How do you motivate employees to follow the QMS?

[alimary15]

Good morning!

I am quite new to the forum but first of all I would like to say my congratulations for it! It is an amazing website and I have found here lot of information that helped me to achieve my dream job!

So I am starting in September as a QM Associate, and during the interview process I have been asked how you would motivate employees to follow the QMS.

I suppose that with baseline training one can spread awareness of the QMS among all levels of the company, however if one person is reluctant to follow procedures what can you tell him/her in order to make him/her follow the QMS?

Thanks!

 

[harry]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

......................... however if one person is reluctant to follow procedures what can you tell him/her in order to make him/her follow the QMS? ......................

Good morning. Nobody will reject something that they own, their group own or have contributed in one way or another to it. That's why it is so important to make sure the people involved in a process are consulted, given opportunity to make contributions when coming out with procedures, work instructions or other documents.

 

[alimary15]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

Thanks Harry, this is a very good point!

 

[John Broomfield]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

alimary,

Employees also need to see their top managers and supervisors using and improving their QMS before they'll take it seriously.

Also, I'm not sure that "follow" or unquestioningly obey is the mindset required for innovation and employees enjoying their work.

Better to require all to use and improve their management system so it helps everyone to do better work from which all stakeholders benefit.

John

 

[alimary15]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

John, of course Top Management should be the first to show its commitment to the QMS!

I just was thinking about an hypothetical situation in which one can encounter stubborn people who are not willing to improve their way of working. Then what will be the best way to handle such a situation?

 

[John Broomfield]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

alimary,

Find out why. You may discover this "stubborn" person knows of a better way.

Listen to them, really listen - one on one and face to face. The leader must show they respect the individual in trying to understand their motivations.

And study Dan Pink's book Drive and you'll discover that you cannot "motivate" anyone but yourself. Here is a summary: http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc

But, you may see a need to improve your recruiting process.

John

 

[kgott]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

Good morning!

I am quite new to the forum but first of all I would like to say my congratulations for it! It is an amazing website and I have found here lot of information that helped me to achieve my dream job!

So I am starting in September as a QM Associate, and during the interview process I have been asked how you would motivate employees to follow the QMS.

I suppose that with baseline training one can spread awareness of the QMS among all levels of the company, however if one person is reluctant to follow procedures what can you tell him/her in order to make him/her follow the QMS?

Thanks!

Perhaps you could trying communicating the advantages of doing things in a uniform way. You could also suggest that management have planned and designed the process and they want it done that way because they consider it that to be the best to achieve the desired outcomes.

You might also like to try as a others have quite rightly suggested, to get their ideas out in the open and discussed but at the end of the day they run the risk of being seen as the rotten apple in the bag if their ideas are not accepted and they don't come on board and use the approved way of doing things.

 

[Reg Morrison]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

however if one person is reluctant to follow procedures what can you tell him/her in order to make him/her follow the QMS?

Before you tell anyone anything, you should assess the situation. Unfortunately, too many organizations don't understand modern approaches to quality and create bureaucratic monsters calling it quality control.

See if the steps being circumvented really add value to the organization or not. Many times, the workforce cleverly senses activities that are totally unnecessary and under the pressure to work efficiently, will manage it, themselves.

On the other hand, if the process is properly designed and people are deliberately skipping important steps, they must be SHOWN (not told) that is not an option. Process discipline is paramount for a successful organization.

Good luck.

 

[lokeky1]

Re: How do you motivated employees to follow the QMS?

Action is a result of knowing the consequences.

Here is a simplified illustration:

When a person failed to follow procedure and created a defective product, the process after him/her must not proceed until product is rectified (or preventive actions implemented).

Do this a few times and they will learn.


Loke

 

[Shibs]

What if the top management itself is not that interested or committed to QMS???