How do quality managers feel about their work?

Alex Pavlovic Wed, Feb 19, 2020

Quality Culture, Global Quality Survey, Interviews

In our Global Quality Survey 2020, we asked over 350 quality professionals from across the globe to share:

  • Their favourite and the worst parts of their role
  • The one thing they'd change
  • How they plan their projects

We summarised the findings and pulled out the most common responses below.

 

Desktop Issue & Equipment Manager-1

 

What is the best part of working in quality?

 

The ability to make a real difference to the business is the main reason quality practitioners love their careers. Continuous improvement, problem-solving and driving cultural change all ranked highly as the most enjoyable parts of the role. 

 

What is the best part of your role?

(Global Quality Survey 2020)

          1. Culture transformation
          2. Solving problems
          3. Continuous improvement
          4. Mentoring and training employees
          5. Influencing others and the wider business
          6. Auditing
          7. Variety: no two days ever the same

 

Global Quality Survey quotes

 

 

The downsides

 

But many respondents recognised that driving these changes effectively was hampered by low resources, timesinks like paper-based admin, low company-wide engagement and manual reporting.

To add to this, bringing management on-side to support quality and convincing them to adopt and integrate time-saving and department-connecting technology ranked as the most common challenges for quality professionals.

 

What is the worst part of your role?

(Global Quality Survey 2020)

          1. Paperwork and administration
          2. Reporting, reporting, reporting just for the sake of it
          3. Lack of resources
          4. Lack of interest in quality – from leadership to bottom floor
          5. External audits
          6. Being ignored

 

Quality role feedback

 

What is the most challenging part of your role?

(Global Quality Survey 2020)

          1. Fighting resistance and securing stakeholder buy-in
          2. Convincing the business to use and adopt technology
          3. Lack of integrated IT systems
          4. Leadership and top management
          5. Incident investigation
          6. Risk management
          7. Prioritising workload and managing change

 

 

Global Quality Survey feedback

 

What would you change?

 

As a result, the most requested changes correspond with this desire to free up time and effort for more value-added activities.

Quality managers naturally want to remove wasted time and effort for their companies - but many feel that this starts with optimising their own working days as well.

 

If you could change one thing in your role, what would it be?

(Global Quality Survey 2020)

          1. Remove useless meetings
          2. Secure more QA resources
          3. More time with customers
          4. Implementation of reporting software
          5. No more admin
          6. More budget for our department
          7. Prioritising workload and managing change

 

Quality managers desired changes

 

Tips for 2020 projects

 

Is 2020 a big year for your business?

Pre-project planning is as significant as the project itself - so we asked quality practitioners what steps they take before launching new initiatives.

Simplification, making data-sharing easy, and saving time with automation all ranked as key criteria.

 

What are your steps when planning a new project?

(Global Quality Survey 2020)

          1. Getting leadership and champions in place
          2. Thinking how to automate and save time
          3. Making sure communication takes place at all levels
          4. Making the whole project as simple as possible
          5. Gathering as much data as possible for comparison later
          6. Ensuring there's a single quality strategy in place
          7. Getting an EQMS system in place

 

Project tips-1

 


What to do next

 

Facing similar challenges?

Schedule a software demonstration to learn how Qualsys can support your work:

 

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Topics: Quality Culture, Global Quality Survey, Interviews

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