Most small businesses do not have resources and expertise internally to deal with these issues in an effective and efficient manner. However, you do not need a dedicated HR department in order to comply with employment legislation. Instead, you can outsource your personnel requirements to a specialist HR consultancy who can handle all these issues for you. The costs for such a service are often surprisingly reasonable, especially when you consider penalties you may face if you try to do it all yourself and get it wrong.

For more information on issues raised in this article, visit Employee Contracts website.

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Copyright 2004 David Miles. You are welcome to reproduce this article on your website, so long as it is published "as is" (unedited) and with author's bio paragraph (resource box) and copyright information included. In addition, all links to external websites must be left in place.

Make Better Decisions

By gathering objective evidence through observation, interviews and samplings of records, management can make better decisions. This will help:

•Test organizational objectives and processes

•Write factual audit reports that help improve effectiveness of management system

•Suggest ways to verify effectiveness of any corrective action to achieve objectives

Check for Quality

Auditing is third phase of Plan, Do, Check, Act process approach – check. It is also one of 8 quality principles of ISO, which allows managers to make better decisions based not on subjective opinion but objective fact.

The audit process is a valuable step for improvement. Auditor training will teach managers and executives how to improve effectiveness of their management system, which is essential for ISO 9001 certification.

Audit to Help

To fully understand requirements of ISO 9001 and to facilitate audit teams, you can also take a five-day IRCA Lead Auditor course. After all, auditing is designed to help us, not hurt us.