When leaving your job for whatever reason—going on vacation, getting promoted to a new position or nearing retirement—are you suddenly scrambling to write everything down for your replacement two weeks before you depart? Or, if you’ve just arrived at a new job, do you wish someone had left behind some written instructions so you wouldn’t have to keep bothering your new co-workers with questions?

In situations like these, the way to keep business operations humming along is by having a standard operating procedures manual in place for every position in your organization.