Competence, awareness and training

Back to the standard; 6.2.2 Competence, awareness and training.  The company will; a) determine the necessary competence for personnel performing work affecting product quality, b) provide training or take other actions to satisfy these needs, c) evaluate the effectiveness of the actions taken, d) 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 e) maintain appropriate records of education, training, skills and experience.

Notice the terminology?  ‘The company will; a)….  It doesn’t say you need a documented procedure, but in mind it is advantageous especially when framing the process to achieve certification.  So a simple procedure outlining the five bullet points and here are the first three;  a) do you have competencies (skills, training, awareness, certified, licenced, etc) that are needed to be able to operate equipment, to satisfy regulatory needs or as the standard asks that impact on quality?  If yes, list them and list the people who can.  We will deal with how in the next blog.  Now a list of competence can be attributes as well, just be careful.  If such information is included in job descriptions or position specifications, then ‘listing’ them will enable an overview but this is purely voluntary.

Next, review any gaps between desired needed competencies and actual.  You can do this by ‘deeming’, appraisals, interviews, etc.  Nothing is mandated here other than that you identify them and then deliver the necessary actions so that personnel can be considered competent.  Records of such reviews, delivery and results need to be kept.  Either in the list, the persons employee file or some form of spreadsheet or database.  Just make sure you are not duplicating records that are already controlled. 

And then last for this blog; evaluate the actions.  Easy.  Can they now do the job to the level of expertise you want, need?  Do they have a certificate or licence?  Can you observe their performance and deem them competent.  It always up to you, just make sure there are records.

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