Things seem to be ramping up. Dr Roy Swift at ANSI has just announced that the number of accreditations is up by a whopping 18%
"These accreditations represent the largest one-time increase in organizations and credentials since ANSI launched its programs in 2003," confirmed Dr. Roy Swift, ANSI director of personnel certification accreditation.Just in March the organizations that obtained their accreditation are:
1. American Board of Multiple Specialties in Podiatry (scope: podiatric surgery) Primary Care in Podiatric Medicine Podiatric Surgery Diabetic Foot Wounds and Foot Wear
4. Refrigerating Engineers & Technicians Association (scope: industrial refrigeration) Certified Assistant Refrigeration Operator (CARO) Certified Industrial Refrigeration Operator (CIRO) Go here for more information
So have just got back from presenting at the ISO9000 conference in Orlando. What a great event. The really interesting thing was although most of the presentation titles at the event did not focus on competencies, many were referencing them in the content of the presentations, typically I saw one of 2 things over and over:
- how the hell do you know your employees are competent! - how do auditors and quality professionals in general get a handle on competency in our profession
Most notable for me was Jack West's paper on getting serious about auditing (track 8). He did a fantastic job of talking not just about systems and processes, but making the connection between these and the correct development and measurement of competencies to ensure that systems actually work as we intend.
I was a little nervous about my presentation on "Employee Competency: Audit Non-Compliance and the Bottom Line". I thought I was going out on a limb when I challenged the audience (mostly of auditors) to confirm to me if they REALLY challenged organizations measurement of competency (clause 6.2.2 for those technically minded people). The response after the presentation was universally "no". In fact the sentiment was that if they did push too hard, likely no organization would escape that part of the audit intact. Obviously a real issue for the industry.
If anybody is interested the presentation is below:
One interesting measure of the uptake of a new practice is to measure the amount of news released on the newswires on any particular subject. Unless there is some statistical "blip" it looks like the number of organizations actually formalizing their personnel certification programs is on the rise.
I have about 25 RSS feeds covering blogs and the newswires, and something new usually pops up about once per month. Interestingly there have been 3 in the last 2 weeks - the beginning of a trend?
So in the recent news we have: The North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) - newslink The American Indoor Air Quality Council (IAC) - newslink
and most interestingly
The National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) - newslink
all obtaining their ISO17024 certifications.
I will keep a track of who is doing what. The ANSI website only tells me after the fact (usually long after!) so if anybody would like to keep me up to date with new accreditations or organizations (any sector) that are planning on moving in this direction I will keep an up-to-date register as a reference tool and keep it published on this blog.
Hot off the press, ANSI has just announced its intent to launch an accreditation program for the organizations that issue demand-based education and training certificates to U.S. workers.
One interesting point brought up in the article is the exponentially growing number of certificates that can be obtained over the internet with absolutely no requirement for training is growing rapidly.
Will this be the beginning of a national registered database of "legitimate" certifications and educational providers?
New ANSI Accreditation Program to Improve Quality of U.S. Workforce American National Standards Institute
In response to calls from government and industry for a national system to better protect the public from under-qualified or unqualified workers, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has announced its intent to launch an accreditation program for the organizations that issue demand-based education and training certificates to U.S. workers.
Certificates indicate that an individual has attended a course, passed a test or reached a specific standard of knowledge; they are typically issued by community colleges and universities, employers, independent for- profit education programs, and professional and trade associations.
A recognized leader in the accreditation of third party programs, ANSI will partner with educators, industry and government experts to develop the standards of quality and procedural requirements upon which the new accreditation program will be based...more
A fantastic article by Mickie S Rops from his blog Association Knowledge and Credentialing on the impact that ISO 17024 could have on the certification industry if widely adopted by certifying organizations.
Raising the Quality of Certifying Organizations
I just concluded a week-long training to become qualified as an assessor for ANSI's Personnel Certification Accreditation under the ISO/IEC 17024:2003 general requirements for bodies operating certification of persons. How easily that phrase just came without having to reflect upon it is some indication of how thorough and intensive the training (and of course a concluding assessment) was!
For those not familiar with the program, let me summarize by saying that 17024 is an internationally-adopted (through ISO) and American-adopted (through ANSI/ASTM) voluntary standard for organizations operating programs that certify individuals (not products or organizations).
Let me just say that if all certifying agencies sought to achieve the requirements set out in 17024 the certifying industry would be a lot stronger for it... for more click here
Hopefully this will be the first of a few helpful posts around the subject of ISO17024 (General Requirements for Bodies operating Certification of Persons).
What it ISO17024?
Released in 2003, ISO 17024 is designed to harmonize the personnel certification process worldwide. There is still much debate as to the effectiveness of the standard to date, especially with the variability in how it is applied by Accreditation Bodies globally.
The issues that ISO 17024 tackles can be simply summarized: - Defining what it is you are examine (the competencies) - Knowledge, skills and personal attributes - Examination must be independent - Examination must be a valid test of competence
Where competency is typically described as: ”The demonstrated ability to apply knowledge, skills and attributes”
Guidance
Each Accreditation body provides various levels of guidance around compliance and the implementation of ISO 17024. I have attempted to bring together the more in-depth references below:
So as the very first post on this blog I simply want to compile an up-to-date list of the organizations, papers and feeds that have been making a big impact in the world of personnel certification. This first post is starting off small but the information will grow over time.
As we all know significant debate is happening around the focus on skills and competency based certification. The purpose of this blog is simply to have a central point where information is gathered for convenience. I'll leave the cut and thrust debate (well maybe we can have some) to the discussion boards such as the excellent one IRCA provides (http://forum.irca.org/).
The above is a tiny snapshot of the organizations and references out there. My mission over the next while will be to create an up-to-date reference of not just these organizations, but also papers and feeds as appropriate.
If anybody would like any specific kind of information reported on a (fairly) frequent basis then just post a comment on this blog or pop me off a quick mail.
Things seem to be ramping up. Dr Roy Swift at ANSI has just announced that the number of accreditations is up by a whopping 18% 
