Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedures

J

jguild

There must be someone out there who has run into the problem of trying to go ISO 9001 but the secretary who handles all the records has his or her own "special" ways of doing things. How did you get through this.

My specific situation.... she is hesitant to use and store information on the computer system and prefers file cabinets. Edits work orders, and job orders by hand, or just writes reminders on them.

Is this ok? or do I have to put my foot down and make serious changes?

:whip:
 

Marcelo

Inactive Registered Visitor
Re: Small company with an established Secretary/admin person.

ISO 9001, as other management systems standards, define controls for your processes. So, the important thing is the way you work, meaning, your process. Then, for your process, you need to apply some controls to make sure it can fulfill it's objective, and ISO 9001 simply states some controls which are considered "state of the art_ practices for controlling processes.

Now, trying to clarify this theoretical approach: you can do anything you want with ISO 9001, if you do fulfill the requirements. So, if you secretary works in a particular way, and this way do fulfill the requirements - in the case, for document control - everything would be ok - however, you do need to verify if the way she works include the controls required by ISO 9001. If not, you might need to change some of the things she does.
 

Golfman25

Trusted Information Resource
Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

I would be hesitant to change anything she does. If it is working for her and the company, there is no reason to change. All change will get you is grief because she will do it "her" way and then become a drag on your ISO system. You may need to make some minor modifications to make it compliant, but you should not have to do anything radical. Keep it Simple. Good luck.
 
J

jguild

Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

:thanx: thanks guys

So what you're saying is to Document the procedure the way that she does it now, seeing as it is working? So I should just have her explain to me her process.

I have to keep in mind what is, and what is not, "compliant" and simply advise her nicely if something is not compliant and may need a change.
 
R

Rickser

Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

What happens if she leaves the company? Would a new person be able to do that job by following her process? Along with that, the process must answer the requirement of the standard.
 
J

jguild

Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

if I document it correctly with proper flow charts, processes and work instructions, then it would at least be written down as a basis of how she was doing things. So I would hazard to say, yes. :agree1:
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

I've encountered a similar situation in numerous small companies, whether they be suppliers, customers, or consulting clients.

Document management and record keeping are the primary sticking points for these companies to achieve either compliance or certification to a Standard and often sabotages customer audits by big national or international companies.

Consultants in Change Management make their bread and butter on resolving this issue with a minimum amount of bitterness and rancor.

The essential problem is one of knowledge and education. Frequently, some "boss" gets the notion that "electronic document management" will solve ALL problems. The primary drawback is this "boss" has no practical knowledge of how such a system works or the details and processes involved in changing over from a legacy system to the fabled "solution."

Since the boss has little or no knowledge of the details, you can be certain the current employee tasked with the document management also has little knowledge. With the lack of knowledge comes FEAR - of change, of becoming unnecessary, of losing one's job.

The boss, because of his own ignorance, makes no effort to mollify or ease those fears and probably has no provision to find someone [a consultant? a school?] to help him AND the employee learn how to do this change (if the change is even warranted - sometimes it is not cost effective to change) with a minimum of fuss and muss.

It is a truism in Change Management that the employees and staff must first realize the inadequacies and shortcomings of a legacy process before they can even begin to consider how changes may benefit them over the long run.

If the boss with the notion to change can't articulate the shortcomings of the legacy system and list the advantages as well as the time and costs involved in implementing the change, then he's not ready to start the change process.
 
J

jguild

Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

good points Wes, I've been in the position of being told things need to change by someone over me who has no clue of the process and by changing things, only made the process harder and more complicated and slower. I won't forget those experiences now that I am that "boss."

If it's not broke, don't fix it right? just fine tune it with inputs from who uses it the most.... that's what i'm going with.
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Re: Small Company with an established Secretary/Admin person with "Personal" procedur

good points Wes, I've been in the position of being told things need to change by someone over me who has no clue of the process and by changing things, only made the process harder and more complicated and slower. I won't forget those experiences now that I am that "boss."

If it's not broke, don't fix it right? just fine tune it with inputs from who uses it the most.... that's what i'm going with.
Not necessarily "not broke," merely that a factual basis for making the change is necessary rather than making a change for change's sake. Change should never be a whim, but should be the optimal course of action after performing a type of FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis) on the present system as well as any proposed optional ones.

Rickser makes a good point when asking,
"What happens if she leaves the company? Would a new person be able to do that job by following her process? Along with that, the process must answer the requirement of the standard. "

Has the secretary become a de facto "choke point" so that the system collapses in her absence? Rickser's point is typical of many, if not most, legacy systems: "The number of people familar with the system shrinks daily and no new folks are trained or brought up to speed in the legacy system, as older folks insure their employment by becoming indispensable funnels or gatekeepers at a critical point in the process."

My point is not to abandon the idea of change to avoid disturbing sleeping dogs, but to research the issue so you can make a convincing case for change while minimizing opposition from affected stakeholders by showing them some benefits for them. (i.e. You answer the question foremost in their minds, "What's in it for me?" [WIIFM])

:topic:
I want to add that I have never found a benefit to offering an outright lie to a stakeholder that his/her job will not be affected when the truth is it will probably be eliminated. In such cases, I break the news early, but temper it with facts about alternate jobs or training to ease the transition.
 
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