Create a Repeatable Procedure

Call it a system, a process, a procedure or even a checklist if you commit the process that you use to run your company to paper instead in the head of one of your employees you accomplish two things; You create a recipe to complete the task the same way with the same results every time and you own the process and should your employee leave you do not have to recreate it. If you have all the employees tasks committed to writing you can hire a less skilled and less expensive employee to do the job.

As an example, think of the national fast food burger restaurant.  Whether you like the hamburgers or not they are the same in every franchise from New York to California. It is not because they hire great chefs to cook the burgers it is because they have a repeatable procedure; fry 30 seconds on one side flip and fry 30 seconds on the second side, put it on a bun and apply a pickle, add a squirt of sauce, a piece of lettuce and the burger is done.  Even the French fry fryer has a timer and there is a clock that tells them when the fries need to be discarded because they have been in the bin too long.

Each item on the menu has a procedure as do such tasks as cleaning tables, emptying trash and restocking the napkins. Because of these processes they can run the restaurant with minimum wage individuals who are still in high school or do not even speak the native language.

So where do you start? The truth is it doesn't matter just start. In the home building business we started with the procedure for doing the biweekly payroll. I had the bookkeeper write the procedure as she did the regular payroll including every key stroke in our accounting program. Two weeks later I took the procedure and tried to do the payroll.  It took a couple of modifications but we developed the procedure. We then formalized the procedure by assigning responsibility by position (bookkeeper not Judy,) and when the procedure would be performed (every second Thursday.)

Another way good way to decide which procedure to formalize is in reaction to a frustration.  A business that did sales and distribution as a manufacturer's rep has weekly and monthly reports for the salespeople. The salespeople were frustrated because the reports were often late, for wrong dates or in a variety of wrong formats. The company created a written procedure including all the keystrokes in the accounting program to create the report clearly defining the time frames the report were to cover.  They then assigned responsibility in this case the shipping clerk, the frequency (weekly every Monday and monthly first business day of every month.)  A reminder was added to the calendar to remind the shipping clerk. For this procedure a feedback loop was added (email President when reports are sent to salespeople.)

The more procedures you have in writing the less you depend on individuals who can leave at any time and if an employee does leave you will have an instruction manual of their job for the next employee.

Original content copyright 2010 Thomas Robinson