How Do You Communicate The Quality Policy (secret)
Most businesses make the mistake of only communicating the quality policy during the ‘dreaded’ induction day. You know the day I’m referring to, that day when your poor new employee is subjected to an endless onslaught of IT systems, passwords, health and safety policies, environmental policies, first aid, security, and site inductions procedures, etc.
Most of the time, the quality policy is just sitting in the huge pile of paperwork that is handed out to the poor soul alongside a form which they are then asked to sign at the end of the day to testify that they have read and understood it all – ‘REALLY’?
The next time the poor employee knows anything about the policy is when an external auditor is in the building performing an audit and the employee is asked the dreaded question “Do you know where your nearest quality policy is situated?”
If by some miracle, the employee actually points to the one that’s displayed on the notice board nearby, the next question from the auditor is more likely to cut him in two “Could you also explain the basic contents of the policy and why it’s important to have one?”
Presuming that your employee is still breathing at this point, I would bet a thousand to one that 90% of all employees will fail to answer this question. When you consider that the quality policy is the ‘mother document’ of your management system and that everything else sits beneath it, don’t you think it’s important to communicate and train out the policy at times other than simply on the induction day?
How To Make People Aware Of The Quality Policy (5 ways)
1. The best way to start this is at the beginning during the induction of a new employee. The quality policy should be read through with the new employee and explained how it is the most important document of the management system. Of course, this also means that you should also provide a brief explanation of a management system and its requirements and related implications to the employee in their role.
You should explain that it contains the statements and promises made by top management concerning the delivery of products and services to the customer. When doing this, please remember to emphasize the importance of the ‘Customer’ in relation to the policy and how the management system is entirely a ‘customer-focused’ based system. By taking the time to do this you can be confident that the new employee can sign the form to say that they have understood the quality policy training talk.
2. So you have successfully communicated the quality policy during the new employee induction, what next? Don’t panic!, you’re off to a good start. Following on from this you should definitely consider training the policy out at least once a year through a toolbox talk delivered by one of your shift/team leaders. I’m saying once but personally, I’d aim for doing it twice during a 12 month period.
You prepare for this by gathering all of your shift/team leaders into a training session and schooling them on the following:
- What is a quality policy?
- Why is it important?
- Where does it fit into the management system?
- What does it contain?
- Where is it displayed?
- Who does it affect?
By the way, the bullet points listed above are all typical questions that I, as an internal auditor or an external auditor might well ask during a management system audit. Having trained the shift/team leaders they are now best placed to school and train out this information a few times per year.
The best time to do this is during the beginning of the shift when the shift changeover takes place and you have fresh new faces in front of you. Don’t do it at the shift end when everyone is tired and just wants to go home. It is important to have a form for your attendees to sign and I would recommend the following statements:
- Have you understood the training provided today? YES/NO
- Do you require further training on this subject? YES/NO
AND – don’t forget to enter the data onto your employee training matrix document so that you can also demonstrate conformance to clause 7.2 Competence.
3. The next suggestion is pretty obvious and is likely to be something that you are already doing and that is to display your quality policy upon the notice board (or boards). But “which notice board?” I hear you ask. Well, there’s more thought required to answer that question than you might at first consider. In many places of work, one might have to navigate a vast warren of corridors and passageways that run the gauntlet of noisy, smelly engineering workshops before you arrive at the employee staff room.
Once there you can often find a notice board of some description that was first erected 25 years ago during the construction of the new building. I’m sure this might sound familiar to you, that notice board that has not been changed, serviced, or cleaned for the past 25 years. The typical clues to the age are the page 3 pin-ups from the Sun or Star newspapers dated 1984 and such. Sound familiar? And is this the only place where your out-of-date quality policy is currently displayed? I hope not!
Why not have it displayed on all prominent notice boards? After all, it is the most important document of your management system, isn’t it? The standard presentation for a policy is normally a single A4 page of text which is the one you almost always find framed nicely and hung on the wall of the main reception and there is nothing wrong with this. however, for your notice boards, why not incorporate some colourful, eye-catching graphic design into the mix? There’s nothing in the management system requirements preventing you from doing this. You might even run a price-driven competition amongst the employees to design it.
4. Do you run an all-staff weekly newsletter? If you do then I would agree that it might be quite questionable how many staff members actually read but still, one has to have some kind of faith. My approach to publishing it in the newsletter would be to break it down into small bite-sized chunks. This provides you with the opportunity to explain each small section with more specific and easy-to-understand detail.
Use The Correct Language
Be very careful not to use any formal-sounding language here. Try to inject some humour into the text supported by some funny pictures that might serve to engage the reader. Also, and if you can, try to have the reader question how the quality policy affects them personally in their specific job role.
If you have not considered this as an approach then why not give it a try, what have you got to lose?
5. If you work in an office-based environment, where the majority of staff are performing a computer screen-based function, then there is a great opportunity to highjack the desktop wallpaper image to your advantage. Make friends with one of the geeks in the computer department (good luck) and tell them you would like to design a desktop wallpaper that contains the text of the business quality policy.
Don’t make the mistake of doing the design yourself, have a graphic designer do this for you (just hire someone on a Fiverr Gig). Pass the design onto the IT department friend that you blackmailed with a free lunch (did I forget to mention that?) and have them roll it out on mass once or twice a year for a 1 week time period.
So there you have it, 5 easy, creative, and effective ways to communicate your quality policy that you can communicate to the 3rd party auditor when they next pay you a certification visit. Of course, don’t forget the use of TV monitors and most important of all – your CEO communicating the importance of the policy during the annual town hall speech. Your CEO surely does this doesn’t she/he?
A quality policy is useless if it is not maintained and communicated. Employees must be able to understand the current version at all times. Just though the policy is brief does not indicate that everyone will comprehend it or how it should be implemented on a daily basis. Treat your quality policy as though it were the most important document in your QMS, not just a one-page memo. Make sure to address the following points when putting your policy in place:
- The quality policy must be accessible and documented.
This indicates that the document is formal and subject to document control. It will have a revision level and high management approval. Some companies go so far as to assign document numbers to their quality rules, even though a title is generally sufficient. Employees must be able to demonstrate how they use it in order for it to be considered “accessible.”
- The quality policy must be shared openly, comprehended by employees, and utilized within the organization.
Employees must have access to and understand the quality policy, according to ISO 9001. The policy must also be executed or exploited, according to ISO 9001:2015.
What Criteria for A Quality Policy (essential)
The policy is first communicated, that absolutely means what it says. Inform people about the policy, explain what it entails, and how it affects their jobs. This isn’t a difficult task. Most quality rules are small enough to fit on a single screen or page of the paper, so they might be discussed at a corporate meeting or in another setting.
- “Understood” indicates that the message was received and assimilated by the personnel. If an auditor asks an employee what the quality policy means to him or her, the employee should be able to explain what it means to them and how they support it in their daily operations. It’s important to remember that employees don’t have to memorize the quality policy in order to understand it.
- “Applied” simply implies that the quality policy serves as the organization’s fundamental beacon of purpose. We follow the quality policy by reminding ourselves of its existence and ensuring that our activities are consistent with its goals and commitments. Although top management is not required to communicate the quality policy to the rest of the business, many think that it is more effective if it does.
- “Be accessible to interested parties” is a brand-new criterion for the quality policy. It is up to the organisation to determine when and how the quality policy should be shared with interested parties. For example, you might decide to make your quality policy visible to anyone who walks into your lobby or visits your website. This would be a very straightforward and inconspicuous solution to the problem. The whole objective is to make it clear to interested people what your organisation is committing to.
Nothing, including a quality policy, lasts forever. Any policy can become obsolete with the passage of time. The quality policy is often reviewed by top management at least once a year, though organisations might potentially evaluate it more frequently. The most popular forum for reviewing the quality policy is the management review function.
Clause requirements for ISO 14001:2015 & ISO 45001:2018
ISO 14001:2015 does require the environmental policy document be:
- Communicated within the organisation
- Be available to interested parties
ISO 45001:2015 does require the environmental policy document be:
- Communicated within the organisation
- Be available to interest parties as appropriate
- Be relevant and appropriate
For auditors:
- Check if how the policy is communicated (and if it’s effective)
- Check awareness training of the policy
- Check if the policy drives continual improvement
Some questions that I will answer in more detail in future articles include:
- How do you bring quality awareness to your employees?
- How do you frame quality policy?
- What is the importance of quality policy?
- Why communication is important in quality management?
- How do you maintain quality performance?
- What is a quality policy manual?
- Who defines quality policy?
- Who is responsible to establish, implementing and maintaining quality policy?
References: www.iso.org
ISO 9000:2015
ISO 9002:2015
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