Blackmores ISO Consultancy Service: The creators of isology®

How often have you heard someone say they aspire to be an ISO consultant? Likely not at all! That’s not surprising as it’s quite a niche world to find yourself in, yet despite that, there are still thousands of ISO professionals worldwide.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Anju Punetha, a QHSE Consultant at Blackmores, to share the journey of how she transitioned from special education in India, to ISO consultancy for international organisations.

You’ll learn

• What is Anju’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Anju enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Anju take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge she’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Anju’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub
• From Silos to Synergy: The benefits of Implementing an Integrated ISO Management System Webinar registration

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Anju Punetha, a QHSE Consultant here at Blackmores, to discuss her journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 27001, ISO 20121 and ISO 55001.   

[04:05] What is Anju’s role at Blackmores? Her role primarily involves supporting clients in two key areas: maintaining and continually improving their existing ISO management systems and helping them establish and implement new standards.

As part of that support, she:

• Conduct internal audits
• Reviews and updates management system documentation
• Facilitate management reviews
• Train internal teams and prepare them for certification audits.

When implementing a new ISO standard, she’ll start with a gap analysis – i.e comparing their current practices against the standard’s requirements. Then break down those requirements into simple, easy-to-understand language and create a practical plan to bridge the gaps.

Depending on the standard, she may also facilitate strategic business risk assessments, environmental aspects and impacts assessments, or information security risk assessments.

Additionally, Anju helps clients develop and implement policies and procedures, create legal and compliance registers, and verify their readiness for certification body audits.

[05:55] What does Anju enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Anju loves spending time outdoors with long walks being her go-to, as they help her unwind both physically and mentally.

She also enjoys cooking for her family and friends. Experimenting with different cuisines and blending spices is something Anju finds incredibly relaxing.

[08:00] What was Anju’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Like many of the Blackmores team, Anju never planned to become an ISO consultant.

She began her career as a Special Educator, working with children with special needs in India.

Later, she transitioned into the development sector as a Research Assistant, working on projects funded by The World Bank and the UN World Food Programme. These projects focused on microfinance, training and development, and women & child health.

However, that role involved a lot of travel, which became challenging after the birth of her first son. So, Anju decided that would be a good time to take a career break.

When Anju was ready to return to work, she looked for an office-based role which resulted in her joining Ericsson, a Swedish Networking and Telecommunication Company as support staff, and progressed upwards to become the Learning and Development Manager at their rapidly growing Global Service Centre in India.

This involved managing training requirements of an employee base of around 4000+ employees, involvement in stakeholder management at all levels and vendor management.

As part of the Operational Excellence initiatives, she also got involved in preparing different business teams for their internal and external audits.

During that time, Anju became interested in Ericsson’s Group Management System, which all legal entities had to comply with. She then moved into the newly formed Quality Department and helped them to gain various ISO certifications. 

She was the Project Leader for implementing Ericsson’s Operational Maturity Model compliant to the requirements of ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 27001 and OHSAS 18001 (ISO 45001’s predecessor).

Joining Blackmores as an ISO Consultant felt like a natural next step when she relocated to UK. She’s now been a member of our team for over six years, and continues to inspire others with her level of dedication to her work and clients.

[13:35] What is Anju’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – The variation in daily activities is a big positive for Anju.

One day she may be conducting a gap analysis for Environmental Management System for an IT company, and the next drafting policies and procedures for managing Events Sustainably for an Event Management company or auditing a client on their Information Security Management System. No two days are the same!

She also enjoys being able to work with a wide range of clients across sectors like IT, construction, facilities, asset management, event management, and train operating companies, all ranging from small businesses to large, multi-site organisations.

She particularly enjoys working on Integrated Management Systems, as they help clients save time and money by streamlining multiple standards into one cohesive system.

It reduces duplication, improves efficiency, and encourages collaboration across teams—breaking down silos and building synergy.

[15:50] Upcoming webinar: If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of integrated management systems, feel free to register for our upcoming webinar here.

[17:30] What Standards does Anju specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 9001 Quality Management: A core foundation that many businesses start with when diving into the world of ISO Standards. This is an essential one for any ISO consultant and is often the first Implementation experience for many who go on to become ISO consultants.
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management: This Standard provides a solid base for any business looking to start taking sustainability seriously.    
• ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management: Anju helped one of her previous employers implement this Standards’ predecessor, and has since implemented and supported ISO 45001 for a number of Blackmores clients.   
• ISO 27001 Information Security Management: An increasingly popular Standard as we see more and more business rely on technology to keep their services running smoothly.
• ISO 55001 Asset Management: A popular Standard within the facilities and public transportation sectors. This Standard aims to create a framework to help organisations manage the life-cycle of their assets.

ISO 20121 Sustainable Event Management: ISO 20121 focuses on governing principles of sustainable development, which are:

• Stewardship
• Inclusion
• Integrity
• Transparency

ISO 20121 was revised in 2024. The revised standard explicitly requires considering climate change and its impact on the event and stakeholders. The new version also expands beyond environmental concerns to encompass human and child rights, social impact (including mental health and diversity), and digital responsibility and how organisations should start considering these areas at the early stages of planning an event through post event activities.

Recently, Anju has been busy in putting together the toolkit for transition to ISO 20121:2024 and preparing her clients with the implementation of the revised and new requirements.

[21:10] What is the biggest challenge Anju had faced during a project and how did she overcome it?: Anju offers one experience in particular:

She was working with a company that was implementing its first ISO Standard. The project not only involved creating and implementing standardised policies and procedures but also working on the overall change management within the business.

The teams were used to working in silos for many years and were not very forthcoming with the idea of establishing and implementing standardised ways of working.

This was due to various reasons, such as lack of awareness, operational activities taking precedence over risk and process-based approach. As a result, project leads struggled in getting support from the project sponsor and the extended project team in terms of time and effort.

They had to put the project on halt for few months and only proceeded with the project after getting the full commitment from the sponsor and other project team members.

During this time, ISO related roles and responsibilities were built into the job descriptions of the various stakeholders, these were agreed as part of the internal review processes and required time and effort for the different stakeholders within the business was agreed with the Management Team.

At the end, this project helped the company to embed the standardised processes within the business, rather than it being just a tick in the box exercise to achieve certification.

[25:35] What is Anju’s proudest achievement?  Anju’s proudest achievement in relation to work, is when she’s able to see a marked difference in the confidence level of her clients, from the start of the ISO implementation project, which is the gap analysis stage, to confidently facing the certification audit and demonstrating to the external assessors that the implementation of the ISO project was not just a tick in the box exercise for them.

One achievement in particular stands out in recent months as she supported a client in successfully transitioning to the revised ISO 20121 standard.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

We’d love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here’s how:

• Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin
• Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one.

Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes:

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Becoming an ISO consultant isn’t a career path many aspire to, rather it’s one often stumbled on after being tasked with either implementing or maintaining a Standard for a business.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Minoo Agarwal, a QHSE Consultant at Blackmores, to learn about her journey of following in her father’s footsteps towards ISO Standards Management, and what drives her to help clients on their ISO journey.  

You’ll learn

• What is Minoo’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Minoo enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Minoo take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge she’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Minoo’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Minoo Agarwal, a QHSE Consultant here at Blackmores, to discuss her journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 14001, ISO 9001, ISO 45001 and ISO 27001.   

[03:50] What is Minoo’s role at Blackmores? Minno’s official job title is QHSE Consultant. She is the ISO14001:2015 standard champion and a Mental Health First Aider for Blackmores.

Ultimately, Minoo supports clients with embedding Management System into the heart of their companies. Her work with them typically consists of:

• Conducting internal audits
• Management review
• Consultancy days or document review days

Essentially doing whatever it takes to getting the management system to be at a suitable level to pass external audits.  

[05:05] What does Minoo enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Minoo’s free time is mostly taken up by her dear son, Aarav.

He’s very young at the moment; and so Minoo makes sure that any of her input into his life is to ensure that he is successful in whatever career he chooses. In addition, Aarav has a very busy social life! So, she’s makes sure her gets plenty of time to play with his friends.

Minoo is also a bit of a foodie, enjoying eating out when possible. She also enjoys reading books by authors such as Jay Shetty and the Sad Guru.

[07:10] What was Minoo’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Minoo, like many of our consultants, didn’t know that she would become a consultant.

The opportunity was presented by Mel Blackmore via LinkedIn in 2019, on April 1^st of all dates!

Minoo’s passion for this field arose from her father, Mr Hardial Agarwal, who is very well known in the industry. He worked as a consultant for Crayola for many years, travelling abroad to meet with various suppliers and international branches of the company. His work always held an air of mystery to Minoo as a child, and she become more curious about his role in later years, even attending CQI meetings with her father to learn more.

She started her career in 2006 as a Quality, Environmental, Health & Safety Administrator and since then really never looked back, progressing from role to role from roles like Quality Associate, to a Business Quality Control Officer, to a QESH Auditor, to HSQE Compliance Manager and then as a Head of Quality. 

Each role gave her a different experience of life. As a result, she has worked in many industries ranging from electronics to logistics to pharma and even automotive and IT.

She feels very fortunate to gain experience and knowledge from a range of industries from her previous roles, and now more so from Blackmores where this knowledge develops further.

[12:35] What is Minoo’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Minoo genuinely loves her role as a consultant at Blackmores, it was hard to narrow down a specific aspect.

That being said, Minoo loves to hear when a client of hers has passed their surveillance and re-certification audits, especially if it was with no findings. It’s a return on their combined effort as a team to get recognition of that fact from a certification body.

She also enjoys the teamwork involved, often being seen as a real member of the client’s team. As a consultant, a bid part of your role is building strong working relationships, which makes the whole process run a lot more smoothly.

She also takes a bit of joy in being able to be a bit bossy, though all the guidance is with the best intentions.

[15:40] What Standards does Minoo specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 9001 Quality Management: A core foundation that many businesses start with when diving into the world of ISO Standards. This is an essential one for any ISO consultant and is often the first Implementation experience for many who go on to become ISO consultants.
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management: Minoo is our Standards champion for this Standard. This involves keeping on-top of any changes to the Standard and creating internal training material for the team.   
• ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management: A few of Minoo’s previous roles involved health and safety compliance, so she learned a lot about ISO 45001 and general risk management along the way.   
• ISO 27001 Information Security Management: This one was a necessity to learn when joining Blackmores. Many of our clients have integrated management systems with multiple ISO certifications, most of which include ISO 27001.

Minoo also has some experience with MHRA regulations and TS 16949.

[18:20] What is the biggest challenge Minoo had faced during a project and how did she overcome it?: Minoo stresses that it’s fundamental to fully understand the requirements of the client from the very onset of the project, if that is understood then there will be no challenges during a project.

She provides two incidents in particular that stood out:

Scope creep: There was an incident when there was a misunderstanding of the work agreed, and the client had anticipated much more than what was agreed. As a result, Minoo had to complete the work in her own time to meet their expectations.

Personal bias: There have been incidents not related to projects but external audits when external assessors start to audit the client by providing what they believe their interpretations is of the standard is the only way that it can be implemented. Forgetting the fact that Standards are built to be flexible in the way they are implemented. They can get very fussy about the exact way documentation should be laid out and worded, which is obviously not a specific stipulation within a Standard.

Minoo has overcome this by confronting the assessor at the time and asking them to explain where in the standard it say that – basically keeping them in check.

[21:30] What is Minoo’s proudest achievement?  On the work side, Minoo is always proud to hear when a client has passed their Surveillance and Recertification Audits with no or few findings.

On the personal side, it’s her son who she lovingly dubs as her masterpiece. She’s already instilling the values of health and safety into him, and he’s always looking out for others. She couldn’t be prouder to watch him grow up into his own person.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

We’d love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here’s how:

• Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin
• Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one.

Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes:

Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube |iTunes | Soundcloud | Mailing List

The world of ISO is often stumbled into as a result of being tasked with either Implementing or maintaining a Standard for a business. It is rarely a desired career path, and yet there are thousands of ISO professionals from all corners of the globe.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Derek Hall, a Senior Isologist® and Sustainability Lead at Blackmores, to learn about his journey from spending 40 years in the printing industry to becoming an ISO Consultant, and what drives him to help clients on their ISO journey.  

You’ll learn

• What is Derek’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Derek enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Derek take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge he’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Derek’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub
• Climate Change Amendment Workshop

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Derek Hall, a Senior Isologist® here at Blackmores, to discuss his journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 22716.  

[03:45] What is Derek’s role at Blackmores? Derek is a Senior Isologist® with Blackmores, supporting companies with maintaining systems, undertaking internal audits, and supporting with implementing new systems to gain certification utilising our Isology methodology.

His passion lies in the realm of sustainability, embedding it within the management systems of many of our clients regardless of any certification to any dedicated sustainability Standard.

Derek was worked with a number of sectors, including:-

• Media
• Printing
• Constructions
• Cosmetics
• Recycling
• Electrical
• Public Sector & NHS

Derek enjoys the learning aspect of working with new industries, and values the input from all personnel involved, from top management to those on the shop floor. He well and truly immerses himself within each company he works with to learn about their values and how ISO can best support their vision.

[08:30] What does Derek enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Derek has a few varied hobbies, including oil painting born out of his other passion, photography. He often uses his own photos as subject matter for his paintings.

He also trains 4-5 times a week at his local karate club, which caters for all ages and skill sets. Derek has diligently worked his way up to black belt over the 17 years he’s been attending, and offers his skills to teach sessions.

He appreciates the respect that karate teaches, in addition to gaining more knowledge on other points of view. With such a varied class, there’s always something new to learn.

The Australian based club he attends is called GKR Karate.

[12:20] What was Derek’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Derek’s journey starts back in the 60’s, where he worked in commercial photography, taking pictures on the progress of various building works, and products for furniture stores.

He used to work with plate photography, which was a rather old school method even back then! This was coupled with more modern methods such as 35 millimeter film. He recalls witnessing the building of the Thames barrier, taking pictures to help monitor the amount of water coming through the barrier.

After that he moved onto work for a printing company in Barnet (Hertfordshire), which specialized in advertisements and signage for furniture stores. From the shop floor Derek worked his way up to becoming a printer operative.

This company evolved to include screen printing, which allowed for more versatile applications such as clothing or certain plastics.

After spending 3 and a half years there he moved on with a friend to start their own printing company in Watford, which continued until the 70’s.

In the 70’s Derek joined a much larger printing company based in Southgate London. Here he was involved in the printing of cinema posters for theatres, and musical groups. Derek remained there for 40 years, watching it evolve to larger scale printing for retail markets such as HMV Records and curry’s, in addition to bus advertisements.

During the 90’s, there was a larger push for quality Standards, their clients wanted more assurance that they were following established guidelines and could produce the quality they were after. So, Derek was tasked with Implementing BS 5750, ISO 9001’s precursor, and BS 7750, ISO 14001’s precursor.

The company then got involved in an eco management audit scheme called EMAS, which required the reporting of environmental impacts. It was similar to ISO 14001, but it’s regulatory reporting requirements more closely align with modern schemes such as ESOS.

They also introduced other schools of thinking such as Kaizen, for the purpose of continual improvement.

At this point, Derek became very involved with sustainability standards, and developed a concept called ‘The Tree of Sustainability’, which included 9 branches for improvement. This was introduced due to the fact that their industry by its current nature, wasn’t very sustainable. There was a lot that could be done to reduce their impact.

Through developing that project Derek got involved with the DTR project called ‘The Sigma Guidelines’, a backed scheme run by the BSI forum and The Accountability Institute. These guidelines outlined a 3-year project to identify what sustainability meant to them and how it could apply to their industry.

The result of their work on this project was then submitted to various awards, netting them a number of sustainability awards and The Accountability Institute Awards.

That company continued its operations until 2007, leading to Derek joining Blackmores first year of operation in 2008.

Derek is leading us down a similar sustainability path by encouraging us to become a signatory of the Terra Carta, an initiative including 100 different actions for nature, people and planet.

[26:40] What is Derek’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Derek has a few, including:

Building relationships with clients – Many of Dereks clients have been working with him for over 10 years. He’s as much friends with them as he is a work colleague.

Flexible approach – Consultancy can be delivered in many different ways, allowing for hybrid working. This flexible approach also applies to the way we achieve internal targets, with each member of the team being given specific goals with the freedom to choose how they reach them. Everyone has their own way of working, and we encourage all members of the team to work how they like with the opportunity to learn from each other.

[28:35] What Standards does Derek specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 9001 Quality Management: A core foundation that many businesses start with when diving into the world of ISO Standards. Derek started with it’s predecessor, and has watched it develop over the years. He appreciates the value it can bring, especially to SME’s who are looking for a scalable model for success.
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management: Derek is a fan of sustainability in general, and encourages everyone to implement some of it’s requirements as part of any project.  
• ISO 22716 Good Manufacturing Practices for the Cosmetics Industry: A rather niche quality standard for the cosmetic industry, this Standards works well in collaboration with ISO 9001 for a more holistic approach.
• ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management: Derek picked up this Standard as a result of his work with the construction industry. It’s importance as a tool to prevent harm to humans cannot be understated.
• ESG: Derek has been working closely with his colleague, Ali Henshaw, to develop an ISO based framework to tackle ESG requirements. This includes inputs and requirements from guidance standards such as ISO 20400 (Sustainable Procurement) and ISO 26000 (Social Responsibility)
• ISO 22301 Business Continuity: A lot of organisations are looking to implement aspects of business continuity as a result of the ever-changing resilience landscape.

[32:20] The link between business continuity and climate change: We have seen client requirements evolve to include various elements of business continuity in response to the increasing threats of cyber incidents and climate change related issues.

This is reflected in the recently introduced Climate Change Amendment to many commonly implemented ISO Standards. This requirement ensures that businesses consider their impact on climate change in addition to, how and if they would be affected in turn. If you would like to learn more about this, listen to a previous episode or watch our Workshop playback.

[34:20] What is the biggest challenge Derek had faced during a project and how did he overcome it?: Derek took on the challenge of implementing ISO 22716, when he knew very little about the Standard and the cosmetics industry as a whole. Though there were a few stumbles on his first attempt, they managed to get certified without issue.

That same company then wanted his help to implement ISO 14001, which is a tough ask for the cosmetics industry. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as:

• What is their environmental impact?
• Where are you sourcing materials?
• Are the ingredients shipped from across the globe or sourced locally?
• Is there any animal testing involved?
• How sustainable was their supply chain?

There was a lot to get through, but it was a beneficial choice to get a full picture of their environmental cost.

Later, the company opted to implement ISO 9001 in addition to their existing Iso 22716 and ISO 14001 certifications. This fit nicely as both ISO 22716 and ISO 9001 are quality based Standards, they complemented each other and created an effective and holistic management system.

[27:20] What is Derek’s proudest achievement?  Derek received an MBE from the late Queen for services in the environment in 2005. This was earned through his sustainability work within the print industry.

For those not familiar, the Queens Award (now the King’s Award) is a prestigious award that requires 3 levels of review and vetting before winners can be announced. It includes checking evidence provided and the financials involved to verify if applicants have achieved what they say they have achieved.

Derek, along with his wife and daughters, were invited to the palace to meet the queen and receive his award.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

We’d love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here’s how:

• Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin
• Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one.

Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes:

Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube |iTunes | Soundcloud | Mailing List

ISO consultancy isn’t a field many aspire to enter, mostly because many don’t know it exists until you’re tasked with either managing an existing ISO Management System or implementing a brand new one.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Alison Henshaw, an Isologist® at Blackmores, to learn about her journey from aspiring pub-landlord to becoming an ISO Consultant, and what drives her to help clients on their ISO journey.  

You’ll learn

• What is Ali’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Ali enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Ali take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge she’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Ali’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – We introduce Alison Henshaw (Ali), an Isologist® here at Blackmores, to discuss her journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 20400 and ISO 26000.

[03:45] What is Ali’s role at Blackmores? Ali is an Isologist® with Blackmores, supporting companies with maintaining systems, undertaking internal audits, and supporting with implementing new systems to gain certification utilising our Isology methodology.

[04:00] What does Ali enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Ali has a daughter aged 5, so a lot of her social life revolves around play dates and kids parties.

As a family, they are very outdoor orientated, enjoying long walks and camping. In the past Ali enjoyed swimming, often visiting family near the coast to make use of the more bracing bodies of water.

She also likes to craft, recently taking up knitting as her mum often knits for different charitable causes. So far, she’s mastering the art of the knitted rectangle, which lends itself nicely to scarves and blankets.

Lastly, Ali is also a fan of photography due to her father sharing a similar interest. Most of her subject matter revolves around family and the outdoors.

[06:45] What was Ali’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Ali states that none of her working roles so far have been purposeful, rather more serendipitous.

She started managing pubs at the age of 18, after which she did relief management where she would cover different manager absences in pubs near her home. The owner of the pub she was working with at the time was looking to sell, and for a time, her plan had to been to buy and run it. Unfortunately, as she was only 18, she needed to have some form of business qualification to allow her to progress with that.

This led to Ali starting a part-time business management degree, At the time one of her pub regulars was recruiting for the production departments on a shift basis. So she ended up packing wallpaper on a factory floor for 3 days a week while earning her degree.

Sadly, by the time she had earned her degree, the pub she wanted to buy had been knocked down and turned into a block of flats! Though, after working in a different industry for 2 years she came to reevaluate her desire to run pubs, and came to the conclusion that she rather preferred the manufacturing industry and it’s ability to create something.

Ali also enjoyed the people within the factory she had been working at, and opted to stay there with her mentor, the Technical Manager, who offered her a place in the technical floor. So began her new role as the quality assurance technician.

This progressed as Ali worked her way up through Assistant quality tech to quality tech, to assistant quality manager to quality manager. Her mentor at the time was phasing out to retire, so Ali was essentially his legacy plan.

When he did retire Ali became the Quality Technical R&D and Health and Safety Manager. While in that role Ali implemented ISO 9001, in addition to business research and development programmes for product and process development compliance. Which amounted to sitting on trade association technical committees, monitoring upcoming legislation and also contributing to British technical committees that helped write the legislation for the wall-coverings sector. She later went onto help them implement ISO 45001.

Ali then had her daughter, Angie, during lockdown. For as much as she loves the manufacturing sectors, the worktime for those roles isn’t very flexible. She knew that when looking back, she would rather have spent more time with her daughter than working, so she wanted to find something with a bit more flexibility to allow her to spend quality time with her family. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but she was drawn to consultancy due to the variety of work and clients and the increased flexibility it would allow.

She Started to work with Blackmores following lockdown, appreciating the family values that our business was built on. Here she shares the sentiment:

“I’m very rarely the smartest person in the room, and we learn so much from each other.” Going on to say that the varied background of Blackmores consultants offers insight into so many other industries, and she’s drawn on their experience of how to apply ISO Standards in the real world.

[14:15] What is Ali’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Ali enjoys working with SME’s due to her background of working with a 4^th generation family owned business. They can often see the value in ISO Standards, and Ali works with them to ensure that do what they do best while working towards certification.

Many businesses simply gain ISO as a tick box for tenders or stakeholder requirements, which isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just how things work in the real world. But Ali figures that if they have to get it, get it right by ensuring it drives internal improvements. Often times clients are pleasantly surprised by all the benefits of effective ISO implementation.

Ali’s favourite clause in Standards is 6.2 Objectives as they drive proactive improvement in businesses. The key is to truly embed them in business processes and practices to ensure they are being achieved.

This is something that even mature management systems can get wrong. She’s seen cases where Objectives were one person’s responsibility, which can lead to them being a separate part of the management system. They need that lightbulb moment from leadership to realise the function of objectives to drive the whole business by taking a more proactive stance.

Many times, Ali’s heard of fantastic internal initiatives being run in a business without them being tied to any objective. By making them an objective, people can make a case for more time, resources and people to complete it, in addition to making the outcome a quantifiable and measurable metric for continual improvement.

[17:35] Practice what we preach – Ali has helped re-shape how we at Blackmores approach our sustainability objectives, turning them into something we can measure the impact of.

As Ali states: “The want for perfection stops progress”. It admirable to strive for perfection, but it isn’t realistic and it often hinders any meaningful progress. When it comes to things like sustainability, you should want to drive improvement now.

[18:55] What Standards does Ali specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 20400 Sustainable Procurement: This is a guidance Standard thar businesses can align with to ensure their procurement practices are sustainable. This extends to the supply chain, expanding each businesses sphere of influence.  
• ISO 26000 Social Responsibility: Another guidance Standard that acts a solid foundation for businesses looking at starting their ESG journey. It tackles the human element of sustainability, in addition to consideration for fair labour practices and community support.   
• ISO 9001 Quality Management: The first Standard Ali implemented, and the core foundation that many businesses start with when diving into the world of ISO Standards.   
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management: Ali is a fan of sustainability in general, enjoying it’s tangible impacts and the creativity in the many ways people can incorporate it into their business.
• ISO 45001 Health and Safety Management: The second standard Ali implemented, it’s also one of the core 3 ISO’s that businesses tend to implement. It’s importance as a tool to prevent harm to humans cannot be understated.
• ISO 50001 Energy Management and ISO 20121 Sustainable Events: Ali helps to audit these standards, once again these fall into her preference of sustainability as a focus.

It’s clear to see that Ali loves Sustainability and safety based Standards, and the reason is mostly due to ensuring there is a bright future for her daughter. Ultimately, she aims to help people and wants to work with Standards that can make a real difference.

[22:05] What is the biggest challenge Ali had faced during a project and how did he overcome it?: The confidence clients have in themselves. People are very knowledgeable about what they do and the processes involved, but because they aren’t familiar with ISO speak they feel very lost when implementing a standard.

Ali’s main role is translating that ISO speak, and assuring clients that they’re already covering key points such as risks, opportunities and what they’re doing to address them. For many businesses, it’s simply a case of dotting the I’s and crossing the t’s ahead of certification.

The challenge for Ali is to build that confidence in clients ahead of their Stage 1 and 2 Assessments. This is where internal audits come in handy, they act as dummy runs of the assessment. Ali can reaffirm what is meant by each clause and what it relates to in terms of the business activities or certain documentation.

She also reminds clients that they can question the assessor if they don’t understand how they’ve worded a questions. It’s up to the assessor to make themselves understood.  

Assessors also understand that your management system will be immature on it’s first certification, it’s simply a starting point on which you’ll build and continually improve.

[27:15] What is Ali’s proudest achievement?  

• Changing careers: Ali saw herself retiring in her previous role and so it was a significant change to make the leap to consultancy. She still loves the manufacturing and wall-covering industry, and will always have a keen interest in it, but she can now see herself retiring in a consultancy role.
• Having Angie: Her daughter is one of her proudest achievements, but it also scared everything out of her. It put her at her physical limit, and she’s quite happy to have an only child, ensuring that she gets to spend as much time with as possible while she’s growing up.
• Doing a skydive: As part of a ‘Before your 30’ list with friends, Ali took part in a skydive. Which she admits was horrendous and not something she would do again, but she’s proud to have pushed past the fear as getting out of your comfort zone is often the key to growth.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

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ISO consultancy isn’t a field many aspire to enter, mostly because many don’t know it exists until you’re tasked with either managing an existing ISO Management System or implementing a brand new one.

We’re continuing with our latest mini-series where we introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Sarah Ball, a Senior Isologist® at Blackmores, to learn about her journey towards becoming an ISO Consultant and what drives her to help clients on their ISO journey.  

You’ll learn

• What is Sarah’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Sarah enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Sarah take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge she’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Sarah’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub
• Productivity Ninja

In this episode, we talk about:

[00:30] Episode Summary – We introduce Sarah Ball, a Senior Isologist® here at Blackmores, to discuss her journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 9001, ISO 45001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001.

[03:45] What is Sarah’s role at Blackmores? Sarah is a Senior Isologist® with Blackmores, supporting companies with maintaining systems, undertaking internal audits, and supporting with implementing new systems to gain certification utilising our Isology methodology.

Sarah also coordinates the development of content of our online learning platform, the isologyhub.

[04:50] What does Sarah enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Sarah has a keen interest in history, having studied it at school, she like to travel to various locations of historical interest.

She also spends a lot of time researching her own family tree, learning as much as she can about the far reaching members of the past.

Sarah also likes to go jogging outside, as the gym environment didn’t inspire much enjoyment, she instead prefers to be in nature while exercising. She has also participated in long distance running for charity, completing the 10k Race for Life. She’s taking on the more daunting muddy 5K version this year, which includes a number of obstacles, so we’re wishing her luck!

One of the new hobbies she’s like to take up this year include mountain climbing, with Mount Snowdon on her to-do list.

[06:35] What was Sarah’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Sarah initially started in Customer Services, working as a customer service advisor in a company and then got promoted to manager of a team. At that point, her role became more about understanding why they were getting certain complaints and what could be done to prevent them happening rather than just resolving them.

She ended up spending more time with suppliers and other departments to help prevent some of the recurring issues, and along the line it lead onto being asked to implement an ISO 9001 Quality Management System.

Which was a tall request considering the fact that at the time, Sarah knew nothing about ISO 9001 outside of it’s designation and area of focus. As a result, she spent a lot of time researching it, and had the help of an external consultant to Implement the Management System. This was necessary, as knowing how to apply it to a business was something that she needed support with.

2 years later, the company asked Sarah to implement an ISO 45001 Health & Safety management system and an ISO 14001 environmental management system. These two she implemented herself after getting a feel for it during the initial quality management system implementation.

For the next 10 years, Sarah worked in other companies, assisting with their integrated management systems. Along the way, she also picked up on ISO 27001 Information Security, before landing in Blackmores in 2020.

[09:10] A path people fall onto – Most people don’t actively plan to get into ISO consultancy, it’s usually a result of being tasked with managing or implementing a management system while working in another role.

 [10:10] What is Sarah’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Sarah enjoys the variety, not just in the work and tasks but in the companies and industries that she gets to work with.

Each have their own way of working, unique approaches and knowledge nuggets in the form of ways of working that can be cherry picked and applied elsewhere.

She also likes to see how a management system develops and evolves overtime and how it can become part of a company’s success, driving continual improvement.

Sarah enjoys working with people that can see the real benefits of ISO management systems, rather than just focusing on the certificate on the wall.

[13:40] Making a Management System your own – Sarah is a big proponent of making a Management system your own, giving it an identity so that it can be fully integrated into the way a business works.

Businesses do it all the time, usually by naming large projects that everyone can reference by a common shorthand. A Management System can work in the same way, making it a part of the day-to-day running of the business.

She’s also a fan of not worrying about the terminology in Standards. Many of the terms used are meant to be general, this was due to the way international audiences referred to certain aspects of management, it wouldn’t always translate correctly. So many Standards have some admittedly awkward terminology that can be applied to any business, and you by no means have to use their wording, as long as you can explain what relates to what in an audit then you’re free to name things as appropriate to you.  

[16:55] What Standards does Sarah specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 9001 Quality: This is the main standard that Sarah starting working with, and is one that touches on a lot of areas within other Standards. It’s a great base to build off of, and is the starting point for many venturing into the world of ISO.
• ISO 14001 Environmental: Sarah got experience with this Standard at her first company, it’s also commonly implemented alongside ISO 9001.  
• ISO 45001 Health & Safety: Another one of the first Standards Sarah implemented, it’s also a common one to see in integrated management systems.  
• ISO 27001 Information Security: Sarah got to grips with this Standard through years of working with other companies.

Sarah’s favourite Standard is ISO 9001, not only because it was her first experience with implementing ISO Standards, but because it create a blueprint for success.

ISO Standards are setting the minimum requirement, not the maximum, they are designed get you started so you can make continual improvements. It also acts as a foundation to build onto, you can pick aspects of other Standards to integrate into your existing system. You don’t necessarily have to certify to those additional Standards, but nothing is stopping you from strengthening your Management System with the best bits from other ISO’s.

[21:00] Sarah’s favourite clause in ISO 9001: Sarah personally favors Clause 10 – non-conformity and corrective action. The reason behind that choice is due to that clauses’ importance in driving continual improvement. It’s about taking something negative being turned into a positive, which is what Quality Management is at it’s core.

[22:05] What is the biggest challenge Sarah had faced during a project and how did he overcome it?: Molding the Standard to the business. As a consultant, the biggest challenge is understanding how to make the requirements of a Standard fit the business, and not the other way round.

It’s all about trying to align the ISO Standard requirements to their values and mission, and then getting people on board with understanding the true benefits of management system implementation.

At Blackmores, we ensure that each management system is unique to each business. We don’t operate with a copy paste model. This is another reason why Sarah encourages naming your management system, by branding it you encourage engagement.

Sarah highlights the fact that we run a lot of workshops in the initial part of a project, conducting a Gap Analysis, SWOT and PESTLE ect, this helps our consultants to really get a feel for how a business ticks. From that, we can help steer the delivery of the Management System to the wider business, by building it into their existing tools, such as an intranet.

[25:45] Leading by example: We revamped our own ISO 9001 Management System a few years ago, with both Rachel Churchman and Sarah Ball leading the refresh. We gave it a name, H20 (How 2 Operate) and integrated it with our Microsoft Teams channels as we’d all swapped to mostly remote work following the COVID pandemic in 2020.

As Sarah points out, there are many different ways to display and deliver your management system, including:

• Microsoft Teams
• Intranet
• Google / Google Drive
• SharePoint
• CRM’s such as Monday.com

The key is building it into the day-to-day tools everyone uses. Make the Management System part of your processes, so adhering and maintaining it becomes part of everyone’s way of working.

[28:55] What is Sarah’s proudest achievement? Obtaining her degree through the Open University while still working full time.

It took Sarah 8 years of hard work to obtain her honours degree in History, which was one not required by her work or career development. It was simply something she wanted to do to prove to herself that she could achieve it.

Many other members of Blackmores can attest to Sarah’s level of determination, and organisation, as she shares many tips and techniques learned from her years of study and work. This includes:

The Productivity Ninja – Learned from Graham Allcott’s book, which seeks to help reduce procrastination, and tackle tasks with efficiency.

The Second Brain – A tool to help keep track of ideas / tasks that aren’t an immediate priority.

These tools are now used by a number of the team, and we have no doubt Sarah will be schooling us on more techniques in future.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

We’d love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here’s how:

• Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin
• Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one.

Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes:

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We share a lot of success stories here on the ISO Show, along with hints, tips and updates to Standards, including insights from our consultants who work with Standards day in and day out.

In our latest mini-series, we’re taking a step back to introduce members of our team, to explore how they fell into the world of ISO and discuss the common challenges they face while helping clients achieve ISO certification.  

In this episode we introduce Darren Morrow, a Senior Consultant at Blackmores, to learn about his journey towards becoming an ISO Consultant and what drives him to help clients on their ISO journey.  

You’ll learn

• What is Darren’s role at Blackmores?
• What does Darren enjoy outside of consultancy?
• What path did Darren take to become an ISO Consultant?
• What is the biggest challenge he’s faced when implementing ISO Standards?
• What is Darren’s biggest achievement?

Resources

• Isologyhub
• Engagement Amplifier Gameplan

In this episode, we talk about:

[00:30] Episode Summary – We introduce Darren Morrow, a Senior Consultant here at Blackmores, to discuss his journey towards becoming an ISO consultant who specialises in ISO 9001, ISO 45001, ISO 14001 and ISO 50001.  

[03:45] What is Darren’s role at Blackmores? Darren is a Senior Consultant with Blackmores, supporting companies with maintaining systems, undertaking internal audits, and supporting with implementing new systems to gain certification.

A key part of his role is translating ISO Standards into plain English, and guides clients on how to apply them in practice.

[04:55] What does Darren enjoy doing outside of consultancy?: Darren moved to Norfolk back in 2021 ans has since found the relaxed way of life there to be a great fit.

It also offers a lot of good walking opportunities for his 2 Leonberger’s (giant breed dogs), who mostly enjoy the local parks and beach walks.

Darren is also an avid reader, clocking in a whopping 343 weeks’ worth of reading on his kindle. His favourite genres include:-

• Crime, thriller, adventure types – Clive Cussler, Michael Connelly, David Baldacci, CJ Box, Dan Brown, James Carol
• Horror – James Herbert, Stephen King
• Supernatural, urban fantasy, fantasy – Ben Aaronvitch, Jim Butcher, Raymond E Feist, C S Lewis & Tolkien
• Historical – CJ Sansom, SJ Parris
• And Terry Pratchett for a weird dose of reality.

He’s also a movie buff, with a collection of over 1,000 films ranging from the 1930’s all the way to modern era. Recently he took on the challenge of watching all the Marvel films in chronological order, which took a few weeks!

[10:35] What was Darren’s path towards becoming an ISO Consultant?: Before Blackmores, Darren was the Quality Manager for a company that worked within the Highways Maintenance sector, working there for 8 years.

For the first 18 months he was primarily the Quality Manager for a specific contract on the Olympic Park, as that contract came to an end, he moved into the main company Quality Manager role supporting multiple highway term maintenance contracts along with various smaller projects that the business won.

Prior to that, he was a SHEQ Advisor within the Rail industry, working for a signaling company. Darren worked there for about 5 years, within head office support roles for quality and health and safety, moving to working on supporting the project teams and project delivery for signaling schemes.

Overall, looking back, he’s worked with standards within a quality, health & safety, environmental for around 25 years now.

 [13:20] What is Darren’s favourite aspect of being a Consultant? – Darren likes the variety.

As an ISO Consultant, he gets to work with lots of different people, companies and industries, so he gets to learn a lot about how they work and how Standards apply to different industries.

He also enjoys the fact that after working with clients for a number of years, he becomes just another member of the team.  

[15:15] What Standards does Darren specilaise in and why? Starting with:

• ISO 9001 Quality: This is the main standard that Darren starting working with back in 1999
• ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety: While working within rail, Darren was given the opportunity to do some training and proceeded to complete NEBOSH courses – general and construction, this proved invaluable in future roles.
• ISO 14001 Environmental: Darren ended up working with this Standard as part of on-going development. His role as a Quality Manager expanded, and at the time, all external audits with our certification body were coordinated through him. So, for on-going development he completed the NEBOSH environmental managed certificate.
• ISO 50001 Energy Management: This is one of Darren’s favourites. He’s taken on this standard since working with Blackmores and seemed like a natural progression with the work he was already doing. He likes how this standard helps companies think more about their impacts on the environment in terms of energy consumption.

In terms of companies climate change impacts, Darren likes how ISO 50001 can support deep dives into data that is available or not clearly available in many cases to support improvement and reduction in energy consumption.

This also can pave the way for those companies that take it more seriously, and progress to newer standards like ISO14064-1 for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gases, but also part 3 for the verification and validation of greenhouse gases.

This is where our sister company, Carbonology Ltd, really excel. Darren does his bit with ISO 50001 clients to educate and prepare them for taking more proactive steps towards meaningful energy and carbon reporting. For example, if they grow sufficiently or fall within the parameters of mandatory schemes such as ESOS or SECR reporting, or they just want to do their bit and demonstrate their commitment to minimising their impact on the environment and overall energy consumption.

[23:10] What is the biggest challenge Darren had faced during a project and how did he overcome it?: He doesn’t have a single one that stands out, but common issues are usually either down to availability or commitment of the individuals within the company he’s supporting.

For example, the company may decide that they require certification to a standard or multiple standards. There will be commitment from some within the business, and there are those that may not see the importance or feel it’s not important to them and what they do. 

Darren’s job is to support the company in achieving its main goal in gaining certification. His work with the company involved explaining what is to be done and why. He’s found that most of any resistance is because individuals do not know the why and how it impacts them, etc.

The other aspect is to make it clear that he is not there to tell them what to do, or that they’re doing it wrong. He works with people to either document the process (where required), help them find improvement in the process and continue to search for improvement.

[27:00] What is Darren’s proudest achievement? Darren states that there’s no one definitive achievement to highlight, rather he would say supporting clients who are new to the standards. Working with them and providing knowledge so that they know the ‘why’ and understand the standards and their processes, and finally seeing the end result with being recommended for certification.

The ones that he’s particularly happy with are those that go for multiple standards, that result in recommendation for certification with little or no significant findings from the certification body, it shows that the company has been fully engaged and embedded the overall process into how they work.

If you’d like any assistance with implementing ISO standards, get in touch with us, we’d be happy to help!

We’d love to hear your views and comments about the ISO Show, here’s how:

• Share the ISO Show on Twitter or Linkedin
• Leave an honest review on iTunes or Soundcloud. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one.

Subscribe to keep up-to-date with our latest episodes:

Stitcher | Spotify | YouTube |iTunes | Soundcloud | Mailing List