The role of a Quality and Safety manager is changing significantly due to all kinds of technological enhancements. Regardless of these innovations, there is still the interpersonal skills that are required to be a great Quality and Safety manager. The role itself isn’t easy, you need to be likable in order to get information from people, but also be strict at the right time. Employees need to fill in the forms and inspections for you to get the information needed. On the other hand, you need to be strict when someone makes a mess. That last point makes the job so hard. Many Quality and Safety managers are seen as the police of the organization, which they shouldn’t be.
Resistance to Change
As a Quality and Safety professional, you are mostly looking for things to improve. This could be to minimize risks, run processes more efficiently or make them less hazardous. You are continuously looking to change things. This is the root of some of the internal struggles. Most people don’t want to change. They think the company is running fine the way it does. You on the other end are continuously looking for things to improve, it is even embedded in the PDCA cycle. This huge gap in points of view can make it very hard to get anything done. In order to overcome this struggle, try not to push too many changes in a very short time. You might distance the team too much which makes it hard to get them to support you during future changes.
Don’t Police
Still, a lot of Quality and Safety managers are seen as the police agent of the office. They correct people when they are wrong and they use internal audits to check if you stay in line. This is far from the truth but this perception still exists in a large number of companies. It is important to get this picture out of people’s mind. Never point fingers and don’t blame them. When something goes wrong look at how the processes can be changed to avoid it in the future. Just don’t blame the people. Except when they do not only break a process but also the law, then it is the people’s problem.
Use Examples
Especially in safety, visual examples why changes are required work great. It is crucial everybody goes home the same way they arrived in the morning. Sometimes changes are required to reach this goal. These changes might make some activities more time consuming due to the safety preparation. Explaining why these activities are so important helps a lot, showing a picture of how it will help them is key. It isn’t all that easy but keep explaining this to people.
Feedback
Give people feedback when they help out. When they take their time to fill in a form or report an incident, make sure you give them feedback of the actions. This direct feedback keeps people engaged and involved. They see how the company takes actions when the employees report something. Automating the feedback reduces a lot of time.
Conclusion
You don’t have to be friends with everybody, but it is critical to be among the people and have their respect. This is the only way they will share knowledge with you and listen to you. In the end, you cannot change anything on your own you need the employees on your side to reach these goals.
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