Pain Points
Our client was struggling with managing the standard operating procedures and working instructions their staff where supposed to follow. Their function was assigned many SOPs, some of which were not relevant to their activities. In many cases, the SOPs which were applicable to their function had varied levels of detail, in some cases had activities and steps which did not make sense to the function. In addition to internal frustrations with having to read and sign SOPs with unclear activities, the situation presented a compliance risk for the organization as many employees began to either ignore SOPs or read and sign but not use the SOPs.
Our Solution
In collaboration with the process, training and compliance lead for the function, we convened a team of employees from representative departments and developed a framework for them to assess assigned SOPs. The assessment included checking for applicability to their function and accuracy of assigned activities. Specifically, we led the team in:
- Reviewing every SOP and identified activities that were applicable to their function
- Eliminating SOPs that were not applicable to their function and combining some SOPs
- Assigning SOPs to specific departmental roles
- Developing an engagement model for the function to interact with the compliance department and the overall SOP development process
Benefits Realized
In addition to many other non-tangible benefits, the function:
- Reduced the number of SOPs their employees had to read and sign while reducing compliance risk
- Streamlined the process for providing subject matter expertise input to SOP development teams
