#217 Driving ISO Implementation – Meet the Consultant: Alison Henshaw

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 ...