howste said:
I don't know about the others, but when I (or anyone else in my company) finish helping a client to achieve ISO certification the company doesn't need babysitting afterwards. If we can continue to help the company in some other area, we're happy to do it of course. We have had some smaller companies ask us to do internal audits for them because it's more cost effective or convenient. Of course we're not charging them $275 ~ $400/hour either...
We contracted out the implementation of our EMS, a full-time employee worked on it and helped ensure our on-going compliance to regulations, a co-op did the documentation (who later was hired by the consultant), and the consultant developed the databases, did some training, etc.
Once implemented, they left. Of course, not all infomation was conveyed to the EMS representative and, as a result of our recent internal audit, a few issues were uncovered with regards to the aspects database. The former co-op was called in to address the glitches.
Much of the documentation that the former co-op initiated work on is still sitting in limbo land as the departments attempt to adjust her work to be more suited to their operations, while ensuring that our documented (and actual) processes do not violate any regulations.
All fine and dandy to bring consultants in, but sometimes it's best if the most of the leg work is done by the people who know the job. We didn't need babysitting afterwards, but we needed a bit more training on the databases left behind.
Sooooo...that being said, lets discuss bias now. Squid's consultant will be auditing the effectiveness of her system? I realize that she's not auditing her own work, I mean she's not the one doing the jobs on the floor, but she's evaluating how well people are following her system. I forsee some temper tantrums in the near future.
Squid, I didn't check out your profile...how big is your company? If it's a small company, sometimes it can be more cost effective to bring in someone from the outside...but her prices seem a little high for her perceived lack of skill. If she had to be sent off on training (at your expense), she's still a rookie in the field, in my opinion.
For a comparison, though, we did a recent system audit to ISO 14001. Tallying up the hours of the team to do a desk study, prep, audit, prepare the report, our total cost of the team was just under $4,000 CDN. We originally did not think that we would have to do the audit ourselves (hitting our annual planning cycle, I was the lead and had to prepare for my own BMS annual review, etc.), so we asked our consultant for a quote for the audit....$10,000CDN! *faint* At that price, we decided we'd make the time for the audit...and I'd have to say (but I'm probably biased here
) that the findings were as good as what he would have found.
I'd really question your consultant about her prices and ask for a detailed breakdown of her hours. I'd also ask her to point out which clauses/shalls require her presence on the audit team? Get it all documented. I'd include the President in this loop...phrase it politely, in a curious manner, basically state it's for your own edification. This will hopefully shed some light on the manner. Maybe approach the Prez first? Ask him if he thought it would make good business sense if you were to contact her asking for this information. If he says no, then you definitely know something's not right there.
But you may have a point. So Squid - is she a hottie? 
