Identifying internal issues.. at what level?

[Rajeshzen]

The forum has helped me tremendously in understanding various aspects. Kudos to all the contributors.

Ours is a large organization with about 50 Departments. Each Department has about 3 Divisions. We have an IMS (QMS, EMS & OHSMS) Am tasked with identifying internal issues. My Boss insists on identifying internal issues at Division level. Basically, every Division should have a register of Internal issues and interested parties. My concern is that we are overloading Departments with these formats and diverting them from their core job functions.

Also, am confused as to what qualifies as an Internal Issue? Would "not having a training hall to conduct HSE training" be an internal issue.

Any inputs would be of great help.

 

[Golfman25]

Issues are just that, issues. They may or may not be solvable or otherwise addressed. Some may have short term solutions, some long term solutions. We address our issue in two ways. First there are the big global issues that are attacked by our strategic plan. Say something like workforce -- lack of trained entry level employees. The other is our daily issues -- "we really need to" stuff. These may be pushed up to the strategic level or handled quickly, in the next week or two.

 

[Big Jim]

What do you mean by "what level". In the absence of the standard specifying anything about internal levels I would read that as all. The same goes for external issues.

It may help to approach the topic with the realization that some if not many are both internal and external.

 

[AMIT BALLAL]

Definition of Issue as per dictionary is "an important topic or problem for debate or discussion ".
I would identify issues on an organizational level, I don't generally go for identifying issues on a process level. For QMS, internal issue can be internal rejection is too high / low, employee turnover is low, etc. For EOHS, internal issue can be no. of accidents is high, hazardous processes, etc,
SWOT is an useful tool while identifying internal issues. And PESTLE tool can be used for identifying external issues.

 

[qualprod]

The forum has helped me tremendously in understanding various aspects. Kudos to all the contributors.

Ours is a large organization with about 50 Departments. Each Department has about 3 Divisions. We have an IMS (QMS, EMS & OHSMS) Am tasked with identifying internal issues. My Boss insists on identifying internal issues at Division level. Basically, every Division should have a register of Internal issues and interested parties. My concern is that we are overloading Departments with these formats and diverting them from their core job functions.

Also, am confused as to what qualifies as an Internal Issue? Would "not having a training hall to conduct HSE training" be an internal issue.

Any inputs would be of great help.

To obtain that issues, I invited the top management CEO and general managers, we used SWOT, to

The forum has helped me tremendously in understanding various aspects. Kudos to all the contributors.

Ours is a large organization with about 50 Departments. Each Department has about 3 Divisions. We have an IMS (QMS, EMS & OHSMS) Am tasked with identifying internal issues. My Boss insists on identifying internal issues at Division level. Basically, every Division should have a register of Internal issues and interested parties. My concern is that we are overloading Departments with these formats and diverting them from their core job functions.

Also, am confused as to what qualifies as an Internal Issue? Would "not having a training hall to conduct HSE training" be an internal issue.

Any inputs would be of great help.

first, go for pertinent issues,those which really exist and affect positive or negative to your goals, a swot can help to identify them.once identified can be threat, opportunities, weaknesses, strengths, from here get positive as opportunities and negative as risks, also identify which are strategical and operational, define the monitoring and revision as well.
Hope this helps

 

[Big Jim]

If it is an "issue" you probably don't need to search for it.

 

[Rajeshzen]

Issues are just that, issues. They may or may not be solvable or otherwise addressed. Some may have short term solutions, some long term solutions. We address our issue in two ways. First there are the big global issues that are attacked by our strategic plan. Say something like workforce -- lack of trained entry level employees. The other is our daily issues -- "we really need to" stuff. These may be pushed up to the strategic level or handled quickly, in the next week or two.

Thank you so much for the explanation.

we have a strategic planning Department, where global issues are considered. It is not happing wrt the "daily issues' you mentioned. I get that we need to do that as well now.

 

[Rajeshzen]

Thank you, Amit. My confusion was the same whether to go at Process level. Will take your view into consideration. thanks again.

 

[Rajeshzen]

If it is an "issue" you probably don't need to search for it.

Thanks, Jim.
As you said, these issues at Department/Division levels are known to the Team Leaders and are addressed in various forums, my confusion was whether introducing another format(s) (God knows, we have enough of them) would really help.

 

[somashekar]

Your internal issues that could effect the IMS to achieve the intended results. This is within your boundary of the IMS.
What is outside of your boundary are external issues.