It’s taken you months to fill an important role in your company. Finally, the first day of employee training has arrived, and knowing how much hinges on a positive employee training experience, well, let’s just say the pressure is on. 

The sooner you get new hires equipped with the knowledge they need and aligned with your policies and procedures, the better. One of the most effective ways of doing that is to give them easy access to all of your policies, SOPs, and work instructions.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and work instructions may sound synonymous, but they’re quite the opposite. The former is a high-level document, whereas the latter nails down nitty-gritty details.

While the two differ in the purpose and the information they provide, they can also complement each other — and your training processes. 

Let’s dive into the differences between SOPs and work instructions and how your new (and existing) employees can benefit from them.

Why SOPs and instructions matter for employee training

For any employee to succeed in their role, they need easy access to clear and accurate information about how to carry it out.  

In the absence of clear instructions or SOPs during training, you may be inviting disorganization and half-cocked approaches to completing any number of tasks. Consistency will also be an issue.

It can also have a negative impact on the length of the training process, morale, and ultimately your bottom line. 

What if we don’t have all our processes documented?

Great question.

Many companies find themselves in the position of either having partially documented processes or out-of-date ones. Or, maybe they’re relying on employees that have tribal knowledge of company processes.

But what happens if those employees leave for another company, retire, or stop working? The short answer: they’ll take that valuable tribal knowledge with them. 

Which doesn’t do your new or existing employees any good. It’s crucial to have this info in an easily-accessible centralized location that your current and future team can access when they need to produce consistent, high-quality results. 

Documenting your processes in the form of SOPs and work instructions — and making them accessible to everyone — is the first step. 

Let’s define the terms

Standardized Operating Procedures (SOPs)

An SOP is a high-level, recorded, and “official” set of clear instructions for how to complete a specific task and who’s responsible for doing it. 

They’re a way of keeping the company operating like a well-oiled machine no matter how many new hires you bring on board. Depending on the company, SOPs typically relay the “who” and the “what” of a job or task.

Work instructions

Work instructions are closely related to SOPs, but their purpose is somewhat different. 

A set of work instructions provides additional details regarding the materials it takes to take on a task and the timing. Ultimately, they “show how activities are carried out.” Work instructions are often more detailed than SOPs, but not always. 

Documenting and using SOPs for training

Employee training doesn’t just start and end with your new hires. Training continues throughout each employee’s trajectory at your company. 

But for now, let’s dive into the benefits of documenting, using, and disseminating SOPs — specifically as they pertain to training new employees.

The benefits of documenting and using SOPs

They’re a self-paced training tool.

If your SOPs are clear enough, they can function as an effective asynchronous training tool for your new hires. After reading and studying them on their own, they should — hopefully! — acquire the knowledge needed to complete a task.

Not only do some employees learn more effectively this way, but not needing to ask a ton of questions to a supervisor can be a confidence-booster for some. 

They make role expectations transparent.

The hallmark of effective SOPs is that they are, first and foremost, clear and detailed. 

Now, imagine how long and arduous a process it would be to explain every nitty-gritty detail of every task to a new employee without the help of a documented SOP

Without an SOP, you’re liable to forget or omit an aspect of the role due to good ol’ human error. Chances are, you might not be able to cover all the details of every job task for your new hire. 

With a written set of SOPs, however, your employee will know what you expect of them, how to complete their tasks successfully, and, in the end, you’ll have an easier time keeping them accountable by measuring their job performance. 

If you aren’t sure where to begin when it comes to documenting your SOPs, we’ve put together a few templates to demystify the process for you.

They improve consistency, confidence, and job performance.

No matter how familiar your new employee might be with the type of role they’re stepping into, access to a set of accessible SOPs can go a long way toward reducing work-related anxiety. SOP-led training can also help to reduce the number of errors a new employee makes.

Detail about the steps they need to take to perform a task — and the desired outcome they should be striving for — can give employees the boost of confidence they need to be productive.

The risks of not documenting SOPs

Still not convinced that SOPs are valuable to your business? Here are the downsides of not documenting them: 

Less efficiency that exposes vulnerabilities.

In addition to only having a select number of employees know what to do or how to do it (a risky spot to be in), failing to document your SOPs can make your new employees — and your team, — less efficient. 

Think about it this way: when only a few people are in the know, and they aren’t the ones who need to be doing the work, that leaves the people who do need that knowledge scrambling to discover it.

It costs time and money to have an employee hunt for the knowledge they need. And if the few employees who do possess the knowledge are sick, on vacation, or no longer at the company, they’ve taken that knowledge with them. 

Providing transparent and easily accessible SOPs can help to avoid these issues. 

Redefines “innovation.” In a bad way.

Imagine a team member coming up with an innovative approach or solution to solving an issue. 

What happens if you fail to document it so that others can benefit from adopting that same process? That innovation ceases to be helpful because it becomes exclusive tribal knowledge that’s unavailable to anyone else.

What about work instructions?

Usually, work instructions provide a greater level of “how-to” detail than an SOP, but that depends on the company. Work instructions aren’t an alternative to SOPs, they complement them. 

Pros of using work instructions

Every detailed step, all in one place.

While work instructions can be a lot of work to put together, their level of detail is key to their value. 

SOPs might not be able to accommodate every detail, but work instructions can fill in these gaps. 

Because of the detailed nature and level of clarity usually present in work instructions, they don’t leave a lot of room for doubt. Work instructions cover all bases and anticipate questions logically and seamlessly. 

Generally speaking, because of the level of clarity, work instructions perfectly complement lesser-detailed SOPs — especially when your SOPs and instructions are housed in the same place.

Promotes worker independence and efficiency

SOPs and work instructions can be as detailed as you like. 

The key takeaway: the more detailed the work instructions, the faster and more thoroughly your new employee can begin working independently. That’s the beauty of having the knowledge they need right in front of them, step-by-step.

The downsides of not documenting work instructions

Tribal knowledge belongs to a few, not to all.

There’s no advantage to having only a select few know the step-by-step details for any process. What happens if they move on from the company? They’re taking that knowledge with them. The only way to leave it at the door is to have it documented from the get-go.

Less accurate, more error-prone procedures.

When the microscopic details of any process remain in the minds of those performing it instead of being chronicled for everyone to review and benefit from, you’re bound to run into a human error. 

Writing down every detail will help make the process clearer, allowing you to test its accuracy. 

You can’t count on a veteran employee being available to pass along that level of detail to a new hire without either skipping essential points and/or overwhelming your new employee.

Instructions need to go through accuracy tests for reasons that can range from safety to efficiency — and beyond.

What’s the best way to document your SOPs and work instructions?

No matter how you document your SOPs and work instructions, they need to be available to everyone in your company.

The easiest way to train a new employee (or long-time employee) is to use a learning management software alternative that allows you to capture tribal knowledge by documenting all of your processes and making them accessible in one place. 

A business playbook (AKA, company playbook) is a one-stop shop where your employees can access SOPs, instructions, process workflows, the employee manual, and organizational charts from wherever in the world they may be working.

This is also where you can automate and streamline your employees’ training process, and hold them accountable when you need to. So, if you want to test understanding of a policy or SOP, you can include quizzes or just simply monitor that the required reading has been completed. 

Ready to make your SOPs easily accessible?

Time is precious — especially when it comes to training and onboarding processes. You don’t want your employees wasting time searching for best practices, SOPs, policies, or who they should contact if they have a question. They need this information at their fingertips.

Codifying your SOPs into a single company playbook is an ideal way to streamline access to all of the information your trainees need, taking your new employees from “just hired” to fully productive in no time.