Training on QMS (Quality Management System) for field employees

[NatashaD]

This is my first post here, and I hope someone can help me with a question I have.

Our company is registered to ISO 9001:2000 and just had our second surveillence audit, with an upgrade to TL 9000 a month ago.

We are based in Canada, but we provide installation services to our customers all over North America, the Carribean and South America. Most of our employees are not from anywhere near where our office is, so hiring is done over the phone and we rarely if ever meet them face-to-face. As part of the hiring process, I send a link to our QMS which is on a password protected section of our website, and ask them to read it. Our auditor suggested that as proof of this "training" we should ask them to sign a statement saying that they read and understood it and will follow the procedures relevant to them. Is this enough? Another employee in the office suggested that we have them write a short quiz to prove that they at least read the sections the questions are coming from.

Thank you in advance for any help on this quesiton.

 

[SteelMaiden]

Welcome to the Cove!

Do you have problems (read that as customer complaints) that are traceable back to your field employees not having read the documentation? Do you feel that they are performing substandard work because they are not reading the documentation? If you answer yes to these, then maybe you do need to do something more than a simple sign off sheet. If they are performing to your satisfaction, and the customer's, then obviously they are doing what they are supposed to do and doing it right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.