether you are an enthusiastic or reluctant procedure writer, do not underestimate the amount of time you need to document procedures. Follow these steps for clear and effective writing:. A manual can be as simple as a collection of Microsoft Word documents that you organize into a master document or a traditional binder with pages. If the documents are not well executed, the information will be difficult to access or understand.

Then people will start making up their own approaches, which leads to needless increases in variability and a decline in quality. Cox says that an SOP manual can stand on its own, but is usually included in a quality manual, together with policies, processes, procedures, and work Instructions.

Alternatively, the quality manual may include only SOPs, inspection procedures, and work instructions. An operations or SOP manual can work well as a repository for procedures, but you must be sure to link everything therein. Johnston cautions against orphans i. Users can stumble across content by accident. Procedures form a part of a management system by defining established or prescribed methods and processes. We build procedures from steps, which are the aspect of processes where individuals can introduce variation.

SOPs provide the overall framework, while work instructions can change more often. An SOP characterizes relationships and control measures," says Johnston. Documentation is never a substitute for training. According to Cox, the human resource department stores various skills matrices, but for optimum efficiency, managers on the shop floor should keep this information. That way, when technical questions arise, the manager will know who is the in-house expert.

In addition, if a team member calls in sick or goes on holiday, the manager will be able to identify capable individuals to perform specific tasks.

SOPs describe your unique business processes and the steps you require to finish those processes in accordance with industry, legal, in-house, and competitive standards. Procedures are step-by-step descriptions, whether predominantly text or graphics. Standard operating procedures should form the basis of regular training and provide a structure of metrics for performance reviews.

SOPs also help you achieve the following:. Despite potentially providing rich sources of information, SOPs are often consigned to shelves or hidden in the labyrinth of a file share system. Johnston describes a company that included an SOP show-and-tell in its meetings. Senior managers were each given a separate SOP and four minutes to present a precis on how the SOP applied to the meeting.

He also gives an example of a company in which it previously took a new hire three months to become fully effective at their job. After the company updated its SOPs with enough imagery and clearer articulation and added a skills matrix, new employees became effective in about four hours. A procedure lists the necessary steps to complete a task, particularly those in a process or cycle.

You usually assign sequential numbers to the steps in a procedure which may also contain substeps. In general, instructional procedures should contain no more than seven steps. Below, we use the example of a procedure for washing dishes in an industrial dishwasher:.

SOPs detail procedures that you use in your organization to perform activities according to industry and statutory standards, as well as your internal specifications. Procedures include any documents that describe how to perform an action, whether in words or pictures, in print or online. SOPs are an important part of a quality management system. Standard operating procedures describe the recurring tasks in a quality operation.

Written SOPs reduce errors by detailing the required manner for performing a task. When you update processes and training plans, you should also update the SOPs.

When you follow this method, SOPs become a means for notifying employees of process changes. You need not only to format your SOPs, but also to store them, so everyone can easily access them. Software can help. Business process management software, for example, allows you to store procedures online and track usage from one view. The following are some of the different products you can use to create, review, update, and publish your documents:.

Standardization and SOPs are the outcomes of industrialization, specifically the effort to prevent major accidents. The train disaster in Pennsylvania occurred when railway engineers in two trains approaching an intersection acted on conflicting interpretations of the rules of the road. The public remonstrations led to the standardization of procedures and what we now know as SOPs.

The dramatic example set by the accident showed that unconsidered processes and informal communication cause problems. The example also illustrated how step-by-step procedures clarify processes. Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done.

Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. Try Smartsheet for free, today. In This Article. What Is a Standard Operating Procedure? See how Smartsheet can help you be more effective. Make a list of business processes that need documentation.

If you are a manager, you may consider with your employees what processes need documentation, then compare lists with other managers to prioritize work. Choose an SOP format and template. Consider whether you require a formal package with metadata, such as approval signatures and references, or whether a simple checklist will suffice.

A workflow diagram may be an excellent way to provide an overview of detailed processes. You may also find workflow sketches helpful while you capture the information. If necessary, create a template before writing begins or download one of our free, customizable standard operating procedures templates.

Understand why you need an SOP. Are you documenting a new process or updating and improving upon an existing SOP and process?

De facto processes and documentation include what people have always done, along with what they have never analyzed and formally documented. Someone could be working based on one SOP during the day shift and another during the night shift. Instead, consult the people who perform the processes every day. Documentation that you can use as foundation material may already exist, but SMEs and frontline employees are usually your best sources of content.

When you include employees, you also empower them by helping them contribute to the processes and documentation used by the entire organization. In addition, as a manager, think twice about tasking external consultants with writing SOPs. Some pundits suggest that SOPs written in-house by colleagues garner more respect than instructions written by outsiders.

Plus, working to create documentation can foster the team spirit that is vital for any endeavor. Consider how you will publish and share your SOPs. Documenting your processes is always advisable, but documents help no one if they are hidden or lost.

Determine how you will store the documents for easy access by the people who need them every day. Printed sheets in binders may be a good option, or you can choose a digital document management system that everyone can easily access and read, whether onsite or offsite.

Limit the scope of your documentation. Decide for whom or what you are creating documentation i. In addition, determine the limits of the processes you will document. Determine your audience and characteristics.

Consider the background of your SOP users. A short procedure may work for those who know the process well; others may need detailed work instructions. Common software will not only make it easier to construct the manual now but it should also ensure the document can be easily modified in the future. Always have a hard copy of all the versions at a safe location. Number the sections and then the pages within sections.

For example, page 4 of section 10 would be numbered " The popular word-processing programs provide this page numbering option. On each page, add a footer indicating when the page was last modified. Photocopied pages frequently lie around, and an outdated one could do much damage. You can also include an appendix for interim additions or changes, so that you will not have to edit and reprint the manual to include periodic alterations.

Content Operations manuals typically include four types of information: How-to procedures, e. Locations of items, e. Contacts, e. Business-related policies, e. Descriptions of department-specific tasks will make up the bulk of your manual, but you'll also want to include: Job descriptions. Formal job descriptions help individuals understand their roles within your company and also allow new and existing staff to identify each other's responsibilities.

Emergency procedures. In most cases, you can obtain detailed emergency procedures from your landlord or from community groups. You will have to personalize some of the text, such as a gathering point in the event of a fire, but most of the information will already be prepared for you.

Make two additional copies of your emergency procedures section to keep at reception and in the staff room for easy access. Disaster recovery plan. Document how to re-establish your business following a fire, theft or earthquake.

Having a plan prepared in advance will help you restore normal operations quickly and thus prevent significant revenue loss.

It's also good for public relations because customers will see that you are dedicated to providing uninterrupted service. Don't go overboard! The manual needs to state just what a substitute or replacement worker might need — not the obvious procedural details. A sure way to devalue the manual is to trivialize it with too much detail. Don't rewrite manuals that already exist!

Your phone system, for example, probably already comes with a user guide. Reference the phone system guide in your operations manual, including the title and the version number, for replacement purposes only. If any departments have procedure guides that are too extensive to include in the company manual, be sure the department guides are referenced in the company manual so that they will be found when they are needed and so that there's a reminder to treat them the same as other procedures when they are checked or changed.

Project Manager The office manager, operations manager, or communications manager is typically responsible for writing the operations manual.