One of my auditor friends loves to ask this question of everyone he encounters during an ISO audit, “Can you tell me how your work affects the achievement of your department’s quality objectives?” (from 6.2.2 (d))
Many small businesses struggle with this concept. It concerns the third item in the revised ISO 9001:2008 clause 6.2.2 Competence, Training and Awareness. Awareness was ‘demoted’ in the 2008 revision from second in the title to third. But, this should not be taken to diminish its importance. One explanation that I like is that Awareness comes from Training, so it should follow…
Company-wide Quality Objectives are often provided to employees to comply with the requirement in 5.4.1, but they are seldom broken down to the department or individual levels. Thus, many employees are stumped by the question. Their job descriptions seldom address their quality responsibilities—just their productivity duties.
The combination of awareness training and objective spreading should alleviate this problem, so that our employees will understand how their work fits into the big picture along with ‘how they contribute to the bottom line.’