Quality Managers drive an organization’s quality management process. They ensure that the products and services the organization promises to deliver to their customers or clients meet the optimum quality standards. Doing so strengthens the organization’s value addition initiative and promotes long-term growth. However, not all managers can become quality managers. To become successful, quality managers should accumulate specific skills that help ensure that their organization’s products successfully meet the customers’ expectations.
Quality Manager Skills
A career in quality management is enriching and fulfilling, especially in today’s modern economy, where the customer decides if the product or service is good or bad. One bad review from a customer ruins the time and efforts of several professionals who work tirelessly to deliver the product for their organization. Therefore, organizations ensure that quality managers are on-hand to supervise the quality management process of each product or service before they are delivered to the customers.
What do Quality Managers do?
Quality managers play an essential role in maintaining the quality standards of their organization. They are the leaders and mentors of the quality control and process improvement initiative, thus, ensuring that all members of the organization are aware of the quality goals. These quality management professionals also have good analytical and decision-making skills that help them find the best possible solution to quality problems. They plan, implement, and monitor their organization’s quality control and process improvement processes.
Quality manager aspirants must have specific quality manager hard skills and soft skills to impress their future employers. Here are the five best quality manager skills to have in 2022:
Extensive knowledge of Quality Control methods:
Quality control is a vital component of the quality management methodology. Quality managers measure a product’s quality against the desired standards to meet all the requirements. They lead their organization’s quality control initiatives with their extensive knowledge and proficiency in using quality control tools and techniques.
Process Improvement knowledge:
The main objective of quality management and quality control is to improve the business process to deliver products and services of the highest quality. Process improvement targets the various functions in the business that contribute to product or service creation. It aims at reducing the wasteful steps that affect the development or service creation, leading to higher production costs and waste of various organizational resources. Quality managers ensure that the customers pay for what they asked for without any hidden fees, thus, contributing to the long-term value addition for their organization.
Knowledge and proficiency in ISO Standards:
Good quality managers understand the importance of the quality standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). They strive to ensure that their organization meets the desired ISO standards by complying with the required guidelines. ISO standards outline the best practices organizations should follow and document to attain a particular ISO certification. These quality standards also ensure that organizations maintain a healthy work environment for their employees, leading to a productive workforce. Thus, quality managers help their organizations acquire certain ISO Certifications that add value to their business operations.
Excellent Communication and Leadership skills:
Quality managers lead their organization’s quality control and process improvement initiatives. They must have strong leadership and communication skills to guide the quality management team. These qualified professionals ensure that the team do not face any obstacles to achieving the quality objectives and mentor them in case of any uncertainties. They also act as the bridge to convey critical information between the quality management team and the higher management.
Data Analysis and Forecasting skills:
Quality control and process improvement are incomplete without analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. Quality managers must have good data analysis and forecasting skills to plan the quality assurance strategy of their organization. Data analysis in quality control provides valuable information about the current performance of the business process. It allows quality managers to take informed decisions to improve the business process by comparing the current metrics against the desired results.
Conclusion
Aspiring quality managers can acquire the skills mentioned above by working in the quality management sector and learning from experience. Additionally, aspiring quality managers can register for the Certified Quality Management (CQM) Course to thoroughly understand the various quality management skills. Gaining theoretical and practical knowledge and expertise in these skills will help quality managers become successful in the role of being the quality champion of their organization.
