Kyla Aitken – Operations Director
appa me ltd
appa me | appa life | appa training | appa fitness | appa kids
What’s in a Name?
ISO has a different acronyms in different languages, so adopted the short form ISO, derived from the Greek isos – meaning equal
appa as a company stands by its principles, we believe in order to shift perspectives on disabilities and deaf cultures, requires unconditional acceptance within the greater populous, we have a basic fundamental need to help others turn a corner, to realise that potential for change in attitude and recognition, leading to such acceptance.
Associated to our principles, one of our end goals is to be the epitome of seamless business and people diversity, to lead by example so we realised we needed to shout louder and stronger so that the things we do and always have done can be seen by others so that they too can sit up and adjust themselves. So to do that we have started to underpin our foundations ready to boost our business position – the appa team decided in 2014 to start the next significant leg of our journey by arming ourselves with internationally recognisable standard– ISO9001
As an original founder and disabled person I have loved solutions that work, solutions that are simple and solutions that achieve more than one goal – and so from the days when we worked out of a back bedroom, we have always prided ourselves on transparent effective practise, in-turn leading the way in standards of services delivery for specialised person to person offerings as well as to groups and corporate service. An ISO would underpin our high standards and support us to maintain and improve upon them in our growth.
ISO – Fact!
The International Standards Organisation (circa 1945/1947 – present) is independent from government, and has 21000 recognised published International Standards covering almost every industry.
Journey to ISO
We have been developing our internal systems and processes since our early beginnings and so as someone who has seem these develop from the very first day, I was quietly confident in our achievement, what I did want was to see how the business world standardised its services and demonstrated quality.
Since those days of working in a small bedroom, I realised the volume of work involved in collating appas foundations, and so in the spirit of making it simple, we took 3 steps:
1 – Find a good consultant, who knew what they were doing and could support us through this journey.
2 – Select two of the company’s team leaders with meticulous attention to detail and commitment to appas success. (their blogs will be coming soon!)
3 – Time, take time to really look at what we are doing, this doesn’t mean days on end, but to spend quality time on each element as it is examined as a group to get various perspectives until we find the right fit.
The journey was interesting, and the outcomes fantastic, I applaud Lea-Ann and Laura, they’re tasks were not simple, I also thank their co-team leaders as they supported the focus and admin time spent on this task by taking up any slack so clients had no interruption to their services with appa.
The most enjoyable aspect was to see the team leaders of appa grow, work as a tight unit, and plan how to continue improving the services of appa.
It’s a fantastic achievement and a massive milestone for appa and our clients.
Well done.
ps we also have a LinkedIn Company Showcase Page on our ISO9001 certification.
