Policies and procedures for quality assurance and ISO

Whether trying to meet ISO standards or pass a quality audit, your business must find ways of ensuring your staff maintain the standards set for them. That does not mean that the occasional slip-up will not happen, just that they understand their roles and try to live up to the standards that are expected of them.

If roles or procedures are defined, employees are far more likely to deliver a good product or service. But from time to time, they may be asked to do an extraordinary task outside the normal workday routine. Or, even though they may have been trained in the task, the training could have been a long time ago.

Influences for success

One of the key success factors from all types of training - one that influences behaviour change, is whether the employee has been able to put their learning into practice immediately after the training. When a process happens only irregularly or rarely, that option to practice is not available. Instead the business needs to provide a memory trigger in a set of procedures that the employee can follow. These can be readily accessed, print-based or online procedures, depending on what is appropriate to the work environment.

The procedure memo-check can be any of the following types or may involve more than one type in order to cater for different employee preferences:

• Laminated pocket card
• Laminated wall poster
• Automated txt phone message
• Procedure referenced from local computer over network
• Procedure referenced over secure Internet connection
• Printed manual
• Single copy (with expiry date) printed off a network

Such support material can be used as proof that you are living up to your ISO or quality standards. You have to build a worksite culture in which memo-checks or procedures are seen as the sensible and approved option. Only dummies (and ex-employees) fly by the seat of their pants.

Edutech KM Ltd

PO Box 25-241, Victoria Street, Christchurch;
phone: 64-3-337-0234
fax: 64-3-337-0235
info@edutechkm.com
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