Should we have Work Instructions for HR or not

[reunalla]

Hallo All!

I need some help about document.

I am arguing with the HR Manager of my company whether we should have work instructions for HR or not. We have global company procedures for the all locations in the World, we have some related to HR: about trainings, new hire etc. My opinion is that we have to have some plant level WIs for the HR processes as well since the global procedures are too general and in my opinion do not include all relevant info (e.g recording, record keeping), also they are in Englishe which is not my country's native. The guy does not accept my opinion and wants to see a quote from a standard.

7.5.1 only says "Controlled conditions shall include, as applicable the availability of work instructions, as necessary"
also
7.5.1.2 says: "The organization shall prepare documented work instructions for all employees having responsibilities for the operation of processes that impact conformity to product requirements."
I personally do not think that HR processes impact product quality so it is not very useably for me.

Any ideas who to convince him that we need to have plant level WIs in our native language? What quote can I show him?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jamie_]

As mentioned by a couple of people upthread, we all do this differently. I personally use WI very sparingly and only for those things where there can be no deviation.

What kind of work instructions do you want them to have for HR? In our QMS HR is about training and related record keeping. I don't know what WI I would write for that as our record control matrix shows which records are to be kept, where, for how long, etc.

An example of a WI I have is how to fill out an NCF tag. The SOP states who is responsible, etc. but having a document which shows the tag fields and spells out what information is required makes it easier for our people to follow and I have it in all needed languages. That way if they are new or forget they can reference a handy WI - and the requirements never vary so I can laminate, post a controlled WI, and make it easier for them to comply.

I have 6 WI which I made after it was clear they would assist people in carrying out certain tasks step by step if they had more detailed instructions than the SOP. 3 are simple flow charts and two are step by step calibration instructions.

Edited to because I forgot to quote.

 

[Uriel Alejandro]

Hi Renualla

What kind of records do you want to control with this new WIs? Because if they are not the ones required by the standard it may be an extra load for your QMS.

I think the main criteria for create a new process should be if that process has a added value for your operation. Unnecessary processes are one of the most common waste (muda) in operations but one of the less considered.
My recommendation it?s to make an analysis of added value and show it to the process owner and someone of the top management and let them to decide but if they still don't think it?s needed for the organization it may not be kind of battle you want to fight. I have experienced something similar and it always was a nightmare try to deal with the corrective actions resulting of missing records because owners and management didn?t really cared about that information.

About the documents in English, for me it's the most critical, if they?re on a foreign language and it difficult understanding of users it totally have to be fixed.

 

[reunalla]

Hallo!

We accually have WIs, 10 all together:
about training for direct and indirect employees, new hire process, general tasks regarding for examle of each staff member's responsibility in trainings (technicians, engineers, shift leaders, trainer, team leaders - we have 1850 co-workers in this location, from which 1700 are operators at the lines) - also they discribe where and which form exactly we do need to keep the training records and incomming job applications

So we have the WI-s but the HR guy just does not want to keep them (to much work to check them once every year - yearly review of every document is required by company standard). The global procedures are very general and not in our language which is my main concern - based on my understanding the documents should be available to the person who needs to use them or to whom it may concern and I think something in a foreign language does not qualify as available, also the staff here besides our native speaks mostly German not English. I am totally not against to throw away the ones that we do not use or need but for example the ones about training responsibility and training record keeping are the ones I want to keep because we have issues in that area (missing trainings, missing training records, pepole do not want to train operators - and we just had 2 internal audits and both auditor wrote up that we have problems with training)

 

[Jamie_]

I agree that documents in an language the people required to follow them cannot read are useless. Regarding words in the standard to force them into complying I'd go with the following:

4.2.3 e) "to ensure that documents remain legible and readily identifiable."

In common use legible usually refers to readable handwriting, but the definition is actually,
1.: capable of being read or deciphered, 2: capable of being discovered or understood

It's amazing to me this is even a conversation you have to have with them. It's common sense to make it as easy as possible for people to follow the procedure - because if they can't refer to it you're counting on them all getting it right based on memory. All it takes is one person to deviate and with nothing to reference compliance can be out the window.

But if you need explicit requirement from the standard I'd hang my hat on the use of the word legible. If they can't be read or understood they aren't legible to these people. If they want to get pedantic back and claim it meets the standard because they can be read/understood by others than they are just being difficult because that's counterproductive.

 

[reunalla]

Thank you, I try this.