Every employee is different and uses a unique thought process to get his or her tasks done. That’s one of the great things about the human race: we are unique.

BUT, when you’re running a fast-growing business and give a group of people jobs to do, you need them to perform uniformly and consistently. The most effective way to ensure employees work in tandem toward success is to clearly define their end goal with measurable standards at the conclusion of their tasks.

Quality Management System

Some businesses refer to this defined process as a Quality Management System (QMS). The benefits of a QMS include:

• Improved processes

• Cost reductions

• Waste reductions

• Facilitation and identification of training opportunities and needs

• Engaged staff members

• Establishment of direction throughout your organization

A QMS documents the processes, procedures, responses and other actions necessary for achieving quality policies and objectives. This system, often, helps meet customer and regularly requirements and improve effectiveness and efficiency on a continual basis.

Why a QMS Will Help

You may think that the development of your processes and systems is enough to ensure their success. However, your employees may need more to be fully successful. It’s relatively common that they need to know how the big picture works.

A QMS reveals the big picture, with emphasis placed on outcomes. Employees will never understand how important their work is until they can see how it directly affects the end result or product. 

With a QMS, each step of the process is documented and reviewed. Inefficiencies in the system will be identified as each phase is examined. And, while this part is integral to the success of any company, it’s the last part of the QMS that many employees are focused on. They want to know what is expected of them, in the long term.

What Does Success Look Like?

Every employee should be able to pinpoint what he or she needs to do to be successful in the job. Guidelines and expectations for each role should be clearly presented for consideration. Quality of outcome should also be identified as a specific objective that each employee should meet.

All processes or systems should have some metric by which they can be measured. This metric should be a standard aspect of the process, so it’s repeatable and can be used each time the method is duplicated.

Successful methods of demonstrating success include:

• Checklists with detailed images or bullet points

• Measurable statistics involving time, cost and effort exerted to produce a product or reach an outcome

• Verifiable metrics about the final product -- ie., is it correct? Is it the right size/shape?