The ISO Show #230 Driving ISO Implementation – Meet the Consultant: Anju Punetha
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
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!
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