JASANZ, FTEs and other mysteries

All certification bodies are governed (within Australia) by JASANZ (Joint Accreditation System Australia New Zealand, I know you all wanted to know that!).  These guys issue certification bodies with an accreditation to supply certification services.  Because of this, each certification body is stringently audited by JASANZ in about the same manner that CBs audit you and me.   When they conduct these audits, they audit against the JASANZ requirements and the requirements of the CB’s own management system requirements.  One of the most stringently audited aspect of the CBs is audit duration.  And this is quite easy.  There is a published schedule of audit days compared with employees and management system.  There are very few interpretations allowed of this schedule and so if it says an audit will ‘last’ 6 auditor days, the records must demonstrate 6 auditor days.  Whether you do it by 6 auditors on one day or 3 auditors  over two days, etc.  They must match.  However the one big interpretation is the number of full time equivalent employees and the number of people conducting the same activity.  It is through these interpretations that can cause the differences in quotations you will receive from a CB.  We make sure you get the best integration of this which will ensure you get the price.  Here is just definition of getting the best result.  Define who is full time, who is part time, who is casual.  You can find this information from your employment contracts.  Just keep a summary.  For the part timers and casuals, simply convert / gather the time in hours, divide the number a full time is expected to work and get your FTE.  So when you asked, just produce the spreadsheet and there is no argument.  Hint; just make sure there is some correlation with your organisation chart.  The next biggest definition is how many people are doing the same job.  But that is just a bit of IP that I will keep to myself until you engage our services.  Just remember, make you best estimate as to how many are doing what and record it.  Then discuss this data with your CB.  You will be rewarded.