If you need quality management compliance, to comply with legislation, regulations, standards or just define and improve your processes, you need people who are expert in creating ‘management systems’ (essentially: sets of policies and procedures) and mapping those onto the requirements of the documents you need to comply with. They will also need to be able to work with your existing staff to define and document existing processes, including interaction with computer systems, customers, suppliers and other departments.
What can a QA or Compliance expert do for me?
Map out what you need to do to comply
Standards, legislation and regulations are written by committees and are often difficult to interpret. A quality management compliance expert can tell you exactly what you need to do to comply … and what you don’t need to worry about.
Convince your staff that compliance is important
There’s little point in writing a set of procedures if no-one follows them. An essential part of the job of a QA or compliance expert is to educate your staff on why they should follow written processes.
Help with internal audits
Many standards require you to have your own system of internal audits. An outside expert can help you catch up with internal audits, and also give unvarnished feedback internally.
Identify a suite of standards suitable for your organisation
There are many standards that Australian and NZ organisations might choose to implement, including ISO9001 (product and service quality), ISO27001 (IT security), ISO14000 (environmental management), HACCP (food safety), ISO31000 (risk management), ISO26000 (social responsibility) and ISO37001 (anti bribery). New standards are being developed all the time.
Structure a management system that works for you
A ‘management system’ is basically a set of policies and procedures that allows you to comply with one or more sets of standards, regulations or legislation. You need to choose a structure that is a) accessible to your staff b) maintainable and c) traceable to what you’re trying to comply with. A QA or Compliance expert can help you achieve that.
What can a policy and procedure writer do for me?
Document existing processes and standards
Sometimes your people know what to do … but it’s not written down. This can cause confusion and even arguments, and puts a lot of strain on line management: every edge case has to be brought to them for a decision. Documenting existing processes and standards means that you can start to improve your processes. If they’re not documented, you can’t control them, and if you can’t control them you can’t improve them.
Develop new processes that comply
Developing new processes that comply with a particular requirement from a standard, legislation or regulation is sometimes difficult, particularly if the resulting process or policy has to be readable and sensible. A policy and procedure writer can do that expertly.
Write clearly and without ambiguity
Clear writing is not a skill that everyone is born with. Even professional writers work on their skills constantly. Hiring an external writer to develop your documentation means that your internal documents will be clear and concise.
Set up templates
Having a set of documents that all look the same has some surprising advantages, including a) increased compliance because your staff are more likely to trust the documents b) ease of porting into other delivery mechanisms (including AI) c) consistency of meta-information such as review dates. A professional writer can help you develop templates that achieve all of this.
Why use an external quality management compliance expert?
Able to give unvarnished comments
Often an outsider can give more honest feedback during internal audits and other reviews, and can stand back from interdepartmental issues when assessing processes.
Wide industry experience
Our experts have wide experience across both your industry and other industries, allowing them to bring solutions that you might not have considered.
Available for surge requirements
Sometimes you just have too much work for your team to handle: new legislation, new standards, organisational changes, external audits. It’s useful to be able to call on external expertise at short notice to bring things up to date.
Why use an external policy and procedure writer?
Professional writers produce better documents
Professional writers write more quickly and more clearly than non-professionals. They also develop documents that are maintainable, and more likely to be complied with.
Post-external-audit maintenance
External audits often turn up opportunities for improvement, and it can be hard for your existing team to get across them while handling business as usual. Using an external resource means that you can clean up after audits while still keeping everything else moving.
Cast a fresh eye on existing processes
Professional writers work across multiple industries, and so they can often bring fresh approaches to processes that you may not have considered.
Don't take our word for it
I am writing in my capacity as the Group Financial Controller of Australand Holdings Limited to thank HCi Consulting for a job well done in successfully documenting financial processes within Australand’s financial environment.
Group Financial Controller
I would like to thank HCi … for your significant contribution to ‘Connect’, our intranet site within Boral Clay and Concrete
General Manager Human Resources
I am pleased to endorse the services provided by HCi in designing and developing the structure and content for Canon’s Human Resources intranet.
General Manager Human Resources
I would like to take this opportunity to thank HCi for your support in successfully concluding our recent project.
I am writing to provide an endorsement for the work undertaken by HCi on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank for the Diammond Services produce, a software system used by our institutional banking clients.
Senior Product Manager
I write to thank you for successfully completing the documentation projects undertaken for the NSW Fire Brigades.
Director Resources
As I have come to expect from other dealings with HCi at the Office of State Revenue, they provide an excellent level of service, and their specialist knowledge in documentation was of great value.
Project Manager
As Information Technology Manager for Parramatta City Council, I would like to thank HCi for your work in developing our policies and procedures for the Records Management Section.
Information Technology Manager
I am writing to provide an endorsement for the work undertaken by HCi on behalf of Pfizer.
Sales Support Manager
As the training Project Manager for this important Westpac project, I am writing to thank you for the outstanding job your people to delivered to me.
Project Manager Design
Frequently asked questions
A QA/compliance person is a professional who:
- understands the benefits of quality assurance, environmental, OH&S and other management systems with respect to business outcomes
- is usually familiar with, or has experience in implementing a quality assurance standard such as ISO9000, TL9000, TickIT, ITIL (BS15000), CMM, CMMi, SPICE etc
- can write well structured policies and procedures
- maintains an audited QA/compliance system
- is key to service design that embraces compliance and quality
- may provide high level QA/compliance consultancy services
- manages and performs regular audits
A QA or compliance expert can write quality system implementation plans, help you design your management system, run internal audits, map your existing processes against standards, legislation and regulations, and train your staff in how to make best use of your QA or compliance system.
A QA or compliance expert can develop plans, write procedures and policies, and help design management systems.
Usually they have a background in the implementation of management systems in one or more different industries, usually across multiple standards, sets of legislation and regulations.
The cost will depend on a number of factors including the length of the engagement, the location (and if all of the work can be done remotely), the particular expertise you require, and who’s available at the time. Typical rates from HCi are $150-250/hr plus GST.
A procedure writer is a professional who:
- understands the different information types to produce well structured policies and procedures aimed at an audience and task focus
- can interview and facilitate information from process owners, subject matter experts and other information sources
- is key to service design
- may have additional skills in the areas of flow charting, authoring tools and process mapping edits and formats documents
- understands version control and publishing requirements
A policy and procedure writer develops clear documentation that sets out what your staff need to do to comply with regulations, legislation or standards. They can also edit existing documents to make them clearer, or set up templates for your entire document suite.
They write policies (rules), procedures (sets of steps to follow), explanations and reference materials.
First and foremost, they are a good listener. They usually need to get information out of other people about how processes currently work, and gather a host of other information painlessly. Second, they are a detail-oriented writer with a passion for clarity.
The cost will depend on a number of factors including the length of the engagement, the location (and if all of the work can be done remotely), the particular expertise you require, and who’s available at the time. Typical rates from HCi are $95-140/hr plus GST.
You do. We provide the person, but you as the client are totally in charge of what they do.
Just ask to talk to one of our experts and get their ideas on how long your project might take.
Call us. We currently have over 1300 on our database, and we can often have perfectly-matched resumes to you within the hour.
We provide QA/compliance people in: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra (ACT), Adelaide, Perth, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
Rates for QA/compliance people vary according to experience and capability. Specialists (eg people who need experience in particular standards) are often more expensive per hour than non-specialists.
Our clients normally need one or more QA/compliance people for periods between a week to six months. A longer engagement usually means a lower hourly rate. The rate that we give you for a particular person will be inclusive of all taxes, superannuation, insurance, except GST.
Generally, more experienced QA/compliance people cost more per hour, but tend to be more productive, so may reduce your budget overall.
Other useful links
- Benefits of QA https://hci.com.au/qa-benefits/
- What is a quality or compliance management system? https://hci.com.au/what-is-a-quality-or-compliance-management-system/
- Quality management equals QA plus TQM https://hci.com.au/qa-plus-tqm/
- Estimating professional writing projects https://hci.com.au/estimating-professional-writing-projects/
- Why don’t people read procedures? https://hci.com.au/why-dont-people-read-procedures/
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