Management system guidance
7.0 Support
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7.3 Awareness
Items a) to d) of this requirement are unchanged from ISO 9001:2015; item e) on quality culture and ethical behaviour is new in ISO 9001:2026. If you need a procedure and forms to help determine and control your business's human resources, click here.
The content of awareness training may include items covered in induction training, specific training, toolbox talks or any other quality issues that affect a number of employees in the workplace.
You should seek evidence to confirm that this requirement has been applied by your organization to ensure that the people who need to be made aware now include all the people who work on your organization’s behalf that affect the conformity of your organization’s management system or products. Your organization must ensure that these people are aware of:
- The quality policy;
- How they contribute to the effectiveness of the QMS, including the benefits of improved performance;
- What the consequences are of not conforming with QMS requirements;
- The quality objectives relevant to them;
- The organization’s quality culture and ethical behaviour (new in ISO 9001:2026).
What changed in ISO 9001:2026: item e) is new. People doing work under your organization’s control now need to be aware of its quality culture and the ethical behaviour expected of them. This links to top management’s new responsibility to promote a quality culture and ethical behaviour (Clause 5.1.1). In practice, awareness of quality culture means people understand the shared values and behaviours around quality, for example getting it right first time, speaking up about problems, putting the customer first and owning their work. Awareness of ethical behaviour means people know what is expected of them, for example a code of conduct, honesty in recording results and inspection data, not passing on known nonconforming work, and how to raise concerns confidentially. Evidence can include induction content, codes of conduct signed by staff, briefings and toolbox talk records, and interviews in which people can explain these expectations in their own words.
Annex A of the standard adds that people show awareness in their day-to-day work, by recognizing whether their work meets requirements and taking appropriate action when it does not. Auditors will often test awareness by talking to people rather than by reviewing training records alone.
Awareness training
The awareness training does not need to follow the format of long classroom sessions. Training techniques can include short training segments supplemented with videos and hands-on demonstrations that address key elements of the management system.
Other methods to promote and reinforce the awareness training sessions include communication via electronic bulletin boards, posters, newsletters and informational meetings.
The requirements for general awareness training apply to everyone doing work under your organization’s control, including contractors and temporary staff. Awareness training is intended to provide an overview of the organization’s quality policy, quality objectives, quality culture and overall management system. Awareness content commonly covers:
- The importance of conformance with the policy and the management system procedures and requirements;
- The quality risks and opportunities associated with their activities, products and/or services;
- The benefits of improved personal performance;
- The employees’ roles and responsibilities in achieving conformance with policies and procedures;
- The behaviours expected of them, including the code of conduct and how to raise concerns;
- The potential consequences of departure from specified operating procedures.
The awareness training materials may also include additional elements that address:
- The organization’s objectives and targets;
- The employees’ actions to prevent errors and nonconformities and how they can contribute;
- The importance of compliance with operational and regulatory requirements;
- The overall improvement of the management system performance and the potential financial return;
- The importance to interested parties.
Induction training
General awareness training should be undertaken in accordance with task demands. Awareness training is not skills-acquisition, but rather broad-based training provided to increase employee awareness of particular quality issues.
All new recruits (workers, contractors and temporary staff) must receive induction briefings and periodic quality management system awareness training appropriate to the duration of their responsibilities to ensure they are aware of importance of ethical behaviour e.g. codes of conduct, internal management, working relationships, fair treatment, confidential reporting mechanisms, protecting anonymity, no-blame-culture, awareness campaigns, notice boards, posters, training programmes including:
- Core values and policies;
- Company overview;
- History of the company;
- The people and structure;
- Contract of employment;
- Induction pack;
- Quality culture and code of conduct briefing.
The induction record should be completed, signed by each participant and sent to the Human Resources Manager.
Tool-box talks and team meetings
Toolbox talks and/or team meetings should be conducted regularly in operational areas (non-office-based staff) by the relevant Supervisor. Key quality information, such as customer feedback, nonconformities and performance against objectives, is included in fortnightly team meetings in all areas.
Toolbox talks and team meetings are not intended for the acquisition of specific skills, instead, they are used by Line Managers and Supervisors to provide broad-based information that increases awareness of specific quality issues. Content should include information about your management system, quality alerts and/or any other issues that affect workers or the workplace. Toolbox talks and team meetings should be used to:
- Manage and communicate essential information such as quality alerts and other communications;
- Review of relevant quality information such as nonconformity reports, customer complaints, investigation outcomes, performance data, etc;
- Induct staff into and ‘sign off’ their understanding of specific quality risks and the controls identified;
- Provide a forum for workers to raise any quality concerns or improvement ideas and identify corrective actions;
- Ensure awareness is maintained throughout all workplaces.
At the beginning of any tool-box-talks, the Attendance List should be completed, signed by each participant and sent to the Human Resources Manager.
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