That’s what our outside ISO auditor reminds me of.
He told us his boss recently evaluated him and informed him that, on average, his audits resulted in slightly fewer “write-ups” than other auditors in his company. A “write-up” could be a non-conformance (classified as minor, serious or major), or simply a “suggestion for improvement.”
So today, after a 1½ day audit, he apologetically informed us that although we have a good program that seems to be functioning well, he has found three items that will be listed as minor non-conformances.
Ah, that’s OK. The stuff he “found,” although relatively insignificant, will bring about an improvement if we make the changes he suggests. And that’s part of his function as an auditor. So I’m not really complaining. I just hope my boss understands that our program is really pretty good, even though we’ve now been “written up” by the outside auditor.
Greg, if you’re reading this, now you know the real reason he wrote those non-conformances. You understand, right?
Am I worried about getting fired? Not really. Let’s face it, nobody else here wants to run the quality program. At one point our finance manager ran it, but she begged off citing lack of time. Come to think of it, that’s about the 5th duty she has begged off of for the same reason, and they all seem to slide down hill (as that kind of stuff tends to do) to HR.
What? Am I saying that HR has become the “dumping ground” for all the programs and duties that nobody else wants?
Well, in many cases, yes! And in those cases where the duty or program has value to the company (or employees) and the HR folks have the training, skills and time to handle them, that’s fine. That way HR provides more value to the “line” organization, which is what “staff” departments are supposed to do, isn't it?
Boy, is this a boring blog post or what? I got started talking about cops with quotas for traffic citations, and look where I ended up. I’m sounding like a real “company man.”
Greg, are you paying attention??
Well, I call this thing “Ramblings.” Maybe I’ll find something at least vaguely “Romantic” to write about tomorrow.
3 comments:
John, rmember the commercial where the three little kids are checking out a new cereal, and one finally says, "Give it to Mikey, he'll eat anything"? Well anyway, that's kind of like work, give it to the (fill in blank). Really it's because we haven't learned how to say no.
Wha? Huh? Oh...I'm sorry. I must have dozed off somewhere between auditor and non-conformance.
Two jobs ago (don't I sound like a real job-hopper?), it was HR that sluffed off all of their undesirable duties to accounting. And since everyone in my department (accounting) was too busy, guess who got stuck doing all of the crap? me! Like you said, it all flows one direction, thanks to stinkin' gravity!
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