Manila – The Institute for Labor Studies (ILS) completed its 2023 Internal Quality Audit (IQA) with a closing meeting of ILS management, its employees, and the owners of the 17 registered process areas conducted on June 2.

The closing meeting was led by ILS Internal Audit Team Leader Marc Raphael A. Peñaredondo, where he presented the general impressions and the initial audit findings. He highlighted the good practices, opportunities for improvement, conformities, and observations among others, resulting from the conduct of the two-week IQA from May 22 to 30. The findings were based on the audit criteria comprising the official audit findings in 2022 and the Institute’s established Quality Management Systems (QMS) based on ISO 9001:2015.

Officer-in-Charge and Executive Director III Jeanette T. Damo stressed the need to examine and address the observations and findings to avoid non-conformities specifically in preparation for the surveillance audit in July 2023.

“We cannot discount the fact that time is of the essence in the conduct of research. The data gathering and validation of our findings are essential since we base our analysis, findings, and recommendations on the results of these processes. We need to be on top of the activities and harmonize the timelines to meet our organizations’ major targets in time for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Research Conference by the end of the year,” she emphasized.

She also commended the adoption of online recruitment and the rightsizing of the selection board of the Human Resource Merit Selection and Promotion Board (HRMSPB) as one of the innovations, an effort to streamline the hiring and recruitment process of the Institute. In her closing remarks, she expressed her appreciation and congratulated the Institute’s internal stakeholders for the successful completion of the IQA.

The Internal Audit Team and its processes will undergo an internal assessment by June 5 and the External Surveillance Audit will commence by July 17.