SOPs Don’t Work (Unless You Do This)

SOPs Don’t Work (Unless You Do This)

This week I was reading an article called “5 Reasons Employees Don’t Use Your SOPs (and How to Fix It)” and it hit me hard. 

We have all been there. You put time into creating an SOP thinking it will solve a problem in the agency, and then your team just keeps doing things their own way. It feels like the SOP never even existed. 

The article laid out the five reasons this happens, and as I was reading, I realized these are the exact things we have been addressing at Foresight Insurance. 

Here is how it breaks down: 

1. SOPs Viewed as Optional 

👉 If your team thinks SOPs are optional, they won’t use them. 

At Foresight, SOPs are the playbook. When we give feedback, it is not “I prefer you do it this way.” It is “step three of the SOP says this.” That makes it about the process, not about personal preference. 

2. Team Doesn’t Know They Exist 

👉 If SOPs are buried in folders, they may as well not exist. 

That is why we centralized everything in our LMS (Learning Management System). Every role has a learning path with SOPs built in. Once someone has learned the SOP, if they need a refresher or have a specific question, they can go to our intranet chatbot. The chatbot pulls the answer directly from the SOP so nobody wastes time digging around. 

3. SOPs Aren’t Helpful 

👉 SOPs written by only the leadership often miss the details that matter. 

That is why we have our teams creating and refining SOPs. They are the ones doing the work every day. When the doers write the playbook, it is useful and practical. 

4. SOPs Are Outdated 

👉 If someone follows an SOP and it leads them to the wrong result once, trust is gone. 

At Foresight we treat SOPs as living documents. Through regular spot checks and feedback loops, we catch when something is off, and we update it. If an SOP is outdated, it hurts more than it helps, so we make sure ours stay current. 

5. SOPs Get Memorized 

👉 Once someone memorizes the steps, they stop checking. 

Memorization is not a bad thing. It shows the process is consistent. The risk is when people drift from the standard or miss an update. That is why we lean heavily on spot checking. Spot checks keep us aligned and make sure nothing gets missed or forgotten. 

🔑 The Big Lesson 

The lesson for me is simple. SOPs only work if they are alive. At Foresight, that means: 

  1. Accessible → Learn it in the LMS, refresh with the chatbot. 

  2. Practical → Written by the doers, not just leadership. 

  3. Evolving → Kept current with spot checks and feedback. 

  4. Essential → Built into daily work, not optional extras. 

This is how we scale without losing quality. SOPs are not binders on a shelf. They are living systems that keep the agency running smoothly and allow us to grow with confidence.