Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoughts?

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#51
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

This discussion of punishment and military is bringing the ghosts of A Few Good Men to mind.

But even though the two marines were following orders... they still got Court Martialed. Hmm.....

You fine gentlemen correct me if I'm wrong, but you were punished for not following orders because the very success of the military depends on unity and chain of command, and not each person deciding to do their own thing. This is... a matter of life and death.

Following QMS procedures are a different matter altogether (no Airplane quote here, please:lol:). Those procedures are ever evolving, improving, getting better. That requires fostering a culture where questions can be asked, and the focus is on the processes; not the people. If you start going after people, any innovation will disappear almost instantly from the system.
:topic:The pity of that movie is the punishments meted out to the officers in the chain of command who gave those commands is only "hinted at," not specifically stated. Didn't the one officer commit suicide rather than face punishment and disgrace? The two gyrenes who were the defendants were cannon fodder, the same soldiers who die when politicians back home send them to war, while the politicians move on to high-paying jobs as lobbyists.

Coming back to the OP's original query

Punishment should never be on the table as a result of an internal audit UNLESS a case of real sabotage (with evil intent) is discovered. The object of an internal audit is to generate a snapshot of the system for presentation to management, along with recommendations:

  1. The system is running according to plan, no action required
  2. The system has some nonconformances from the plan, the action should be for corrective action to the nonconforming process.
  3. The system has some nonconformances, the action should be to change the plan because the plan is flawed
  4. The system is running according to plan, but we have some suggestions for improvements to make the system more efficient (and more profitable!)
The idea of punishment harkens back to the concept the worker should be the fall guy when management makes a mistake in its plan for "product realization." All Demingites have an unshakable belief employees deserve the opportunity to be retrained or reassigned if they are incapable of following a plan, not punished - better yet, the plan might be re-engineered to make it mistake proof - else basketball coaches would be horsewhipping all players who shoot less than 100% at the free throw line simply because they were incapable of following management's "plan" to score 100% on all free throws.
 
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N

neelu

#52
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

The problem in Miriam's case is with the 'top management'! They obviously have not understood the 'intent' of internal audit process and that I/A is one of the tools used to monitor the process (cl 8.2.3) and thereby to identify opportunities for improvement of the system. In the instant case, problem is that inspection and supervisory inspection required as per QP were not done; perhaps due to lack of clarity in QP or the employees concerned were not trained to use the QP correctly. This could be an HR problem more than anything else. Training for employees concerned could be a solution; awareness program for top management to explain to them about intent of various processes and monitoring them may also be required.
 
A

amanbhai

#53
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

:topic:The pity of that movie is the punishments meted out to the officers in the chain of command who gave those commands is only "hinted at," not specifically stated. Didn't the one officer commit suicide rather than face punishment and disgrace? The two gyrenes who were the defendants were cannon fodder, the same soldiers who die when politicians back home send them to war, while the politicians move on to high-paying jobs as lobbyists.

Coming back to the OP's original query

Punishment should never be on the table as a result of an internal audit UNLESS a case of real sabotage (with evil intent) is discovered. The object of an internal audit is to generate a snapshot of the system for presentation to management, along with recommendations:

  1. The system is running according to plan, no action required
  2. The system has some nonconformances from the plan, the action should be for corrective action to the nonconforming process.
  3. The system has some nonconformances, the action should be to change the plan because the plan is flawed
  4. The system is running according to plan, but we have some suggestions for improvements to make the system more efficient (and more profitable!)
The idea of punishment harkens back to the concept the worker should be the fall guy when management makes a mistake in its plan for "product realization." All Demingites have an unshakable belief employees deserve the opportunity to be retrained or reassigned if they are incapable of following a plan, not punished - better yet, the plan might be re-engineered to make it mistake proof - else basketball coaches would be horsewhipping all players who shoot less than 100% at the free throw line simply because they were incapable of following management's "plan" to score 100% on all free throws.
How about if management beleives that the person is not suitable for the job or he/she is incapable. Like I conducted an internal audit, i gave the non conformance to the department and later on discovered that the employee has been fired for that reason.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#54
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

How about if management beleives that the person is not suitable for the job or he/she is incapable. Like I conducted an internal audit, i gave the non conformance to the department and later on discovered that the employee has been fired for that reason.
As Quality professionals, we always ask WHY? in searching for a root cause.

  1. Did the management err in certifying the person competent BEFORE putting him in place to foul up?
  2. Was the plan so fouled up, NO ONE could perform it accurately?
  3. What were the working conditions? Did they contribute to the foulup?
  4. Was the fired worker REALLY at fault or was he cannon fodder?;)
  5. etc. etc. etc.
 
J

JaneB

#55
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

How about if management beleives that the person is not suitable for the job or he/she is incapable. Like I conducted an internal audit, i gave the non conformance to the department and later on discovered that the employee has been fired for that reason.
It is possible (both theoretically and in practice) for the results of an audit to be used to provide some objective evidence of non-performance. But in such a case, I would expect that management already had some idea about the problem, and were perhaps using an audit to get some 'extra data' to use as a precautionary measure - eg, to use in case of a later charge of wrongful/unfair dismissal. I would also expect that in a functional organisation, that audit wasn't the only method employed.

But if you are saying in your scenario 'my audit was the sole cause of and reason for this person's being fired' then that organisation is very dysfunctional, not to mention not practising reasonable quality and personnel management let alone any other kind of management.

I like Wes' 4 points as outcomes from an audit - he's provided a good summary.
 
T

Tom W

#56
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

How about if management beleives that the person is not suitable for the job or he/she is incapable. Like I conducted an internal audit, i gave the non conformance to the department and later on discovered that the employee has been fired for that reason.
I would say then shame on the management and organization for putting that person in a position to fail.
 
S

somerqc

#57
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

Although I agreed with the majority of people here that internal audits are NOT for punishment, my opinion has changed slightly based on recent actions here.

It has changed to - Internal Audits should NOT be the SOLE reason for punishment; however, if results of internal audits are backed by other independent data (such as health and safety violations, lack of completion of tasks, etc.) then it can lead to punishment.

We just had a case where the results of the internal audit combined with a very costly shipping error resulted in a change to the management of that department. Through various different avenues it was very obvious that he was not a fit for the position so he was moved to another position and he was replaced in his previous department.

In our case, the internal audit wasn't the "hammer" or "gun" merely just another "hammer" or "gun" to an already large collection.

John
 
J

JaneB

#58
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

In our case, the internal audit wasn't the "hammer" or "gun" merely just another "hammer" or "gun" to an already large collection.
Yes, just so.
 

Ajit Basrur

Staff member
Admin
#59
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

In my working experience, through Internal Audits, I had once identified a discrepancy and through detailed investigation, it was concluded a case of manipulation of data. Since this was a question of integrity, the concerned analyst was removed.

Thus, barring these deliberate attempts, Internal Audits finding should not lead to punishments.
 

Ettore

Quite Involved in Discussions
#60
Re: Internal Audit finding leading to 'Punishment' (Disciplinary Action) - Your Thoug

When auditing the department I found that one supervisor did not performe the requested checks and the person who should check the supervisors had not seen this.
When reporting this the department manager said that the supervisor will be ’punished’.
When auditing the department I found that one supervisor did not performe the requested checks and the person who should check the supervisors had not seen this.
When reporting this the department manager he doesn't take the planned correction for non-compliances identified.
When reporting this to the general manager ....
When reporting this to the company manager ....
I think that we have to go home and doing something of better than fight against windmills
:truce:
 
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