QMS Awareness Training Is Your First Impression. Are You Making a Good One?

QMS training isn't just QMS training.

It's the first impression.

Even if someone is coming from a different organization and has a preconceived notion of what Quality Management is all about, or how Quality Management Systems work, this is your first chance to let them know how it works at your organization.

It's your chance to dispel their beliefs. It's a chance to help them see Quality from a different angle. To help them see how quality works here.

This training really is one of the best culture-building tools we have. And especially so when you consider that it's often used in onboarding as well.

So, it matters. A lot.

And what do we do?

Well… we either keep delivering the same training year after year, with minor tweaks here and there. Or we build training based on making sure we cover all the things we need to cover to get the check mark from the auditor.

We build our training for compliance, not for comprehension.

But wait... if we don't have comprehension, we won't have compliance.

Oh, yeah.

We end up with training that covers everything, but connects with nothing.

People get freaked out by all the words and acronyms they don't know. They have no idea how it relates to what they do. They find it intimidating, confusing, and heavy.

And they tune out fast.

And even worse, they're not comfortable letting you know what they don't know. Because no one likes to feel like an idiot. So you may be assuming they know much more than they actually do.

Until you're surprised by something on an audit.

So it's a double whammy — people don't know what's going on AND they find you intimidating and unapproachable.

Not good.

The role of this training is to help people be aware of and understand your Quality Management System. What it is, why it exists, what matters to them, their role in it.

That's where we have to start.

Not with a detailed description of the documentation system. Not with how to handle change control. Not with intricate process diagrams. Not with clauses word-for-word straight from the standard or regulations.

No.

You start by thinking about what they know.

Only after they get it can you start to get into the nitty-gritty bits and pieces. If they don't get it, they won't know why they should care. And if people don't care, there's no incentive to remember it. So they won't.

When your training helps people get it, it shifts from being a box to tick and starts being the foundation of your Quality Culture.

If you're worried that your training is missing the mark, and you don't want people to hate your QMS Awareness Training, you'll probably like How to Create QMS Awareness Training People Don't Hate.