ISO 9001:2000 – A FRAMEWORK FOR

IMPROVING QUALITY IN TRAINING FUNCTION

M.N.Neelakandhan
QMS Consultant & Auditor
(Formerly Director, Bureau of
Indian Standards, Bangalore)

ISO 9000 STANDARDS

ISO 9000 series of International Standards on quality management systems formulated by

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) were originally formulated in 1987

and subsequently revised in 1994 and in 2000 respectively. These standards are the most

widely accepted international standards the world over as these have been adopted and

used for quality management system certification by most of the countries in the world.

The standards from the 1994 series against which certification was carried out were ISO

9001, ISO 9002 and ISO 9003 and, since these three standards are now superceded by

ISO 9001:2000, only this standard from the current series will be used for certification

henceforth.

In India too, ISO 9000 series of standards grew in popularity during the last decade as

more than 10,000 organizations were certified to ISO 9000 standards during this period.

The motives for proliferation in ISO 9000-certified organizations in India were primarily

the marketing edge the certification offered, particularly to those organizations which

exported products and services, and to lesser extent, pressure from the client

organizations as in the case of suppliers to OEMs.

QULITY IMPROVEMENT AND 1994 VERSION OF ISO 9000 STANDARDS

ISO 9000 standards in their 1994 version were not explicit in their approach to the

concept of quality improvement as a strategy to sustain and promote an organization;

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even though the requirements relating to corrective and preventive actions in the

standards implicitly offered to willing and enterprising organizations, a platform for

launching quality improvement drives and projects. But author’s experience as an auditor

indicates that such organizations are few in number and most were content to apply this

element of 1994 version of the standard in its letter rather than in its spirit.

Approach to implementation of the element of ‘training’ in 1994 version of the standard

by most of the organizations was also no different. The standard due to unknown reasons

laid stress on the term ‘training’ and ‘identification of training needs’ while setting out

requirements for human resource and consequently, most of the organizations while

defining and implementing requirements of ‘training’ in regard to their quality

management system, merely dealt with activities such as identification of training needs,

provision of training, collecting feedback on training etc. As a result, the spirit of the

requirement given under the element ‘training’ given in 1994 version that ‘personnel

performing specific assigned tasks shall be qualified on the basis of appropriate

education, training and/or experience, as required’ was lost, while this requirement should

have been the key factor in defining and implementing quality management system in

respect of human resource by any organization. Likewise, application of requirements of

corrective and preventive actions with a view to improve quality of ‘training’ was never

considered necessary as the standard itself did not explicitly promote quality

improvement as a policy essential to quality management system.

In addition to these inherent inadequacies of 1994 version of the standard, certain other

factors also contributed in apparent inability of quality management system as per ISO

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9000 standards to promote quality improvement in certified organizations. More than

75% of the organizations that are certified in India are from the small and medium sector

and most of these organizations basically lacked in human resource and training

activities. Hence these organizations merely aimed at complying with requirements of

‘training’ as given in 1994 version of the standard in a superficial manner and at meeting

minimum requirements of the certifying agencies rather than using implementation of

quality management system as a tool to ensure quality improvement on a continual basis.

The perfunctory approach adopted in auditing related functional areas by both internal

and external auditors who were aware of the inadequacies of certified organizations in

regard to the element ‘training’ in 1994 version of the standard also contributed to this

scenario. This observation is based on author’s experience of nearly 10 years while

working with three certifying agencies both as an auditor and a consultant.

IMPROVEMENTS IN ISO 9001:2000

Current version of the International Standard on quality management systems, ISO

9001:2000 incorporates a number of radical changes in regard to both its structure and

content. These changes in essence, seek to remedy the shortcomings in the earlier version

of the standard including those issues discussed in earlier paragraphs. The primary

elements of ISO 9001:2000 that have a specific role to play in improving the treatment of

human resource management in the context of quality management system are:

 requirement of process-based approach,

 requirement of analysis of data and continual improvement, and

 emphasis on competency-based approach in regard to human resource

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The standard requires that the organization implementing quality management system

‘shall determine and provide the resources (including human resource) needed to

implement and maintain the quality management system and continually improve its

effectiveness, and to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements’.

In regard to human resource, the standard also requires that ‘personnel performing work

affecting product quality shall be competent on the basis of appropriate education,

training, skills and experience’. In order to achieve this objective, the standard requires

that, ‘the organization shall determine the necessary competence for personnel

performing work affecting product quality, provide training or take other actions to

satisfy these needs, evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken, ensure that its

personnel are aware of the relevance and importance of their activities and how they

contribute to the achievement of the quality objectives, and maintain appropriate records

of education, training skills and experience’.

The standard also requires that the organization shall identify the processes needed for

quality management system and their application throughout the organization; this

requirement being obviously applicable to the process of human resource management

also. The standard further requires that organization shall define a quality policy that

firmly expresses a commitment to continually improve the effectiveness of the quality

management system and also lay down quality objectives consistent with the quality

policy at all relevant functions and levels within the organization. The standard in

addition, requires that the organization shall analyze appropriate data with a view to

demonstrating effectiveness of quality management system and identifying areas for

effecting continual improvement. It goes without saying that these general requirements

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also apply to the human resource management system forming part of the overall quality

management system of the organization.

IMPLEMENTING ISO 9001:2000

The requirements of ISO 9001:2000 relevant to human resource management and briefly

discussed above make it imperative for an organization implementing quality

management system initially to identify processes relevant to human resource

management in the organization, identify inputs and outputs of these processes and also

identify the activities required for converting the inputs into outputs. The number of

applicable processes may vary according to the size, structure and complexity of the

organization. For example, for a small enterprise the relevant process may be only the

process of ‘providing competent personnel and maintaining their competencies’ looked

after by one functional unit or by a single executive of the organization whereas for a

large organization, the processes may be more than one such as process of recruitment,

process of training, process of industrial relations etc., and these processes may spread

over more than one functional unit of the organization.

Having identified the processes, the inputs, outputs and activities associated with

converting the inputs to outputs relevant each process will have to be determined and

wherever required, the processes will have to be supported with appropriate

documentation and records. The record maintenance gains importance in the present

context because the records provide essential data that can be analyzed for confirming

effectiveness of the system and for identifying quality improvement projects in areas

related to human resource management. It is also worthwhile to note that process-based

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approach recognizes the fact that processes in an organization are invariably cross-

functional with the primary responsibility for the process resting with one functional unit

and with contributory/secondary responsibility resting with several other units.

On the basis of author’s experience of auditing several small enterprises, it is felt that the

following basic requirements will have to be satisfied by small enterprises to conform to

the requirements of ISO 9001:2000 in regard to human resource management:

 Determining and documenting job specifications for each level/position in the

organization

 Evolving a procedure for periodic performance appraisal to identify gaps, if any

in competencies, to enable supervisors to identify training needs, to offer feedback

on effectiveness of previous training given etc.

 Evolving a procedure for training (on-the-job/off-the-job, internal/external) to

satisfy the training needs and evaluate effectiveness of training

 Setting measurable quality objectives for training function (for example,

percentage of employees to be trained in a specific period or acceptable level of

feedback regarding effectiveness of training or economic benefits to the

organization from training vis-à-vis cost of training etc.)

 Evolving a procedure for generating and maintaining records of data and

information relating to personnel, their training etc.

 Evolving a procedure for analysis of data and information for confirming

effectiveness of training and for identifying quality improvement projects in areas

relevant to human resource management

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  Evolving a procedure for executing and monitoring identified quality

improvement projects to ensure continual improvement of the quality

management system in relation to human resource

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PROCESS-BASED APPROACH

In order to demonstrate the catalytic potential of process-based approach for quality

improvement, let us take the case of an organization which has identified ‘providing

training’ as a process. A process map relating to the process of training can be depicted as

follows:

INPUTS ACTIVITIES

OUTPUT
Job spec.
Identifying trg. needs
Performance
Designing training
appraisal
Delivering training
Feedback from
Evaluating training
supervisors
Setting & monitoring
Inputs from top Compete
quality objectives
mgmt. nt human
Identifying &
Customer resource
executing quality
feedback
improvement
Employees
projects
New recruits

Process map facilitates a clear understanding of the process, in this case, the process of

training in terms of inputs, outputs and the activities involved in converting inputs to

outputs. Records available to the training function such as performance appraisal forms

and feedback from various sources and records generated during the process of training

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and other pertinent activities provide data and information that can be analyzed for

identifying quality improvement projects. For example, customer feedback indicating

behavioral deficiencies among Sales Personnel of the organization may necessitate taking

up a quality improvement project to consider modifying competency requirements of

Sales Personnel and/or redesigning training for Sales Personnel. Similarly an analysis of

feedback proformae from participants of a training programme and evaluation reports

from supervisors of the participants may provide inputs to take up a quality improvement

project to revise the content and delivery of the particular training programme. Thus

process-based approach as now required in ISO 9001:2000 provides innumerable

possibilities for quality improvement on a continual basis in any business process of an

organization including processes relevant to human resource.

PROCESS-BASED APPROACH Vs TRAINING CYCLE

ISO 9001:2000 recommends application of the well-known PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act)

approach to all processes. This approach can be particularly beneficial with respect to

continual improvement that is a significant element of the new version of the standard.

The standard describes PDCA approach as follows:

 Plan: establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in

accordance with customer requirements and the organization’s policies.

 Do: implement the processes.

 Check: monitor and measure processes and product against policies, objectives

and requirements for the product and report the results.

 Act: take actions to continually improve process performance.

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The conventional ‘training cycle’ approach in designing and delivering training is not

much different from the PDCA approach ISO 9001:2000 recommends for ensuring

continual improvement as illustrated in the figure below:

Identify training
needs
PLAN

Validate Set aims &

ACT DO Evaluate objectives

Design
CHECK

Implement

PDCA-APPROACH TRAINING CYCLE APPROACH

On comparison between these two approaches, it will be seen that ‘plan’ in PDCA

approach corresponds to ‘ identification of training needs, setting aims and objectives and

designing’; ‘do’ corresponds to ‘implement’; ‘check’ corresponds to ‘evaluate and

validate’; and ‘act’ corresponds to ‘redefining training needs, resetting aims and

objectives, and redesigning training’ based on the feedback from evaluation and

validation. This similarity in approach perhaps will make it easier for training

professionals to adopt process approach while implementing quality management system

in accordance with ISO 9001:2000.

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SUMMING UP

Introduction of process approach and the requirement of continual improvement

undoubtedly is a welcome change in ISO 9001:2000 and will be instrumental in ensuring

tangible benefits to the organizations implementing quality management system. The

changes throw up opportunities to bring about continual improvement in a structured and

systematic manner in functional areas such as human resource management including

training and consequently to improve the quality of the most significant input to an

organization, i.e., human resource. However this will call for rigorous implementation of

the standard duly supported by conscientious top management and effective auditing.

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