Would a job in quality assurance be deathly boring?!

[BretonStripe]

I currently do p/t admin in a small office, but boss is hoping to train me up to take over the quality assurance & auditing aspects of her job (we are in the care sector).

Would it be as boring as it sounds? Does anyone else do this type of work? If so, would you mind sharing what it's like, and what qualifications or training you have that you'd recommend?

Thank you.

Why would it be any more boring than admin?

I can imagine it might be boring in some sectors, but in care it would be really important and probably involve lots of contact with people. My only concern would be the risk of being ignored and quality suffering. But you should already know the tone of the organisation, so you should know if that would be a risk.

I do some aspects of quality assurance in a care setting but my role is much wider than that. In my opinion it is not boring at all but I can recognise that for some people it could be and it depends on the sector and scope of the role too.

I'd say don't go into QA if you care about being liked - nobody likes getting poor feedback and nobody enjoys going through the QA process, you'll not be flavour of the month and need a thick skin. You need to be tactful at giving feedback but not scared to deliver messages people might not like to hear and be able to justify and defend your position. In my work excellent written communication is essential. Also being also to stick to timescales and hold others to them too. Of course you get to give positive feedback too!

My role is not within a highly regulated part of the sector so I don't have any specific QA qualifications, I came to to it through gaining experience in the sector and having a wide range of skills that give me the breadth to be able to asses quality across a range of service areas i.e. I'm not a niche expert or specialist, but experienced enough across the board to make judgements of service quality. Experience as a senior worker, team leader, supervisor, or manager is usually required for QA in this sector, you can't usually do it effectively without 'time on the floor' and a practical undertaking of the work.

Essential would be safeguarding trained to level 3 or 4, an understanding of the national health and social care standards & care inspectorate guidelines for your sector, policies and also risk assesment and critical incident investigation.

I am very systems and processes orientated, super efficient and organised which really helps me thrive with this kind of work. I'm also involved in developing standards for my sector so I get to use some level of creativity too. Otherwise it could get dull if you were just box ticking.

Ah, to be fair, my admin role involves answering calls/emails, creating content for social media, monitoring and booking staff training, going to client's homes to gather feedback, helping with transport where I can, as well as usual spreadsheets and typing. So it's pretty varied most days.

Thank you so much for all of this - it's really interesting and useful. A previous role I've had involved giving constructive feedback to people, and I feel I'm at a stage in life (mid 40s) where I don't feel the need to be liked at work necessarily. I already harass the carers about their statutory and mandatory training, so they're kind of used to me.

I would say I have a good standard of written communication, keen eye for detail and I'm very organised and keep to deadlines. So sounds like this role could work for me. The company is relatively new, so policies and procedures are still being shaped. My boss will be able to guide me, and I'll certainly ask about higher level safeguarding training (I have a background in early years and did constant safeguarding training then, but pretty sure I've only done L2 in this role). I've not got any shop-floor experience, which does worry me in terms of relating to carers, but hoping it won't stop be from auditing care plans and notes etc with the right supervision.

It sounds like you could be a good fit with the right support. This sounds like an internal QA role whereas I work for an external body so not everything I said will be applicable.

I do think it would be challenging, but not impossible, without any frontline or care management experience, as it can be hard to recognise quality in care and distinguish the poor and mediocre from the exemplary, if you don't have that baseline to work from. Potentially it would be easier to pull the wool over your eyes if you don't know what to look for.
Safeguarding is a key aspect, as an external QA it would be a huge red flag to me that the internal QA person had did not have high-level safeguarding experience in a care setting. It's not just about training but having dealt with incidents and reflected on what went wrong or right.
Without safeguarding background, you can’t judge whether the service handled things correctly. You can only challenge confidently if you understand the laws, thresholds, and responsibilities, to evidence compliance. It's more than just following policies, it's understanding whether staff feel able to speak up, if management is covering things up, whether risk is being minimised or ignored and whether people’s rights and choices were respected. For example, have you ever been involved in a serious incident review? That would be excellent experience for a QA role.

From seeing DPs career in this field I would say it's very varied and yes, quite boring, but, extremely lucrative if you really know your shit (and there's lots of pretenders!). But it's very true about being liked 🤭 he's constantly fighting his corner

Just asked DP, he agrees on not being liked and says add being ignored and advises never to say 'i told you so' and that the majority of your days are dull and repetitive and you almost pray for things to go wrong 🤣