Delegation of Quality Manager responsibilities

J

Juliasun

Friends,

I am a Quality manager in my Company.

I have to leave the Company for 4-5 months.
Does anybody have experience to whom I can delegate my responsibilities and how I can do it in effective way?
 
D

D.Scott

Well, whenever anyone here is on leave they dump their work on me so I guess you can just send it on over :>)

Do you have an organizational chart showing who is next in the quality line? Is there a statement of responsibility in the quality manual? Possibly there is a chain of command listed in the HR department or in the job description.

I think whatever your final course, it will be very tough to "be effective". After all, if you could run your company's quality department effectively without you, why would they need you in the first place? There will always be problems when you are gone and there will be a pile on your desk when you get back. Try to delegate to the person you feel will fill in as best they can and hope for the best. Give them as much help beforehand to enable them to know where to go for the answers that will eventually come up. Don't try to train them in everything. Give them lists of "who can help" or "where to look" for the answers. Hopefully, you will be reachable in emergencies but if not, agree with management who they want to be the decision maker (not the one who does the quality work but the one where the buck stops).

Good luck.

Dave
 

Antonio Vieira

Involved - Posts
Trusted Information Resource
You can be replaced only by some one that can fulfill almost all your functions as Quality Manager.
In other words, the person you choose must be competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience. (as written in ISO 9001)
For sure you have your job description functions, and you must see if that person will be able to perform your functions.
This is in the ideal and perfect world. If not possible you must use Dave’s wise advices...
AV :rolleyes:
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
As I recall your previous posts, your organization is small, newly registered to ISO9001:2000, and you have recently been through an intense situation over key performance indicators, compounded by a diffence in focus between you and your general manager. Those are certainly complicating factors for a Quality manager who wants to take a leave of absence.

Since your organization is small, I'm pretty sure you don't have an assistant who can tread water, deferring any major issues until your return, but able to take care of all day-to-day operations.

The question arises, "Will you be completely unavailable for consult during your leave or will you be available by phone or email, perhaps even a short term on-site visit?" If yes (unavailable), the problem is compounded by finding someone competent and willing to work only a short term and then relinquish the post back to you on your return. Let's leave that issue until we get confirmation from you.

If you are able to consult (say within a day or two of an issue arising), you can probably elevate someone to assistant status to care for day-to-day stuff and call you when anything unusual arises. A big issue will be getting agreement from general manager to call you in for issues and thus keep your spot open for your return. The assistant should be getting temporary bonus pay during your absence, reverting to standard pay on your return.
 
R

Rob Nix

Antonio said:
You can be replaced only by some one
Wes said:
pretty sure you don't have an assistant
You may be thinking, as the above quoters, that you must find a single, best qualified, person.

Something I did in a similar circumstance several years ago was this: I made a table with a list (in several rows) of all of my main responsibilities (e.g. training, document control, statistical analyses and trouble-shooting, auditing, etc.). Then I wrote in the names of many of the potential individuals for filling these roles across the top (in columns). Finally, I graded each one's aptitude in taking on those responsibilities. I then made recommendations to top manage on which individuals might take on which tasks of mine in my absense.

The point of all of that is: your might find more than one person to divide up and assume your various duties. FWIW.
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Rob Nix said:
You may be thinking, as the above quoters, that you must find a single, best qualified, person.

Something I did in a similar circumstance several years ago was this: I made a table with a list (in several rows) of all of my main responsibilities (e.g. training, document control, statistical analyses and trouble-shooting, auditing, etc.). Then I wrote in the names of many of the potential individuals for filling these roles across the top (in columns). Finally, I graded each one's aptitude in taking on those responsibilities. I then made recommendations to top manage on which individuals might take on which tasks of mine in my absense.

The point of all of that is: your might find more than one person to divide up and assume your various duties. FWIW.
I agree with Rob about the day-to-day duties being split up. The point remains, someone still has to have the overview and know when the task at hand exceeds the capacity or capability of the available staff (if the QM's skills and experience are NOT duplicated by a new person or by an existing person with a crash training course.)

Caveat:
If the QM tasks are easily distributed among remaining staff, is there a reason to welcome the QM back after absence?
 
R

Rob Nix

Wes,

In my case, my boss maintained oversight (I gave him a list of things he should do to provide follow-up).

Regarding your caveat, I was going to add to my previous post that very thought; I came back to people more than happy to give those duties back to me. :rolleyes:

If I'd turned everything over to one person, they might have liked the job (I doubt it) and wanted to continue, or worse, the brass might've liked him better (It's OK, BOB can do it!). :lol:
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Rob Nix said:
Wes,

In my case, my boss maintained oversight (I gave him a list of things he should do to provide follow-up).

Regarding your caveat, I was going to add to my previous post that very thought; I came back to people more than happy to give those duties back to me. :rolleyes:

If I'd turned everything over to one person, they might have liked the job (I doubt it) and wanted to continue, or worse, the brass might've liked him better (It's OK, BOB can do it!). :lol:
In another thread, Julia was very diplomatic in expressing a conflict with the General Manager and I got the distinct impression the less ammunition the GM got in shoving her out the door, the better were Julia's chances in returning. Hence the suggestion to keep a hand in as an on-call back-up.

Rob and I have survived a long time in a climate where survival depends on watching your back. Sometimes, just sometimes, paranoid people are right and someone is out to do them harm.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
Wes Bucey said:
In another thread, Julia was very diplomatic in expressing a conflict with the General Manager and I got the distinct impression the less ammunition the GM got in shoving her out the door, the better were Julia's chances in returning. Hence the suggestion to keep a hand in as an on-call back-up.

Rob and I have survived a long time in a climate where survival depends on watching your back. Sometimes, just sometimes, paranoid people are right and someone is out to do them harm.
The old joke is, "No one knows what I do for a living until I don't do it." There's a lot of truth there. When someone does something really well, they always make it look easy--just watch any skilled tradesman put up drywall, and then try it yourself for the first time. It's a humbling experience. If you're good at what you do, believe me, it will be obvious as soon as you're gone for a few days. But Wes is right; if someone wants you gone...
 
J

Juliasun

Dear friends,

I have just found my old thread when I was about to leave my company for some months and had problem with delegation of my responsibilities. It was really very difficult as the company is small and the staff is very busy and I have no assistant. I apologise that I couldn't reply that time but I found your recommendations very interesting and useful.

Now I am back and would like to tell you what really happened.

I delegated my responsibilities to two persons selected by General Manager. They both were very busy with their work and couldn't do quality work properly. Thus, when I came back after 4 months I was nearly shocked found that the system that I'd built didn't work as before. I tried to improve the situation and it was really very challenging! But I managed it and the system was really improved and even became better than before.

I've learned one useful lesson form the situation. When the system became worse I could see all weak points in it and improve them!
 
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