Quality Policy Question

We have our Quality Policy on laminated cards and it says on the bottom: Approved by: [Name], CEO. That person is no longer with the company does it have to be replaced with someone ? We currently don't have a CEO to replace it with. Or is it OK to leave it alone?

Thanks!

You do not need an Approved By: on your cards. In fact, you don't even need the cards. They are just helpful reminders. Make your policy easy to understand and remember. We distilled the essence of our policy to three words that were easy to remember, used bold type on those words in the full policy and told our employees to memorize those three words. They could then paraphrase the rest of the policy from there.

And NEVER, EVER use names on documents. And don’t use very specific titles either (eg senior manufacturing engineer when any level and/or discipline of an engineer might be assigned the task).

I’ve seen the quality policy printed on the backs of badges. But a word of caution: The requirement is to understand the Quality policy not to be able to read it aloud to an auditor. Some auditors will accept that but many won’t.

Beyond mere compliance don’t you want your employees to know, understand and fulfill the Quality policy?

Cards? Really? The possession of a card does not indicate actual understanding or awareness of the policy, but just of the card itself.

I agree with the above. I cringe at lengthy Quality Policies that invite organizations to feel they need to pass them out on cards etc. and people feel they must memorize the thing for auditors. I cringe at auditors who allow interviewees to panic when asked about the Quality Policy, because it isn't the Pledge of Allegiance; their job is to know how to access it and they support the effort, not recite it like lines in a play.