Processes

A standard operating procedure (SOP) template for a small business, and what each section is for

A standard operating procedure is the agreed way a job is done, written down so the next person does it the same way. The template below has fourteen sections, and each one says why it is there.

By Oscar CobbeCurrent as at 30 October 20268 minute read8 sources

What a procedure is for

Britain's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) calls procedures agreed safe ways of doing things: instructions and the information needed to carry out a task, which may include step-by-step instructions, checklists, decision aids, diagrams and flow-charts. Its guide to writing them lists why major hazard sites need them: to minimise errors, to keep operating knowledge when experienced people leave, to standardise how work is done, to provide a basis for training, and to meet legal requirements.

That guide was written for major hazard industries such as oil, gas and chemicals, and says it is also relevant to others. Its test for how much to write is four questions: how much an error would matter, how complex the task is, how often it is done and how competent the person doing it is. Procedures range from detailed guidance, through step-by-step instructions, to short checklists, and one task may need more than one: HSE notes that a procedure for training new users will differ from the one used on the job by experienced hands.

The template

Copy the first two columns into a document, one procedure per document, and fill in the second for your job. The third column is what each section is for, so you can tell whether yours does its job.

Section	What to write	What it is for
1. Title and reference	The job's name, in the words your staff use, and a reference such as SOP-07	It lets the procedure be found and named from other documents. HSE's audit tool asks for running headers and footers that carry the procedure's description and reference number.
2. Version and approval	The version number, the date it was approved, and who approved it	HSE asks for an approvals process, and its audit tool for the revision number and date in the running headers and footers, so anyone holding a copy can tell whether it is current.
3. Owner	One named person who keeps the procedure right	NSAI's description of ISO 9001 gives each process an owner responsible for monitoring and reporting on its success.
4. Purpose	One or two sentences on why the job is done, and why this way	HSE asks that a procedure say why it, or a key step, is necessary or critical.
5. Scope	Where and when it applies, and what it does not cover	HSE asks where exactly the task, or each step, is carried out, and whether it can be done there.
6. Who does it	The role that carries it out, and the training or authorisation it needs	HSE asks who a procedure is for and what competence and authorisation it needs, and says procedures do not replace competence.
7. Before you start	The tools, systems, access, materials and information needed, each named exactly	HSE asks for tools and materials to be specified, and not described only as suitable.
8. Warnings	What can go wrong at a step and what happens if it does, placed immediately before that step	HSE asks for warnings immediately before the step they refer to, explaining what happens if, and leaving the actions to the steps.
9. Steps	Numbered steps, one action each, saying who does what and when	The part a person follows while working. The next section sets out how HSE asks for it to be written.
10. Checks	How to tell each step worked, with clear pass and fail criteria for any test or inspection	HSE asks a procedure to say what feedback shows an action succeeded, and to state when the end of the procedure is reached.
11. If it goes wrong	Who to tell, how to stop safely, and a decision table or flow-chart for the usual problems	HSE recommends flow-charts and decision tables to help with problem-solving and decisions.
12. Records	What is written down each time the job is done, and where it is kept	NSAI's description of ISO 9001 lists records such as audits, reviews and test results, and the HSA asks a safety statement to say where other relevant documents are kept.
13. Review	The next review date, and what brings a review forward: an incident, a complaint, a new system	HSE asks for a process that keeps procedures valid and up to date, and a review of the controls after an incident or audit finding.
14. Change history	Each version: its date, what changed, and who approved it	HSE asks for a formal way to withdraw out-of-date procedures and to train staff in new or updated ones.

How to write the steps

HSE's formatting advice for procedures, and its audit tool for checking them, ask for the same things:

1State who does what, and when.
2Number every step, as 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1.
3Use the present tense and the active voice; starting a step with a verb helps.
4Put one action in each step, in short, simple sentences.
5Give quantities and limits as figures, and name the exact item or setting.
6Write the steps out in full, without sending the reader to another procedure.
7Use no more than one negative in a sentence, and avoid acronyms and abbreviations.
8Keep a step from splitting across two pages, and use tick boxes where it helps to keep the place.
9Say when the end of the procedure has been reached.

Write it with the people who do the job

HSE's guidance is that the people who use a procedure should always be involved in writing it, and that it should be based on how the task is done in practice: where staff have worked out a quicker or easier way, it belongs in the procedure, provided safety and quality are not compromised. Its suggested method is to walk and talk through the task with the people who do it.

It also asks the users some plain questions: do they always use the procedure, and if not, why not? Is it up to date, does it match how the task is done, and is it at the right level of detail? Do they keep notes of their own? HSE's advice is not to ignore or forbid those informal notes and job aids where they are safe ways of working, because they often hold years of experience.

When the law expects it in writing

Some written procedures are asked for by Irish law or by a code of practice. The template can hold them, as long as it also carries what that law asks for.

Every employer must prepare a written safety statement, based on the identification of hazards and the risk assessment, under section 20 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. It must specify, among other things, the plans and procedures to be followed in an emergency or serious and imminent danger, and the names and, where applicable, job titles of the people responsible for tasks it assigns. It must be brought to employees' attention at least once a year and to new staff when they start, and reviewed when there has been a significant change. Section 20(8) lets an employer with three or fewer employees comply by following a code of practice on safety statements where one applies to its type of work.

The Health and Safety Authority says a generic safety statement does not comply, because it must be specific to each place of work, and that the templates in its BeSMART online tool are acceptable if your sector is covered and they are filled in correctly. It also says a safety statement can refer to specific procedures kept in other documents, company operating instructions and procedures among them, and that it is up to the employer whether to combine the documents or keep them separately.

The Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures (S.I. No. 146 of 2000) says those procedures should be in writing, in a format and language that is easily understood, given to every employee when they start, and reviewed and updated periodically.

ISO 9001, the quality management standard, works differently. ISO's committee for the standard says conformance becomes legally binding where it is part of a contract between a supplier and a customer, or in some countries through regulation, and that certification is not a requirement, though some customers ask for evidence of it. NSAI's page on the standard, written for its 2015 edition, describes the documents it asks for as a procedure manual, work instructions defining how specific tasks are to be performed, and records. The committee now lists ISO 9001:2026 among its standards, so check which edition a customer means.

A procedure is not the only control

HSE's guidance is that relying on a procedure to control a risk comes after every reasonable attempt to remove or reduce the hazard, and that operating procedures may not be the best way to control a hazard, at least not as the only defence against human error.

Keeping procedures current

HSE's first step in improving procedures is to check the system that manages them. Its list, in short:

1A way to decide which tasks need a written procedure.
2An approval step before a procedure is used.
3The people who do the work involved in writing it.
4The same procedure for the same task, wherever it is done.
5A way to keep each procedure valid and up to date, and to withdraw old versions.
6Training for staff whenever a procedure is new or changed.
7Checks that procedures are followed, and a review after an incident or audit finding.

From a written procedure to an automated one

Writing a procedure down shows which steps need judgement and which follow the same rules every time. HSE's advice is to design a task so that the correct procedure is hard to avoid, and software is one way to do that for the steps that follow the same rules every time. What to automate first sets out the signs of a good first candidate: a job done often, by the same rules every time, that copies information from one system into another.

Before deciding, time the job as the procedure describes it and count how often it is done. With what an hour of that person's time costs, the free automation savings calculator turns those figures into the hours and money the job costs a year.

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Who wrote this

Oscar Cobbe · Founder, FourWinds Digital

Writes and maintains the legal explainers on this site, and does the compliance work behind them. Every date and article number here is checked against the legislation itself before it is published, and each article shows the date it was last checked.

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