Job titles change so frequently how to handle documented procedures?

I am in a start-up company and we've established a management system. All the documents are there. In my experience with ISO 9001, exact job title of personnel is required when putting the 'responsible person for the task' (except for AdHoc-type activities).

However, since this is a start-up, the personnel doing the same function change job title from time-to-time.
Another problem is when there are new hires with new job title entering the organization. We're only less than two years in business and my documents are already in revision 2 or 3.

Do I really have to change every time a person changes job title or there is new hire?

 

New hire for new function? Never worked in a start-up company.
The task you are talking about may not be so detailed, I suppose.

BTW, 2008 is replaced by 2015. Maybe better to post in ISO 9001:2015.

 

Oh, ok. Thanks. I didn't realize there's a separate group...

It's like it started as very lean organization then as the company grows, the work load of existing people became heavier and so additional people are being hired.

P.S. each pioneering employee are doing so much responsibilities that are usually handled by different departments in bigger companies.
As a result, their job titles also change.
And when expansion is needed, new job titles also come.

 

Use functions not specific titles. If you want to tie to a specific person you can keep a matrix and change names as applicable.

 

I`m no quality system engineer. Never really have real experience about handling this kind of thing. The following is what I experienced in the past years.
In my company with 800 employees plus, we don`t put the assignment of specific function to each individual. We have several funtional groups, and each group has several functional parts. And we keep the documented assignment of each group leaders and part leaders. No matter what change has happened within part/group, as long as the part leader, group leader and the relevant structure remain unchanged. Then we can regard it as there is no significant change.

Hope it is helpful. Looking forwards to any insight about it.

 

Good day @Grace Tan;
Welcome to the site!

Consider this...
The vision of the startup likely includes growth. Growth likely entails the addition of at (at least one) new future associate. Let's call her Lucy. (keep in mind, even YOU may not be in your role in the future. How will you prepare your role so that "Lucy" can easily step into it ?)

Lay the foundation of your management system so it is scalable. Build your management system for 10 years from now and not simply today. Build it for 100 associates (not 10). Build it for Lucy.

For example, even if your only current customer is "Acme", don't build "Acme" into all of your documentation, signage, etc... (what happens when "Joe's Manufacturing" becomes a new customer and uses same/similar methods/processes as "Acme".) Likewise, don't build your system around individuals (e.g. Annually, "Tom" will ensure that all actions assigned...." ) What happens when "Tom" is replaced by "Lucy" ?

The goal is to have your organization strategically assign specific roles and responsibilities by position and not to reverse engineer by simply having the on-hand personnel perform specific tasks ad-hoc, even if they are not uniquely equipped to perform that task (I've seen this happen too many times).

Some are not a fan, but my personal experience lends me to still prefer a strategic org chart listing all desired positions (even those not yet filled) and associated list of the roles and responsibilities assigned to each of those positions. This allows leadership to determine strategically and proactively what positions the company needs, the roles and responsibilities of each of those positions, and identify who is in currently in those positions, . That way no matter who is in a particular position, the roles and responsibilities for each of those positions is determined. This also assists with training,( i.e. specific curriculum requirements can be tied to each of those roles. Therefore, when someone moves into a position, the required curriculum/training/proficiency requirements are pre-determined and consistently applied regardless of who comes into that positions. )

To help articulate the concept of scalability that I mentioned, I created the term "CAP". Customers- Associates-Products. In other words, your company should be able to change "CAP"s (Customers and/or Associates and/or Products, and the management system should (for the most part) sustain and be effective.

In summary: Regardless of the **standard/auditor, for the good of the organization it is important to identify who is in a position and what the roles/responsibilities of that position entail. (**don't EVER do anything for the standard or auditor, but instead always selfishly in the best interest of your organization),

Hope this helps.
Be well.

 

@John C. Abnet

First a great post, and I got a question here.
For large-sized companies (＞ 500 employee), usually, there won`t be 500 diferent positions for each one of them. There would be several main functions(positions, tier1 functions), and for each main function, there would be several sub functions(tier2 functions). And it is quite common that for each tier2 function, it can be and would be broke down into several tier3 functions. Due to the size and workload of the large-sized company, there would be several individuals assigned for this particular tier3 functions. What is more, there`s usually vague boundary between the relevant tier3 functions since in the smalle-sized company these tier3 functions should be one as whole.
In this kind of situation, with regard to the strategic org chart you mentioned, to which extent this chart would cover? In my company(800+), it only covers the tier1 and tier2 functions.
What is your opinion on this matter?

 

Hi, thanks for the reply. I am thinking about putting the functions too but if the function is only described in the JD but specific function name is not written, will this be okay?

 

Hi, not really sure but we are very lean organization. For example, we have one person acting as plant manager, production planner, production manager, maintenance manager and site EHS at the same time. After some time we hired separate EHS. Soon we will have a separate production planner. It's like very, very lean organization for now but our management systems are already well in place.

 

I don't think it matters. Every company has basic functions -- accounting, sales, production, quality, etc. So the sales function can refer to the sales manager, or Bob, or who ever handles that function at the time. Do what works for you.