Nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and it still feels a bit like we’re living in The Upside Down, to borrow a concept from Stranger Things. While we’ve all worked out some sort of new normal, many companies I talk to still see the changes prompted by the pandemic as temporary, waiting to revert to the way things were done. 

You could go back to your previous status quo, but the risk is that rather than finding yourself where you were before, you’ll find instead that you have fallen behind. COVID-19 catalyzed changes in nearly every facet of business, and smart companies are using these changes to build momentum into something better. The pandemic exposed major gaps in traditional quality models, and your response will determine if you can build a modern quality management model to meet the needs of the future. 

I see several ways COVID-19 is moving businesses toward the modernization of quality initiatives.

1. Every Employee Empowered to Make a Difference

In the absence of annual and third-party audits, many companies have increased self-assessments. This was initially seen as a stopgap measure to get some visibility until more traditional audits resumed, but I believe maintaining more frequent self-assessments adds a crucial employee perspective to your quality team.  

It also empowers your employees in two key ways. First, when employees know and fulfill quality goals every day, you drive quality as a culture rather than a one-time test that must be passed. Second, by having employees give feedback with self-assessments, they know you see and value their input and will be more likely to give you an on-the-ground perspective you wouldn’t get any other way. Essentially, every employee becomes a proactive extension of your Chief Quality Officer. 

2. Continuous Quality Management Driving a Proactive Response

Proactive response has been a catchphrase in quality management for years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic prompted a new way of thinking that more brands began looking for ways to make proactivity a reality. 

The most effective way to do this is to begin building your continuous quality management system. Diversify your sources of data, combining things like self-assessments, annual audits, IoT devices, online review sites, customer experience surveys, and employee reviews. All of these will give you a fuller picture of your business and help you spot potential trouble areas so they can be addressed before any safety or quality issues become a problem.

3. Streamlined Tech Augmenting Team Capabilities

With budgets on hold because of COVID-19, many of the people I talk to have been looking for ways to get more out of tech they already have, either adding capabilities to augment their team or consolidate multiple systems.  

This does not mean you need to break what already works, but rather supplement what you do well. For example, spreadsheets have long been a mainstay of assessments and audits. If you find those are working well for data collection, but you then don’t have a way to analyze the amount of data, it may be time to look at your tech stack. A good quality management system will only strengthen what your team can do. In this case, upload spreadsheets into the QMS and let the reporting capabilities help you analyze data, so you can identify hotspots and find actionable insights. 

4. Safety & Traceability Driving Tech Adoption with Government and Partners

It’s not just brands who are becoming more tech driven. Certification bodies, government agencies, and suppliers are all adopting tech as a way of increasing safety and traceability. The FDA has launched the New Era of Smarter Food Safety, GLOBALG.A.P. implemented their Audit Online Hub, and supplies are working to monitor facilities more closely than ever before. 

If you want to drive a food safety culture at your company, you need to be aligned with the initiatives driving food safety from the FDA. It’s time to embrace the technology that will help you track and mitigate outbreaks of foodborne illness or other food safety issues.

The pandemic has required companies to be nimble and responsive to new challenges. In many companies, this has helped drive change that would have taken years to arrive. However, the companies responding best to the crisis realize these do not have to be temporary changes. They can use the coronavirus as a wake-up call to make lasting improvements to their quality model.  

Empower employees, embrace the ways technology can boost what works, and focus on continuous improvement. You don’t have to give up things the work well for employees (like spreadsheets!) to build a modern quality management team and culture. 

As president of RizePoint, Kari Hensien will never stop using spreadsheets. However, as a champion of continuous quality and modernizing quality programs, she is always thrilled to help people keep their brand promises more efficiently in a way that is comfortable for quality managers. You can contact her at kari.hensien@rizepoint.com.