There is nothing better than an amazing employee who has the ability to handle large sections of your business with ease. But, if your business becomes too dependent on those people and all of those processes are just stored in their heads, it leaves a huge liability risk for you.
So how do you mitigate the risk of an employee leaving and taking all of that knowledge with them?
The key to this is to get what they are doing documented into Standard Operating Procedures. But how do we do this when everyone is so busy?
The first step is to have them just write down all of the tasks that they do. Have them brainstorm. Keep a notepad next to their desk and have them just start writing down all the things that they do. Start with just having that big list of everything that they do and then have them start documenting the processes.
The next question is, when do we start documenting? The truth is, if you don’t have things documented already, your risk factor is already really high. Get started right away, and have them begin by documenting their key tasks. You want to begin with the higher-priority tasks first and move through their list.
There are lots of different methods for how you can have them document their processes. Documentation doesn’t have to look like long written paragraphs. It might look like a video. Loom is my favorite tool for doing a screen share and walking through a task. It might also look like a checklist or a form with good explanations on it.
Although you might not want a great employee to leave, if you have everything documented, you will have a process in place to bring someone new into the system without suffering a knowledge loss.
If you are not sure where to start who to start with or how to get it all organized, we are here to help!
We have a do-it-yourself course called SOP Simplified where we show you how to easily create a powerful SOP and keep your business running while doing it.
If you need more support, we also have SOP Setup. It is a 6 week-done-for-you program where we do the process of writing and organization and implementation for you!