How to Systemise Your Business Procedures

If you’re running your business, you can’t oversee every little task, let alone complete them all yourself.

People can’t be running to you every time they need to do something, asking for explanations on how to do it. If that’s how you spend your time, how do you expect your business to ever grow, expand or succeed?

That’s why we systemise.

Systemising your business stakes the pressure off you and makes sure people will always know the best way to carry out tasks they have been delegated to complete.

What is Systemising?

Systemising is the process of putting in place systems and procedures. These procedures should help your employees be able to do what they need to do with minimum explanation required from management.

How Do You Systemise?

Create Standard Procedures

Create a list of the most common tasks carried out by your business. This means everything from answering emails, conducting meetings to cleaning up the office at the end of the week. 

Write up standard operating procedures for each task that you expect staff to complete in your business.. Go into as much detail as possible. If done correctly, you should be able to pull someone in off the street, hand them a page with the procedure on it and have them complete the task themselves…. ok, maybe not but you get our drift! 

These procedures are the bread and butter of the systemisation process. Even if someone has never done a task before, if your task checklist are thorough enough, in theory they should simply be able to follow the right steps and do the task themselves. 

You can also make training procedures, as this will free your employees from spending time training new staff. At Little Pig Consulting, we are big fans of recording tasks as a way of training staff about how to undertake tasks.

Delegate

Delegate, delegate, delegate. Try it out with something small before moving on to big tasks. If you’re the boss, then you need to be able to pass smaller tasks onto other people so you can focus on the bigger or more important bits of work. 

Delegating will also give more responsibility to your employees, giving them a chance to hone their skills. Delegation also instills a sense of trust.

Implement Automation

There are things that simply don’t need to be done by the people in your business. 

Automation is a major part of systemising your business. Set up automation wherever possible. This frees up time for people to do more important things and ensures that these smaller tasks aren’t forgotten while people are focusing on something bigger.

Make Notes When Things Go Wrong

No one wants to think about the things that they’re doing wrong but unfortunately that’s something you should be doing a lot. If there is a problem your business faces often then it’s time to nip it in the bud and fix it.

Therefore, make notes and ask for feedback on the procedures you use to systemise and then tweak them to make the process smoother. After all, those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.