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1.09.2022

Employees won’t like ISO 9001? Here’s 5 benefits for employees

When you compare the advantages and disadvantages of ISO 9001, you will also think about what the consequences will be for your employees. Will there be benefits for employees? Can you expect a positive effect on morale, or rather doubts and resistance that outweigh the other benefits?

Benefits for employees make them happy

The ISO 45000 standard on health and safety in the organisation or the ISO 45003 guidelines on psychological health at work undeniably promote well-being at work. Does this also apply to the ISO 9001 quality standard? It sure does! Discover in the article below how a well-implemented ISO 9001 supports talent attraction and retention.

ISO 9001 promotes strategic alignment

ISO 9001 requires leadership to communicate the organisation’s purpose, mission, and vision. Moreover, it requires the organisation to have a plan with specific objectives that can be clearly marked as done or not done. Furthermore, through your constant communication about it, employees will understand where the organisation wants to go in the long term. In the end, this creates a commitment to the vision of the organisation. Employees feel enabled to distinguish between a good decision and a bad one or between a distraction and a real problem.

Employees benefit from the focus on clear roles and responsibilities

One of the underlying principles of ISO 9001 is process orientation. So, your organisation is expected to establish the necessary processes for the effective functioning of the management system. The resulting benefit for your employees is that they gain insight into how their work affects the end result. No doubt this is motivating. Moreover, they learn who or what team is assigned authority, responsibility or accountability for specific tasks and their outcome. Without roles and responsibilities, you run the risk of employees becoming frustrated by duplicate work. Or the other way around, that nobody is responsible for a task that is not (properly) performed.

Benefits for employees through growth opportunities

Your organisation is expected to consider the knowledge of the organisation and the current capabilities of its people. More specifically, to evaluate what is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the management system and the achievement of its objectives. On the one hand, this requires that your organisation has effective ways of sharing organisational knowledge. Take, for example, a good quality onboarding or cross-boarding process. The benefits for employees are a good start in a new job and a boost in motivation. On the other hand, it provides managers with a framework to evaluate employees’ development needs. Here, the benefit for your employees is that the organisation supports their development towards a more challenging position in the organisation. They will therefore respond positively to growth and development opportunities through targeted employee training.

Employees benefit from a better working environment

As with human resources, your organisation is expected to thoroughly evaluate the working environment. Indeed, ISO 9001 devotes an entire clause to providing resources that support activity, output, and productivity. All this will result in a better workplace. Hence, the benefits for employees are a dynamic, efficient, clean, and safe workspace.

The ultimate benefit for employees is empowerment

Because of all the above, ISO 9001 makes it possible to involve employees in the improvement of their own workplace. Often employees know the pain points of current working methods before management does. ISO 9001 encourages them to make changes in consultation with their internal customer and/or supplier. Just think of the underlying principle of evidence-based decisions, the requirements for continuous improvement, measuring and analysing work processes and monitoring customer satisfaction.

Yet the benefits for employees go beyond the improved processes themselves. Allowing a team to understand how they create value for their (internal) customers but leaving them the creativity to achieve this within the framework of their responsibility and accountability, is a stimulus for creativity and commitment. In the end, they will feel valued for their crucial contribution to the improvement of the processes.

Conclusion

A well-implemented ISO 9001 system is a benefit for employees. Their initial resistance may stem from earlier experiences where the implementation was not so successful. Or perhaps they are simply unfamiliar with the subject.  An effective way to deal with this is to discuss ISO 9001 and the benefits they can expect with employees beforehand. And of course, by implementing the standard properly.