Formal Quality Improvement Programs, Essay Example

A successful quality-improvement program will, by definition, create a competitive advantage for any organization. But instituting such programs can also create more problems than they solve. To gain and keep a qualitative edge, those potential problems must be identified beforehand. The best policy is to keep things simple.

Quality programs work best when they set an overall goal and then define specific problem areas relevant to that goal (Webber & Wallace, 2011). To do that, organizations must first identify where the perceived need for a program comes from. Is it to improve a department that is already meeting its goals; or is it to rectify a failure? Proactive or reactive, the answer may determine whether the new program will apply equally to hourly employees and salaried managers, and the levels of resistance encountered.

Quality programs are about testing, procedures, and education. Testing senior hourly employees can be compared to testing a senior manager. It is offensive to both because it implies that they have failed in spite of their tenure. Therefore quality-testing must either be linked to opportunity through exclusiveness, or made mandatory for all.

Procedural changes can have the effect of prohibiting informal procedures that senior hourly and managerial personnel have evolved over time, to the benefit of both themselves and the organization. New procedures that unthinkingly do this will fail.

Education in the workplace is often a name for training. Absolutely the most important thing to remember is that employees can never successfully be trained to work harder for long, if at all. Instead, they either train their trainers or risk losing their jobs.

To improve quality in an organization, the above rules must first be discussed in full beforehand, and then afterwards made reference to in the follow-up report.

References

Webber, L., & Wallace, M. (2011) How to Introduce Quality Control to Your Organization. Retrieved from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-introduce-quality-control-to-your-organizat.seriesId-171070.html