Minor Nonconformity for Lack of Job Descriptions in ISO 9001

S

sliebman

Hi, i am new to the forum. I have seen the question asked before, but let me take a step further....My interpretation of the standard is that job descriptions are not required.
Question is this, how would some of you handle an auditor that has given you a minor nonconformance for not having job descriptions? We do have all of our shop floor employees' job descriptions, but we do not have management or upper level descriptions.....in a small company, these positions may change regularly. We do have an org chart which fully details our hierachy.
 

Jim Wynne

Leader
Admin
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Hi, i am new to the forum. I have seen the question asked before, but let me take a step further....My interpretation of the standard is that job descriptions are not required.
Question is this, how would some of you handle an auditor that has given you a minor nonconformance for not having job descriptions? We do have all of our shop floor employees' job descriptions, but we do not have management or upper level descriptions.....in a small company, these positions may change regularly. We do have an org chart which fully details our hierachy.

Welcome to the Cove. :)

Internal, second or third party (CB) auditor? Did the auditor cite the requirement? It would be a good thing if you could post the auditor's complete NC statement.

You are correct that job descriptions, per se, are not required, but sometimes there are other things at work that we can't see.
 
S

sliebman

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Outside auditor, it was for our full recert audit. We are ISO 9001, with exception to the design elements. This is a new auditor to us, and he usually audits Aerospace.
He cited 6.2.1 ISO clause, and his finding was
"Base level job descriptions should be developed to meet the requirements of a specific job to show the competency needed on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience in accordance with 6.2.1 General of ISO9001:2008"

Keep in mind, that we do have shop floor employees job descriptions writen in much detail for all employees....plus an org chart....plus a large matrix which lists all employees, and about 20 different catagories/skills that we review every year....
 

Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

The standard requires that responsibility and authorities related to processes are defined.

This usually means that you need to describe who does and can do what for each process.

People usually confuses (lack of understanding or training or both :p) that with job descriptions or organizational charts.
 

TPMB4

Quite Involved in Discussions
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

No job description? Just think how the auditor would react to no contracts. My old, old, old company gave contracts out so infrequently that if you had one you were in the minority. Before 9001 think it was BS 5754 back then??

Personally, I've never seen where the need for job description is in the 9001. Records of the skills of employees and training I think but not specific JD. It is good practice to have them I'm sure since in some ways it gives your bosses some kind of metrics against which they can monitor you. I mean if you are not doing a certain role anymore then that would be picked up in your personal audit (employee appraisal) for xample. :)
 

qusys

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Outside auditor, it was for our full recert audit. We are ISO 9001, with exception to the design elements. This is a new auditor to us, and he usually audits Aerospace.
He cited 6.2.1 ISO clause, and his finding was
"Base level job descriptions should be developed to meet the requirements of a specific job to show the competency needed on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience in accordance with 6.2.1 General of ISO9001:2008"

Keep in mind, that we do have shop floor employees job descriptions writen in much detail for all employees....plus an org chart....plus a large matrix which lists all employees, and about 20 different catagories/skills that we review every year....

As other expert Covers, job description is not a requirement but it could be as one of the many methods to communicate role and responsibilities in an organization, but , repeat, it is not a requirement unless the organization decided to embrace them.
A question for you: could you please also cite the evidences that the external auditor found to support this non conformity? You cite the requirments but we also should know the evidences that carried to ncn.

Besides the verbiage is not ok , I think, because he used should and he appear to give an advice rather than to say the deviation from the requirement. It seems to be a desiderata from auditor point of view.
:bigwave:
 
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J0anne

Joanne
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

"Base level job descriptions should be developed to meet the requirements of a specific job to show the competency needed on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience in accordance with 6.2.1 General of ISO9001:2008"

This is not a correctly defined NC.
My battery is dead, I'll be back. :)
 

TPMB4

Quite Involved in Discussions
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

We have the same sort of matrix for all shopfloor with operations listed. Each employee is given a rank as to level of training from needing supervision through to expert capable of training in that process. The shop floor ppl are all hired as operatives with a general contract. This matrix then describes the operations each employee can do. We run with a high degree of ppl capable of doing a lot of different roles. With this in mind job descriptions would be a pain.

Office/management staff have nothing like this matrix but the roles are clear. Our organization chart is pretty basic too. We are an SME with about 50-60 employees in total. If that auditor came here we would be in your boat too. We are not and always pass re-certification and surveilance audits by 3rd body/CB with flying colours despite this lack of job descriptions (throughout the company levels).

I feel it is not really a NC according to the standard because your other actions seem to meet the needs of ISO 9001. I am not experienced enough to be sure in this as I'm new to a purely quality role. I would be interested since it could be something I wld need to look at since I am responsible for the quality systems in the company (well at the delegation of the senior management obviously).
 

Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

Base level job descriptions should be developed to meet the requirements of a specific job to show the competency needed on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills and experience in accordance with 6.2.1 General of ISO9001:2008"

The standard does not require that.

And he's suggesting a way to fulfill the requirement, something an auditor must not do. He should evaluate how YOU fulfill the requirement, not how HE thinks the requirement should be fulfilled.
 
S

sliebman

Re: Nonconformity for lack of job descriptions in ISO 9001

The auditor asked if we had job descriptions, and we proceded to show him our employee manual, which has the shop floor personnel listed. He asked if there was a job description for my role (process engineer, manufacturing engineer, interim quality manager etc....) and he also asked if there was a job description for the president of the company.
In the nc, all he listed was exactly what i wrote in my previous post....his notes state that there are no job descriptions listed for the Office Manager, Quality Manager, Process Engineer, and President
 
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