FUTURE WORKINGThe newnormal for
qualityBookshelves of the future will be filled with hefty
tomes about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic oncountries around the world. In this feature, Quality
World investigates what has changed for the quality
sector by talking to some quality professionals about
what the new normal looks like for them and theirbusinesses, and what insights they have gained after
a year of immense change
Words: Rachel Ifans

Undeniably, the coronavirus
pandemic has had huge, negative
effects on communities andindustries, including travel,retail and hospitality, as well as
impacting individuals around the world. But if
we’re looking for some positives in these torrid
times, we can turn our gaze to the ways wework and the changes this virus has forced onsome organisations – changes that could provide
widespread benefits in the long run.
The pandemic has provided a catalyst forchanges that were happening gradually already,namely the digitalisation of the global workforce.
Indeed, the CQI’s Future of Work (FoW) report(bit.ly/3oOBKjV) – which was published before thecoronavirus outbreak took hold in the UK – seems
particularly perspicacious now, given what has
happened since then.
For instance, the FoW report quotes a Deloitte
survey of companies in Switzerland, entitled
Workplace Transformation in the Digital Age,
which found that 42 per cent did not provide
hardware for their employees to access their

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systems remotely, and 25 per cent of employees
had no mobile access at all to the company’snetwork. These companies will presumably have
had to speed up investment in updating theirtechnology for remote working to survive andcontinue operating during the pandemic.
Given that digitalisation was on the cards anyway– and is here to stay – cutting costs on investment
in technology last year would have been a false
economy. Further findings from the FoW reportwere that technology and marketing company
IDG Research estimated that technical debt wascosting companies in the US and EMEA (Europe,Middle East and Africa) around 40 per cent of
their development time, at the time of writing.
As the FoW report clearly shows, change wasdefinitely on the horizon, but it was looking likeevolution, not revolution – until, that is, Covid-19
came along, and its effects accelerated change ata rate that no one could have predicted.
In this article, Quality World looks at the changes
organisations have made or are introducing into
their workplaces as a result of the pandemic, andhow some of these new practices have changed
the ways in which companies, their quality teams
and workplaces will operate in the long term.

A year of change

When the national lockdown hit in March lastyear, it quickly became clear that its effects onorganisations would span across a broad spectrum.
We spoke to Sally Swingewood, a Committee
Manager for ISO, who led the development of ISO/PAS 45005:2020 – Occupational health and safety
management – General guidelines for safe working
during the COVID-19 pandemic, about what she
saw in those early days.
She says: “Many of us were in the privileged
position where if we had a computer, it didn’t
matter where we were; we were still able to work.”
But that wasn’t the case for many others, suchas tattooists, pub owners or manufacturers. Itwas the people on construction sites, in factories
and laboratories – those who use specialised
equipment for their jobs – who felt the full force
of Covid-19.
Swingewood explains: “Whenever we did an
online event, the questions we got shown werethat people were struggling, not just in hospitality,
but also in retail and lots of small businesses. They
wanted advice on how they could keep goingsafely and make some money.”

Business as usual

At the other end of the scale were companies
such as Inmarsat, a global mobile satellitecommunication company. Martin Rodgers,
Director of Quality Management at Inmarsat, says
they did not miss a beat with the changes. Rodgers
says: “We’re a global organisation and, as such,

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we’ve always had flexible working arrangements;
people are used to working from home and wespeak to colleagues all over the world, so we’reused to using the various technologies.”
As a technology company, Inmarsat employees
were used to interacting with technology andso seamlessly adopted the changes that wererolled out.
Changes to Rodgers’ quality team at Inmarsat
were not seismic either. They’re a small teamby design, because they work as subject matter
experts; working across the business to coach,mentor and help people to build their own
quality, rather than imposing it. Because they
were small, the response to Covid-19 was more ofa continuation.
Rodgers says: “There was perhaps a little
refocusing here and there, but we really justmoved over to remote working and there was noneed for us to make any structural changes to theteam. We’re still working in the same way now
nearly a year on.”

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An agile mindset

This is in contrast to IMI Truflo Marine, a company
that makes valves, actuators and pressure-reducing
stations for nuclear and naval marine use.
Nora Asselah, CQP MCQI, Senior Quality
Assurance Engineer at IMI Truflo Marine, talked toQuality World about why the company neededto increase its numbers of quality professionals.
Indeed, IMI Truflo Marine has been in a purple
patch during the pandemic, growing a remarkable
30 per cent during 2020, and is looking to keep
growing even as uncertainty continues to hangover global markets.
With this buoyancy came a time pressure thathas ultimately brought about an holistic change inmindset at the company – an agile way of working
that will continue once the pandemic is over.
Asselah explains: “As a key supplier into UK
defence, we’re lucky our orderbook has been
maintained and our sub-contracting work has notbeen reduced. But it did mean that we had nooption but to find innovative ways to maintainnormal business practices such as third-party andsupplier witness inspection. The critical importanceof continuity of supply had never been greater.”“Companies had to be
more agile in the way
they dealt with suppliers
and their supply chains, byupping their game oncommunication and really
start working together”
Swingewood agrees, and adds: “I thinkcompanies had to be more agile in the way they
dealt with suppliers and their supply chains, by
upping their game on communication and really
start working together.”

Enhancing agility

Swingewood has seen organisations completely
rethink their pre-pandemic working practices:“To ensure they could deliver their services in theway they’d always promised they would, theyaltered processes; things such as creating a central
pool with more cooperation between suppliers,
and centralising and decentralising provision of
resources as appropriate to make the organisation
more agile,” she says, adding: “It’s been about
being less rigid, but also more organised.”
Asselah describes how the quality team at IMI
Truflo Marine had to evolve their customer releaseinspection process: “From a ‘normal’ approachof on-site physical testing, we were able to workwith our customers to adopt remote approvals,
relying on digitally transmitted documentation
and recorded live videos of product validation
testing. The focus at all times was to reduce travel
and unnecessary exposure of the Truflo Marine
staff to external infection risks, while ensuring thequality of the product was never compromised.
This approach is developing all the time.”

Areas of concern

It is interesting to look back to the start of thepandemic and examine what the red flags wereto quality teams in organisations, and to consider
whether those were the right flags to raise,knowing what we know now. Rodgers talks about
how, in the initial phases of lockdown, he thought
it would last a month or two before returning tobusiness as usual. As such, the immediate red flagfor him was to make sure that they continued
as normal.
He reflects: “We have a quality strategy, and wehave tactics and an approach that we use. We
knew those things were working for us, so it was
about making sure that we continued to do themand didn’t make any kneejerk responses or rash
decisions. We look back now, almost a year later,and I think that was absolutely the right call.”For IMI Truflo Marine, risk areas centred on thesupply chain and the importance of ongoing
communication was immediately obvious. “Weworked to further increase ‘touch points’ to ensure
we were aware of any disruptions or concerns
within the whole supply chain so that we could
react accordingly,” says Asselah.

A quadrant approach

In order to understand how companies havemaintained quality standards through thepandemic, and how they will take this forwardin the future, we need to understand how theymeasure quality.
Inmarsat is a good example. Rodgers explainsthat the business uses three frameworks: the CQI
Competency Framework, PDCA (plan, do, checkand act) methodology and their own internal
quality management system, which they call
QMS 24. “The CQI Competency Framework is
the strategic framework, PDCA is the tacticalframework, and QMS 24 is our operationalframework. If you think of a Venn diagram, eachone of those frameworks is a circle and they allinteract and overlap with each other to a greateror lesser extent.”
When Rodgers looks at what quality processes
they have enhanced during 2020, audits takecentre stage. He expands: “We introduced, justprior to lockdown, what we’ve called Efficiency
and Effectiveness Audits, and ramped

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it up during lockdown. Our simple definition ofeffectiveness is how well and how consistently weare hitting our targets, metrics and KPIs. And ourdefinition of efficiency is how well we’re doing
that, how organised we are and how smooth.”
The way that Rodgers delivered the resultsof these audits became key in lockdown;with employees remote working, it had to besomething that worked on screen. He says: “Wereport this back in a simple quadrant approach.
There’s a chart with four boxes, and across thebottom we’ve got low efficiency to high efficiency
and on the other axis we’ve got low effectivenessto high effectiveness. I felt it was important that
we show information in a visual way that’s easily
understood, and it’s worked well, so it’s definitely
something we’ll take forward. I think, without
Covid, I wouldn’t have invested the time thinking
about how to boil the findings down to the purest
form and show it in this quadrant.”

Flexible processes

IMI Truflo Marine has also managed to maintaina continuous improvement mindset throughout
the pandemic. The quality requirements in its
industry are often complex and, according toAsselah, issues with documentation account forover half of supplier-related concerns and cancause significant disruption to deliveries. Before
the pandemic, the quality audit team developed acomprehensive training programme to strengthen
the understanding and compliance of quality
requirements within their supply chain.
She explains: “The Supplier Quality Assurance
Programme (SQAP) uses classroom teaching,real-time hands-on workshops, manuals andchecklists to ensure that requirements are clear
and fully understood, and its implementation
resulted in a significant improvement oncertification RFT [right first time].”However, the process had to be adapted due tothe restrictions on in-person contact. “The quality
assurance team was able to rapidly adapt thetraining programme into a virtual event and has
managed to continue the ongoing improvements
and positive improvement trend, despite notbeing able to conduct the training on-site with thesuppliers,” Asselah adds.
SQAP is not the only way in which IMI Truflo
Marine is pushing its continuous quality
improvement mindset. It has also introduced
company advanced product quality planning
implementation across new projects, andproduction part approval process implementation
through the supply chain on critical products. In
addition to this, the company continues to pushtowards zero defects. One of its future strategic
objectives is a full visual factory and real-timedata analysis. This will provide accurate andtimely feedback on performance, overall

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equipment effectiveness, inspection results,
non-conformities and manufacturing efficiencies,
which will let them identify areas of concern andproactively predict issues in the facility.
Asselah elaborates: “We developed several new
flexible processes to adapt to the new normal and,as they’re now part of our management system,
we’ll maintain and develop them further. The
remote quality surveillance is a significant step
forward and customers are already suggesting
this should remain post-pandemic.” She continues:“It’s especially relevant to overseas customers whospend thousands sending their representatives
around the world for witness inspections. As a
happy by-product, less travel also has a positive
impact on our environment.”
Asselah adds: “Theobjective today is
not be static in ourapproach, but tobe able to cover
all challenging
eventualities. These
new tools areproving to beinvaluable as wemove forward.”
Swingewood has
also picked up on
permanent changes
in the auditing
world: “There’s noway it will go back to what it was before; rather, Ithink it’ll be a really good combination of remoteaudit and in-person audit.” She reflects: “There arebound to be wrinkles and some failings in remote
audit, while we all learn how to do it better andidentify where the risks are, but I think a lot ofgood will come out of it and it will help to improve
working practices in many places.”“The mantra for thequality team will now be

adaptability, flexibility,fluidity and sustainability,

and all this whilst
maintaining quality
standards at all times”

Lessons learned

What have organisations learned in the past year?
For Rodgers, it is clear: it is all about simplification.
Keep things as simple as you possibly can. For IMI
Truflo Marine, it has been about flexibility andevolution; the lessons learned will undoubtedly
shape the company in the future. Asselah says
boldly: “The old Truflo Marine is gone; but aforward-thinking, boundary-pushing Truflo Marine
has emerged to stay. The mantra for the quality
team will now be adaptability, flexibility, fluidity
and sustainability, and all this whilst maintaining
quality standards at all times.”
Swingewood concurs: “It became clear earlyon how many organisations didn’t have business
continuity plans. They didn’t have the plans inplace for resilience and agility, but they will havenext time. The sensible people won’t go back toworking the way they worked before, because

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they’ll have seen how instantly it can all go under.”It seems that knowledge-sharing will be an
additional focus for the future. People are integral
to organisations and sometimes that is forgotten
in quality teams. You need to look after yourpeople and their knowledge – and remember toshare it.
For Swingewood, there has been a real, standout
learning from all this: “From an ISO point of view,
it’s been so beneficial having a global community.
We’ve learnt so much from having colleagues inother countries. Everywhere has managed thepandemic slightly differently and those countries
with more recent experience of managing
epidemics, such as SARS or Ebola, have been able
to share practices they know to work. Having abroad international community and getting a
global perspective really helped.”

People power
What about the people? Rodgers reverts to his
quality quadrants: “We’ve been able to identify
those areas where we’re being highly effective,
but it’s really hard work for our people to deliver.
Thinking about our high-performance culture
and the wellbeing of our people, that is not asustainable position. Everybody has to work hard,

and we expect to work hard, but we don’t expect
people to be having to work ridiculously hard toachieve things.”
The mental health and wellbeing of staff has
been a prime focus for many companies in thepast year, and some organisations have seen
unlikely benefits from the situation.
Asselah says: “Covid-19 has been a unique
opportunity to bring people together and develop
new ways of working that have been positively
received and embraced. Paradoxically, although
the pandemic is causing isolation and restrictions
in physical face-to-face interactions, it hasemphasised the need for community and it hasreally developed the team spirit in our workplace.”
She continues: “Nowadays, working means
partnerships between departments andemployees. As people aren’t on site, they’ve been
more proactive and quicker in their response time.
It’s this positive spirit that we are going to nurtureand embed into our quality culture.”
While we are not out of the woods yet, it
seems that, for now we’re looking to a hybrid
future. Working life will not go back to the way
things were, but that some of the good thingsand positive learning that have come out of thepandemic will not be discarded.
Many organisations seem set on less office space,but they acknowledge that there’s still a place forit and a time when it is valuable. Others will beasking if their technology is fit for purpose andmaking huge investments in better systems.
Will trust reign over the ugly presenteeism of thepast? Certainly, the enhanced hygiene of having
fewer people on-site will be attractive to manyorganisations, and they may well start to see fewer
sick days and mental health issues.
“There’s no way we’ve had the same rates ofsickness for coughs, colds and stomach upsets andthere’s a financial benefit to that,” Swingewood
asserts. “There’s a large productivity benefit anda continuity benefit too; you can depend on
your people much better if you’re not constantly
exchanging bacteria and viruses that cause
infectious diseases.”
The pandemic has brought home to all of us
just how interconnected and how interdependent
we are. We know now that we need to havesomething built into the system, in terms ofquality management, in case of any future
disruptions. Furthermore, people need agility andto have a plan in place, so that if something thissevere happens again, there is a way they cancontinue to carry out their work.
To find out more about how digital techis transforming the ways in whichbusinesses are operating, go to:quality.org/future-of-work

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