Quality management training in Australia

Citation

Cord, R.E. and Goldman, H.H. (2003), "Quality management training in Australia", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2003.26707bab.002

Quality management training in Australia

This is a shortened version of "Future considerations for the training and development of Australian quality managers" by Deb Stewart and Dianne Waddell. It was originally published in The TQM Magazine, Vol. 15 No. 1, 2003, pp. 37-42, ISSN 0954-478x

Whereas the 20th century has been described as the "century of productivity", predictions are being made that the 21st century will be regarded as the "century of quality". However, the shape that quality management may take is very unclear. While there is some evidence that quality management is being increasingly integrated with other organizational processes this has not yet led to the demise of specialist quality managers nor the denigration of any responsibility for skills improvement.

Occupying, as they do, positions of leadership, quality managers require generalist managerial capabilities as well as skills appropriate to their specific responsibilities. This results in difficulty in defining specifically their roles and responsibilities, as no two quality managers would have the same demands.

Little is known about the training and professional development needs of quality managers except that they are considered critical to the effective implementation of quality management programs. It follows that if the current training and development regime does not adequately equip quality managers to perform their roles competently, this may contribute to the failure of many quality management programs and systems. Such failures would increase the likelihood of quality management being absorbed into general management practice and the distinctive philosophy of quality management disappearing.

The survey carried out in this study seeks to collect basic information from quality managers about their roles, responsibilities and requirements for training and development; and how well those requirements matched their actual experiences. The findings were as follows:

Diversity of needs

The respondents were asked to rate their perceptions of their training needs in both the short-term and long-term by open-ended responses. The responses were, as predicted, very diverse. The most striking finding was that half the sample made no response to the question about short-term needs, while 58 percent made no response to the long-term item. These people were presumably either unaware of their own needs or considered their past and current training to be sufficient preparation for the rest of their careers.

The respondents were asked how they determined their requirements. The most common responses were a performance review, self-perception and a training needs analysis. In addition, respondents were asked how their training needs differed from those of other functional managers. The most common response (54.7 percent of respondents) was that their needs were no different.

Diversity of provision

As noted above, there was considerable diversity in education received. The respondents were asked to nominate up to five training courses they had undertaken in the past five years. Between them, the 235 quality managers had undertaken 483 courses over the past five years. The most frequent response was some type of general management course, nominated by over one-third of the sample.

Mismatch between needs and provision

Effective quality managers need the high level interpersonal skills needed to motivate others and to drive change. Our survey indicates that relatively few quality managers have received training in these areas. While 89 percent of respondents considered training to be an important or very important factor to include quality, this was in stark contrast to their perception of how their organizations rated its importance (46 percent). This lack of perceived support may help to explain the finding that 68 percent of respondents had not provided any training to other employees in the past five years.

Nevertheless, the survey respondents appeared reasonably happy with the training they had received. They were asked to rate the effectiveness of the courses they had undertaken in the past five years on a three-point scale. Most courses received a score of "excellent" (46.4 percent) or "good" (46.6 percent) while only 6.8 percent were rated "poor".

The future of quality management

The most common response was that quality management would become integrated into either an integrated management system or a system of continuous improvement. There was a tendency for more experienced quality managers to nominate integration into a management system.

Conclusions

Australian quality managers seem to have a fairly optimistic view of the future of quality management – albeit not necessarily as a discrete field. Most did not see their training needs as different to that of other managers and most appeared satisfied with the usefulness of the training they had undertaken.

But some of the other findings cast a shadow over this optimistic picture. Many managers seemed to be either unaware of their own training needs or to hold a belief that they did not require any future training. Also of concern is the perceived lack of organizational support for training and development. While the quality managers themselves accorded a high importance to training, they cited lack of time as one of the main constraints, indicating that it probably often takes a back seat to other duties seen as more pressing. This helps to explain the finding that most of the training programs were of very short duration. Almost one in five had undertaken no training in the past five years; and, while not reported above, few had provided training to others in their organization. Provision of training was fragmented between numerous providers, while responsibility for professional development was spread between numerous associations.

In conclusion, Australian quality managers appear by and large to be getting the training and development they want, but this does not necessarily equate to the type of training and development they need to perform their complex roles effectively. We note that in few other professions is training and development left entirely to the vagaries of the market and the whims of practitioners. More typically there is some body to establish and enforce minimum standards in some systematic way.