What Is A System? Procedures For Your Business

You’ve just launched a new business and the first six months have seen you go from strength to strength. But with any growing company, as you start to scale, infrastructure becomes more and more important. 

Systemising your business is vital to longevity and minimising costs as you expand. It’s important to put effective processes in place to help streamline your company and increase the productivity and efficiency of your employees. In order to give your workers guidance and a better understanding of how the company operates, procedures become imperative. 

Take this for example: sending your employees out on the job and hoping for the best is one way to establish trust, but it also poses a huge risk. Without a clear structure or guidance during the early stages, mistakes can happen and the reliability of your team to work autonomously can weaken. 

So where to start?

When implementing a system, it’s important to set the business goals and expectations from day one. Therefore, working closely with your new hires in the initial stages is crucial to your businesses’ success and also for ensuring that employees feel competent in completing allocated tasks. 
 
Start by talking them through the business model and their individual job description to make certain their understanding of the job is correct. Discuss the key processes and demonstrate to them what an exceptional standard should look like.
 
Putting together a system requires certain steps to ensure that no crucial information is left out. Firstly, you need to put instructions and procedures in place – this is the core of any good system. Once your guide is set, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page – this includes training your staff to keep all processes consistent within the building. 
 
While it’s necessary to teach your employees to make sure they’re familiar with the
instructions put in place, it’s also important to explain the importance of what you’re trying to achieve with your system. Keep everybody accountable so that they understand the value in the tools you’ve given them. 
 
“Give them accountability tools like a checklist,” Small Fish’ Jon Dale says on his website. “That’s about making sure they can’t forget things, like sweeping up, turning the water or electricity off, etc so they can’t forget any steps in the procedure. Hold them accountable for the results.
 
“You can have them attach photographs of the work they’ve done, hold random inspections or sign checklists. Make sure they follow that process.”

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal of putting a system in place is to help your staff work autonomously while preventing poor work.

 Looking to start your own business? Head to Qualify Me! to see how a tradesman coach like Dale can give you the keys to success.