7.1.2 People
“To ensure the organization can consistently meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, the organization shall provide the persons necessary for the effective operation of the quality management system, including the processes needed.”
First, I would like to take a moment to salute my readers who, last week, pointed out that when discussing organizational resources, one should always consider people as critical resources. We hadn’t quite gotten there yet, but here we are this week to discuss the very same.
This section of the revision is a little befuddling to me – not the intent, but how it is organized. (And if you wish to follow my rant, you’ll need to follow along in your copy of the standard). The 7.1.2 “People” section contains just a general statement (above) requiring that the organization effectively “put enough people in the chairs”. But it does little to discuss any more detail. The sections following (which talk about other types of resources) provide details and examples of the resources to be considered – 7.1.3 Infrastructure suggests “buildings”, “equipment” etc, 7.1.4 Environment suggests “physical, social, psychological, etc” and 7.1.5 Monitoring Resources makes is clear the resources must be “suitable” and “maintained”. But 7.1.2 simply says “shall provide the persons necessary”.
The standard identifies “organizational knowledge” in 7.1.6 as a critical resource, but treats it sort of like a much needed library of information which must be later connected back to the people (ie the organization must find a way to link the “people” with the “organizational knowledge” (library)). The standard then jumps up one level to 7.2 Competence & 7.3 Awareness which is all about people and how the organization will be able to effectively use their knowledge and skills to meet its objectives. But then in that same level, it switches to 7.4 Communication and 7.5 Documentation which are obviously relative to people, but not as directly. In my humble opinion, the layout is awkward. But I do like a lot of what is being said.
This week, our task is an easy one – we simply need to “provide the persons necessary” to keep our processes and QMS moving along. (A few sections later, we will identify how we determine that we indeed have the “persons necessary”).
So this much awaited section 7.1.2 People leaves us a little underwhelmed. It doesn’t say much about this treasured resource all organizations must continually develop and provide a culture where they may thrive. It does, however, recognize the first step which is to evaluate what you’ve set out to do and then make sure you have filled your bench with the right team to do the job.
THIS WEEK’S HOMEWORK – NO HOMEWORK! We will take the week off and wait until there’s something a little more meaty for us to work on (which will be next week 7.1.3 Infrastructure).
