We Have SOPs. So Why Doesn't Anyone Use Them?

Part 1: Writing SOPs Isn't Enough. They Have to Be Implemented

Most owners think the hard part is writing SOPs.

It isn't.

The hard part is getting an entire company to consistently use them during and after the effort of documenting them has worn off. This is where most implementation projects quietly fail.

One question keeps coming up in almost every conversation I have with business owners. It doesn't matter whether they're an HVAC contractor, a plumbing company, an electrical contractor, or a law firm, or whatever.

Eventually they all ask some version of the same question:

"We have SOPs. How do I get people to follow them?"

After hearing that question hundreds of times over the last 25+ years, I realized something. The companies that successfully implement SOPs all seem to follow the same five rules. All the coaches and consultants, all the books and videos, they all talk about the importance and value of SOPs but, most business owners have never been taught these five key rules.

So over the next five newsletters, I'd like to share them with you.

Ignore just one of these rules, and your business will slowly drift back into what I call SOP Chaos where employees have their own way of doing things, there’s little if any consistency. Training is not standardized and most of the time there is no training system at all. Managers don’t manage. They don’t have any management tools or processes. They don’t know how to manage so they spend their days answering questions. IN the end, the impact works its way back to the owner. Scaling just feels like it’s going to ruin their life.

The Five Rules are key. Follow all five, and you build something much more valuable than a collection of SOPs.

You build a business that becomes increasingly process-dependent instead of owner-dependent. You build Operational Independence.

Let's start with the first rule.

Rule #1: Writing SOPs Isn't Enough... They Have to Be Implemented

You’ve probably hear me say this before but it can’t be said enough. But documentation has never been the goal. Implementation is.

• An SOP sitting in a Google Drive folder,
• A training video buried in YouTube,
• A checklist hidden inside a shared drive,

Creates exactly zero value.

Great SOPs will rarely produce great results because documentation, by itself, changes nothing.

Successful implementation requires four things.

1. Employees Must Be Able to Find the SOP - quickly

People follow the path of least resistance.

If employees have to search through folders, documents, videos, and shared drives every time they have a question, they'll simply ask a coworker instead.

That's one of the reasons we built TouchStone the way we did, not just as a place to store SOPs, but as a way to organize your people, positions, and processes so employees know exactly where to find what applies to their role.

2. The SOPs Must Be Used to Train Employees

One of the biggest misconceptions about SOPs is that employees should have to read them every day. That's not the goal.

A properly trained employee shouldn't need to constantly refer to the documentation for routine work.

The SOP is primarily a training tool. It creates consistency during onboarding and gives employees something to refer back to when questions arise later without having to interrupt their manager or trainer a second or third time.

3. Managers Must Reinforce the Process

Processes don't become habits because they're documented. They become habits because managers consistently reinforce them.

The best managers use their company’s SOPs to coach and hold their reporting employees accountable to expectations and KPIs.

When performance slips, they don't rely on opinions or memory. They simply pull up the documented process and ask:

"Let's walk through this together. Where do you think the process broke down?"

It’s almost always a situation where the employee forgot about the SOP, or did not understand the steps of the SOP, or maybe the process no longer works and it needs to be innovated.

Now the conversation is objective instead of emotional.

4. Every Important Process Needs an Owner

Processes change.

• Software gets updated.
• Customer expectations evolve.
• Your best employees discover better ways of doing things.

If nobody owns a process, nobody keeps it current.

Eventually employees start saying: "We don't do it that way anymore."

That's usually the beginning of the end.

Every important process should have an owner responsible for reviewing it, improving it, and keeping it current. Some of our clients even audit their critical processes every quarter.

That's not bureaucracy. That's how you keep your system alive.

Action Item

This week, don't write another SOP.

Instead, choose one of your most important processes and ask yourself four simple questions:

1. Can employees find it in seconds?
2. Were they trained using it?
3. Do managers coach from it?
4. Who owns it?

If you can't confidently answer all four, you don't have an SOP problem. Chances are you have an implementation problem. And implementation is where Operational Independence begins.

Next time: Rule #2: Managers Don't Implement SOPs by Talking About Them. They Implement Them by Reinforcing Them.