Managing business processes efficiently is one of the integral needs of any business. Your team, remote or otherwise, rely on your core processes to run the business well. By having well-managed work instructions, whether they are written or video instructions, you are supporting your workers. This will keep your business on the straight and narrow when it comes to continuing to thrive, even amidst changing situations.
The most effective way to keep your Operations Manuals up to date is by updating them as soon as the need arises. This relies on you and your remote team being diligent with reporting when corrections are required and implementing them immediately. But despite how important this is, managing business processes takes effort and time you may struggle to find.
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants to be done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
So today we will be dealing with the very important question of who should be managing your business processes.
Small Sized Team (up to 5) – Team Members.
In a small team, each member should be empowered to fix any mistakes they find themselves. They should be performing their updates and updating any work instructions that aren’t accurate. This does mean you have to let go a little. To trust your team is doing a great job of jumping in making those fixes when required. With a smaller team, you’ve only got so many hours in the day and you want to make sure people are not held up by inefficient processes.
Medium Sized Team (6 to 15) – Team Leaders
At this stage, you should appoint your team leaders to implement any updates to Operations Manuals. When team members find any mistakes with work instructions, they report them to their team leader who then corrects them. This means setting up processes for this kind of reporting so everyone knows how it works. You want the process to be quick and easy so the changes can be implemented as soon as possible.
A Large Team (16 or more) – Operations Manager
When you have a large team, you should employ a dedicated operations manager. This one person will become the central point for all of the work instructions and workflows in your business. They may not need to be full time to start with but will increase their role as the team continues to grow. At this size of operation, it’s important to have one pair of eyes across all of the process management in your growing business.
If you’re managing remote staff where you’re all working apart, it’s very important to support the ongoing performance of your team. Managing business processes is integral, but it does not need to be difficult. By allocating a little time and responsibility, it will help grow and sustain your business better than ever!
