Get your instructions for work sorted and smooth

Posted 15 days ago by Sarah Glover 8 Minute(s) to read

 

The premise of a safe/standard operating procedure (also referred to as work instructions, safe work practices, job breakdown guides, or procedures) is simple: it’s instructions! These lay out how employees should carry out a task in the safest and most efficient way, standardising processes to streamline business operations and meet legal requirements. In this article, we’ll refer to them as SOPs; whatever you call them in your organisation, they’re the documents that tell your people how to do the work.

To put it in simpler terms, you can use an SOP to let employees new and old know “how we do things ‘round here”. If you do it well, you can create a hugely valuable resource that captures a huge amount of information. They are useful for telling employees how to work, for human resource reference in job design and descriptions, and for backfilling health and safety management systems.

A central point of reference for how work is and should be carried out has many uses!

 

The risks of an SOP-free operation

The primary risk you’re taking with insufficient, templated, or non-existent SOPs is inefficiency and lowered productivity. Without a reference, staff will often lose a large amount of time in back-and-forth about how things should be done. Differing opinions can be a real productivity killer!

At best, disagreements cost time and money. At worst, they can cause real harm due to safety practices being overlooked. Legal issues are another concern; with no definitive guidelines in place, you are left liable without proof of due diligence should something go wrong.

It’s legislated, too: the Health and Safety at Work Regulations 2016 (the General Risk and Workplace Management Regulations) state that a PCBU (person conducting a business or undertaking) must provide suitable and adequate information, training, instruction and supervision to workers. The Employment Relations Act 2000 (section 4) requires all parties to deal with each other in “good faith”, which includes employers communicating about the task-level expectations of a role, especially during early employee inductions. This is very difficult to achieve without an accessible single source of truth such as accurate work instructions.

 

The benefits of good SOP coverage

Creating and maintaining comprehensive SOPs is well worth the effort, for a variety of reasons. It should be noted that templated procedures are unlikely to have the same positive impact as ones that have been tailored to the specific needs and objectives of your organisation. Generic SOPs lack context and clarity, often serving only as a placeholder and a ticked box resulting in clutter or worse, confusion. Plus, they tend to be ten pages long concluding with dire warnings of death, and nobody reads them.

An SOP can:

• 
  Save your budget when it comes to professional development and training, providing a clear base from which to put together a training plan.
• Include and build upon a verification of competency; a starting place from which to verify that an employee is capable of using a particular piece of plant or equipment necessary for the role.
• Tie into health and safety management; creating and maintaining an SOP is very helpful when it comes time to put together an H&S system. A thoughtful SOP addresses and links HR, QA, and H&S matters in a way that is simple, repeatable, and verifiable.
• Make lighter work of site paperwork, offering an easy reference. Rather than reinventing the wheel with work instructions at every site, for example, workers can simply focus on and note how the location impacts completion of the task.

You don’t need an SOP for everything. But if it’s:

• a repeated problem,
• a trending injury,
• an inconsistent process,
• a risk from work that is front of mind,
• a part of your unique approach,
• an element of a wider qualification for which you can't easily prove competency (e.g. something that is covered in an apprenticeship but not directly verified until the year or the entire apprenticeship is completed), or;
• a genuine gap in training evidence,

then it’s probably worth your while to add it to your priority list.

 

Creating SOPs that work hard (and smart)

Not sure where to start when it comes to putting together top-shelf standard operating procedures? There’s no one gold standard method; each organisation has different needs and priorities.

Collect data to guide your SOP writing from a variety of sources. Any and all people involved in the task or procedure should be consulted, as each will have valuable perspective and ideas. Take a look at any documentation that already exists, but don’t feel bound by it.

The following is a simple procedure for developing a tailored SOP; a basic SOP for SOP writing, if you will!

• Identify the next priority task! Incident registers, customer complaints, performance and disciplinary matters are a great way to determine which sections of your operations need attention; any repeated incidents or reprimand can help to prioritise and also offer insight into which steps require adjustment.
• Bring together a group of stakeholders to brainstorm the necessary steps. Bullet points are fine; these can be expanded later.
• Write out a full version of the SOP. Seek editing help if necessary! It should include:
  • Risks relating to the task with ratings for both raw and residual risk.
    Equipment and resources needed.
  • External reference material or documentation (it can help to keep your instructions current if they can point to a live source, rather than direct quoting).
  • Competency level (ie 1 = entry level, requires direct supervision; 2 = intermediate level, indirect; 3 = core role competency level, works independently; 4 = senior level, mentor or coach others, may also require licencing for this level of task; 5 = expert/specialised/can write/assess) and competency requirements (internal or external training, any registrations or licences, unit standards).
  • Key messages: Do and don’t do.
  • Procedure steps: include set up and finishing tasks, end to end (booking and confirming where applicable, setting up, securing jobs that span work shifts, packing up, signing off)
  • Emergency actions.
•  Include troubleshooting! Work is not all blue skies, 5 star reviews, and work-first-time printers! If there are common traps where intervention is needed, provide for it. Make as much ‘non standard’ work as… well, standard. Many injuries occur from on the job maintenance and alteration (the knife in the toaster scenario).
• Test the procedure in practice. Tweak as necessary.
• Keep it brief - you can expand where it’s needed later. Ideally one page, two max.
• Sign it off, set a reminder for review, and move on to the next task on the priority list.

 

Considerations to keep in mind

An SOP is a living document. They can (and should!) be adjusted with circumstances. Cross-reference your SOPs with your risk register so you can ensure they change together. Reviews should be both regularly scheduled and triggered by events or incidents.

A good SOP is a resource from which you can backfill other documentation, ensuring your higher-level system controls are directly linked to real activities. Risks and competencies can be cross-referenced with your risk register and competency matrix, making it easy to identify when any or all documents need revising.

A final but very important note: having clear instructions for work is the basis of demonstrating due diligence when it comes to safety legislation, and can provide legal protections in some situations. Auditors will look to see that the procedures specified in an SOP have the organisation meeting PCBU obligations for risk management and competency. Of course, they will also be looking to see that these written instructions are reflected in practice!

 

TL;DR: the what, why, and how of SOPs

SOPs are simply instructions for work. They can be created for all kinds of tasks and procedures within an organisation and serve as a solid reference for staff, for training, for risk management, and myriad other purposes. Being without SOPs is to risk inefficient work, less productivity, increased incidents, and legal liability. Tailored SOPs can save you time and money, and also create a reference for other essential documentation. They support training and can be a basis for job design and competency checks.

Our very simplified SOP for creating SOPs:

• Determine the priority for review and/or creation of SOPs. You can start with the most commonly-completed tasks or processes in your operations, and also consult incident reports to pinpoint areas requiring some tweaking.
• Collect data and insight from a range of sources, including those who complete the task or process on a regular basis. Consult stakeholders, relevant legislation, risk registers, and other documentation. Brainstorm, use bullet points to ensure everything is recorded.
• Write out a full version of the SOP. Test, review, rewrite as necessary. For a full list of inclusions, see the ‘creating SOPs’ section.

Get help

Need some guidance in creating tailored, effective, and robust SOPs that cover your legal bases? Get in touch with the Emendas team! We put in the work to understand your business and support you to create custom solutions that suit your unique business.