Achieving the TQS

Moving On From The TQS

2011-12-28T16:53:00.000Z

The TQS has had its day.

We're now working directly with training providers helping them to do more business with employers.

We're focusing particularly on working with providers who are helping people leaving the public sector who want to set up their own businesses.

If your organisation is helping people made redundant to start out in business, we'd like to talk to you about our Solo Success Start-Up workshops.

We have half day and full day workshops available.

We can also supply hard copies of our very successful e-guide: The Solo Success Start-Up Guide to help support your Work Programme events.

Learn more about The Solo Success Start-Up Guide to see how useful our approach will be to you.

Bringing in business

2011-05-08T16:22:00.003+01:00

The TQS is only a milepost along the way.

We spend most of our time helping our cusotmers to bring in business and build their relationships with their customers.

If you'd like to know more then visit:

Margaret Adams

or

Attract More Business.

So what now for the TQS?

2010-12-30T15:18:00.001Z

Where is the TQS going?

Are you still working towards TQS certification?

Is the TQS still as important in your organisation as it was a year ago?

Ask yourself these questions as we move into 2011.

Congratulations to East Surrey College

2010-12-14T17:34:00.000Z

I'm now able to congratulate another of our clients - East Surrey College - on achieving the TQS.

We've been working with the college for some time and it's great to have helped another college to gain certification.

Congratulations!

2010-10-20T15:55:00.001+01:00

Today I'm congratulating another of our clients.

. . . I won't publish the details until the organisation has sent out its press release, but we have another TQS success today.

Hooray!

Congratulations!

2010-10-17T12:27:00.011+01:00

Congratulations to one of our clients - The Warrington Business School on achieving TQS Part A with excellence in Freight Logistics and Warehousing.

The Warrington Business School worked hard to achieve the TQS.

Here's a picture taken at a TQS training session that I delivered at the school just over a year ago, where every one was very focused on gaining certification.

Well done, Warrington!

Still very quiet . . .

2010-09-23T11:57:00.002+01:00

Every one seems to be waiting for the outcomes of the spending review before making decisions about the TQS.

Two of our clients have just had verification visits.

They applied before the June 30th deadline but holidays and other issues prevented the verification visit taking place any earlier.

All the other organisations we are working with are watching and waiting.

TQS Assessments - Summer Feedback

2010-08-25T10:18:00.005+01:00

There are lots of disappointed people out there.

Quite a few organisations are finding that they are applying for certification and coming out of the assessment and verification process with nothing.

I've heard of four organisations in the last week that have had a verification visit recently and been shocked when they haven't gained certification - even conditional certification.

The New TQS World

Some of the organisations coming forward for assessment have said openly that they're "only" looking for conditional certification. That is they have accepted that the standard is really too hard for them, or that they don't think they can meet the requirements of A5.

Some organisations have been hoping to get onto the certificated list but haven't realised how difficult a task gaining the TQS is.

There have been some surprises in colleges and in training provider organisations mainly because the task of gaining the TQS hasn't really been considered fully.

I know that when I'm asked to get involved with an organisation looking for TQS certification, my first question is always:

Are you sure you really want the TQS?

My next questions all begin with:

Are you prepared to .....?

If you know some of the disappointed organisations you'll be hearing their versions of the story.

From my position, working with organisations in the South East, in the West Midlands, in the East of England and in the North West, I think the summer feedback should help to focus people's minds on whether they want the TQS and what they need to do to gain it.

Today's message is a firm one.

The TQS is attainable, but it will be hard work.

Are you prepared to do that hard work?

What's your view of the changing TQS scene?

TQS Rule Change

2010-07-30T12:00:00.004+01:00

Are you keeping up with the TQS rule changes?

The employer validation element was removed from July 1st.

Conditional certification remains but there is some new guidance about what conditional certification means.

There is also some additional guidance about A5.2.

Training Quality Standard: A 5.2: Technical Note is worth downloading and reading carefully.

What is the impact of these TQS changes?

Well, my customers who worked hard to get their applications in before June 30th are all trying to work out if they made a wise choice.

In all cases we've been working through the new regulations and seeking clarification about specifics.

The answer to the question about the timing of the submission has to be that most people are not really sure whether it's better to be classifed as a June 30th submission or a July 1st submission.

We'll all have to wait a while to find out if people have made the right choice when they sent off their completed applications on June 30th.

Is there a future for the TQS?

2010-06-17T15:09:00.005+01:00

I’m asking this question because lots of other people are asking it. I’ve had telephone discussions around this theme with four providers this week, and this exact question, typed into the search engines, has brought this blog several new readers.

Welcome!

I don’t know if there is a future for the TQS, but I do know that the people who are asking the question are more likely to have the answer than the people in the funding agencies.

When people ask me if the TQS will survive, and if it will flourish, I now have my answer ready.

“It will if you value it.”

Do providers value the TQS?

Think for a moment about your own TQS journey. Did you decide to go for the TQS because of the value that you think it will add to your organisation? Did you decide to go for the TQS because someone was pushing you in that direction?

Your answers will shape your view of the TQS.

If you’ve decided that having a systematic approach to working with employers will help your business, then you know that the TQS will help.

You can use the standard and the framework to help you to devise systems and processes to support your work with employers. You can reorganise the way you work with employers. You can follow the principles of the TQS – all at very little cost.

If you’re just starting out on your TQS journey, I’d advise you to buy the Training Quality Standard Applicant Guide, if you can’t get one for free. It will set you back £30, but that will be the extent of your outlay.

You can then use the TQS as a development tool.

I remember getting on for twenty years ago now I spent a lot of time delivering workshops all around the country for MCI (Management Charter Initiative) helping people to see that the newly-published management standards could be used for more than gaining qualifications. They helped business, too, in organisational development, in recruitment, in performance management and so on.

I think the same applies to the TQS. You can gain a lot of benefit from using the standard without thinking of certification.

Does anyone say you must gain certification?

This is the thorny question. Do you need TQS certification in order to gain access to government contracts? Is the ground shifting beneath the sector?

In all honesty the answer matters less than you might think.

If you decide to work with the TQS and apply its principles, then gaining certification is a short additional step to take. You can take that step when someone says you need your certification to take part in the next round of contracting. You will have travelled a long way down the road towards certification using the TQS as a development tool. Gaining the plaque won’t be too big an additional job.

Is there really a future for the TQS?

There are some questions to think about.

What else is there to put in its place?
What are the feelings about the TQS in your part of the country? Does it have lots of advocates?
Has the TQS passed that very important test? Does it actually add value?

It’s your decision.

See also:

Is the TQS still top of the agenda?

Do we have to have the TQS?

TQS Validation: What will you tell your employers?

2010-06-08T11:54:00.013+01:00

Update on June 10th
We posted this article on June 8th and new information about validation was released on June 9th. You can read about it here.

Two changes to TQS assessment rules

Be that as it may, how are you preparing your staff and your employers for the fact that you're seeking TQS certification?

Original article

Quite a few of our clients are in the final stages of countdown to submitting their TQS application.

They are looking to have the option of achieving conditional certification and so they are finalising applications now.

Most of our clients are also starting to think about verification and validation. They are wondering how best to prepare their employers for the possibility of the validation telephone call. They want guidance on how to handle this activity well.

So, how should providers deal with the validation issue?

Here’s my advice.

Talk to your own staff first

Make sure every one in your own organisation understands what TQS validation is all about. You don’t want any incorrect messages out there, so make sure every one is clear what happens.

A useful starting point would be to make sure every one understands the concept of net promotion.

I’ve written about the concept of net promotion. Click on the term net promotion to view the post.

Decide what to communicate to employers

This needs to be an organisation-wide decision. It also needs to be implemented in exactly the same way in all parts of the organisation. It’s amazing how messages can get confused. There is scope for ambiguity and misunderstanding in all major communications activities, so make sure you minimise that scope by briefing your own staff on validation issues.

Give your own staff a document which summaries your approach to communicating the information about validation to employers.

Next think about your communications process.

Are you going to send every employer a letter?
Are you going to visit every employer?
Are you going to speak to every employer on the telephone?
Are you going to do a mix of the above?
How often are you going to communicate your intentions?

What’s right is what works for you.

You can find the validation notification template letter on the TQS website. Click validation notification template letter to visit the relevant page.

What are providers doing about the validation issue?

We’re working with three organisations which are on the brink of submitting their applications at the moment. Each one has adopted a slightly different approach to preparing for validation.

A small training company we are working with is visiting all of its employers to explain the validation process. The account managers are showing employers the validation letter on line and explaining the validation process.

A large college we are working with has a timetable for telephoning all its employers about the TQS once the application has been submitted. In the ‘phone call managers will be alerting employers to the fact that they will be receiving a letter about the TQS in the post and reminding them to look out for it. In the case of this college the senior team has decided that, immediately after the verification visit, the top fifty employers will be telephoned again to remind them of the validation activity.

Another provider we are working with is handing out a postcard about TQS assessment, verification and validation to its employers during a visit. On one side of the postcard is the TQS information. On the other side is a calendar of forthcoming networking events for employers.

What should you do about validation?

The short answer is that it’s up to you to decide what fits your own client base and your own methods of communicating with your employers best.

It does seem, however, that most providers are doing something, so perhaps you should, too.

Attract More Business - Newsletter

2010-05-21T09:39:00.006+01:00

Have you signed up for our Attract More Business newsletter yet?

The May edition will be out next week.

Each month I take an important aspect of employer engagement and offer guidance on how to deal with that issue.

The feature article in April was entitled:

Sign up for our list and stay the course!

It was about getting employers to sign up for your e-newsletter and other communications. It was also about making sure you keep people on your list and opening your e-mails.

When you sign up for the newsletter you'll be able to download our special report:

Bridging the Funding Gap.

The title says it all. It's a guide to help you to earn more income from non-governmental sources.

The main sections in the report are headed:

Be clear about how much revenue you want to generate from employers
Be clear about who you serve
Be clear about what you are selling
Face up to the big challenge
Create a customer pipeline
Manage relationships with employers
Build your reputation
Promote your organisation effectively
Get some feedback
Measure and improve

The report is filled with useful advice that you can apply today, so you might want to take a look. All of the advice will also help providers looking to achieve the TQS.

Remember, you'll receive the Attract More Business newsletter, too.

This month I'll be writing about how to get employers to hand over real money.

So, I look forward to sharing this information with you.

The sign-up box for our Attract More Business newsletter is on the right hand side of the screen.

Your TQS application - three reasons why you should write it in-house

2010-05-16T11:58:00.024+01:00

Over the last two years or so I’ve been asked many times to write an organisation’s TQS application. On every occasion I’ve turned down the request. I always turn down these requests because the best people to write your TQS application are already working for you.

Of course, you can ask for guidance on how to shape and frame your work, how to make sure your application makes sense to an outsider, how to check that you’ve covered the requirements and so on – and I’ve done all of these tasks several times – but writing your TQS application is a job for you, for three reasons.

It’s your TQS journey

You have made a development journey towards readiness to be certificated. You know the details of that journey. You know about your successes and the areas where you have had problems. You know what you’re really proud of.

Most of all you know how all the different pieces in your jigsaw came together.

This is the story you need to tell, and no one can tell this story better than you.

You know where the evidence is

In your TQS application you make statements about how you address the different aspects of the standard. You then use evidence of how you work in practice to help you to prove your points.

An external writer – even a great writer – won’t have this sort of information to hand. Even in you give him or her lots of material to work with, it will still be difficult for an outsider to decide which items fit the requirements of the different parts of the standard best. It takes someone who knows the standard and knows your work to do that.

You will have to work with the assessors on the verification visit

When the assessors come on site to verify, amplify and clarify what is in the application you’ll have problems, if you don’t own your application.

If you don’t know why something has been written in a particular part of the application, or why a particular example has been offered, you’re going to struggle to have a meaningful discussion with your lead assessor about it. If you don’t know how the application was constructed and the rationale behind your choice of material, you will find the verification visit difficult.

It might look like you’re removing a problem from your over-long list of things to do in your very busy day by outsourcing the writing of your TQS application, but in the long run you’ll be making more work for yourself.

Do yourself a favour

Write the application in-house, but remember to leave plenty of time to write, edit, review and rewrite. In the end the secret of good writing is all in the editing and rewriting.

So, to make sure your TQS application is really well written, don’t outsource the writing, but do make sure you write several versions of the document along the way.

If you’d like to link to this post, please do.

If you’d like to use it in your own TQS newsletter, then that’s fine, provided you acknowledge the writer and the source.

See also: TQS Application writing - the five big mistakes

Your TQS Application Writing Strategy

2010-04-24T14:30:00.006+01:00

As most of the readers of this blog know, I spend quite a bit of my time looking at TQS applications before they are sent off to the appropriate certification body.

One of the problems I see again and again in applications is the inconsistency between what has been written in A0 and what is written in A5. To state this a little more directly, what is in A0.3 doesn’t seem to be picked up in A5.0 – or anywhere else in A5 for that matter.

The advice I always give is that:

The person writing A0 should write A5, too.
The person writing A0 should write A5 as soon as he or she has finished A0.
The person writing A0 and A5 should put the two aspects of the application alongside each other to make sure that there is some relationship between what is said in A0 and A5.

Saying something is one thing. Getting people to follow the advice is more difficult.

I find that what people really like is the diagram below.

In summary, think about your strategy first.
Think about the results you achieve next.
Then consider the approaches you use to implement your strategy.

Easy . . . or not?

Is the TQS still top of the agenda?

2010-04-07T18:06:00.012+01:00

The fact that I’ve been asked this question several times in the last month seems to suggest that the answer is: no.

More than one hundred and fifty organisations have gained the TQS to date. A lot of those organisations are colleges.

Inevitably this means that for some colleges the TQS is not now top of the agenda. They’ve achieved certification. They have the badge, even if – in some cases – that badge is held provisionally. This means that quite a few colleges can now focus some of their attention on something else.

In many cases funding issues are now top of the agenda. Strategies for increasing income, often from employers, are centre stage.

In those colleges that haven’t gained the TQS, as yet, some serious questions are being asked?

Do we need the TQS?
Does anyone say we have to have it?
If we can’t gain it by the summer should we bother?
What are other colleges doing?
What will we lose if we don’t go for certification?

In private training provider organisations the same questions are being asked, along with a couple of others:

Will be still be able to sub-contract from colleges if we don’t achieve the TQS?
Can we find a way to go through as a small organisation – because it’s cheaper that way?

Colleges and private training providers are also asking whether they need to think about Part B or if they can concentrate on their Part A activities.

These are all legitimate questions, but finding the answers is problematic.

With the demise of the LSC and the end of the World Class Skills programme, a lot has changed in the sector. On the larger stage the outcome of the general election could change a lot, or not very much. Then there’s the issue of the stance of the Skills Funding Agency or of the National Skills Academies with regard to the TQS and how much influence they have.

So what’s the best way forward?

It’s worth going back to the actual standard and reviewing it. Then the key question is:

Will working with the TQS help our business?

Any organisation looking to work with employers will be certain to see the value of addressing the key principles in the standard, so every provider organisation can improve its business prospects by using the TQS as an organisational development tool.

Working with the TQS in this context remains a valuable activity, and one that can remain top of the agenda.

Seeking certification is quite a different issue and it is the external environment that will dictate decisions in that context. It will take some weeks or months before it is clear how the environment in the sector will change and develop.

We will all need to wait to find out if TQS certification will be top of the agenda in the autumn and beyond.

The shrewd organisations will probably hedge their bets.

If they can achieve the TQS by the summer they will. If they can’t, they’ll work with the standard and be ready to seek certification if and when they need it.

Do we have to have the TQS?

2010-01-31T15:01:00.011Z

I’ve written responses to some very good questions over the life of this blog. The question above is probably the best question of all. I hope I can do justice to the question in my answer.

Where are you going?

Whether or not you need the TQS depends on your business model and your business objectives. If you’re looking to rely on government funding for your income, then you definitely need to consider the TQS seriously.

If the funding bodies with which you work expect their suppliers to hold the TQS, then clearly Achieving the TQS will make business sense.

It might also make sense to achieve certification if you want to become a member of your National Skills Academy (NSA). TQS certification could become a condition of NSA membership in the future.

However, you need to think of some other issues, too.

Will it matter to our customers if we gain the TQS?

To address this think about your relationships with your customers.

Will your customers think differently of you if you hold the TQS? Will they do more business with you? How much value do your customers place on the TQS as a brand and as an indicator of training excellence?

Will you take action to make the most of that certification with your customers? Are you going to use your TQS certification as a means of differentiating yourself from other provider organisations? Will you use your certification to promote yourself strongly?

Will you take a hand in promoting the TQS brand? After all, once you hold certification, it will be in your own interests to promote the TQS concept, too.

Will it matter within the learning and skills world, if we gain the TQS?

Will holding TQS certification help you to fulfil the requirements of other assessment frameworks? Will your TQS certification help you with inspection issues?

Don’t just look at the requirements of each framework as you think about your answer. Think also about whether the work you do in the TQS context will make life easier for you when you are preparing for inspection. Will having systems, processes, frameworks and structures in place for managing relationships with your employer customers will help you with your preparations for other assessments?

Doing more with less

Achieving more with limited resources is going to be important for many years to come.

Will the process you go through as you prepare for TQS certification help you to work more efficiently and more productively?

Have you thought about the benefits you will gain by overhauling the ways in which you manage relationships with employer customers? Will those systems and processes help you to work smarter? Will the new systems help you to do more business with your existing customers? Will you give your employer customers a better experience because you have a systematic approach to dealing with them?

For example:

Do you record the costs you incur in order to gain a new employer customer?
Do you work out how much it costs you to hold on to an employer customer?

The systems and processes you introduce to help you to achieve the TQS may cut the costs of both activities. To be sure of this you will need to do some measurement of current expenditure.

In the end you might decide you can’t afford not to seek certification, but you won’t know until you do that measurement.

Is the TQS providing a framework for excellence?

Irrespective of TQS certification issues does the TQS provide you with a framework that will help you to serve your employer customers better?

If you believe it does, then you will probably have the answer to the question about whether you have to have the TQS, too.

See also:

How much LMI do we need?

An assessor's view of the TQS

What did you gain as a result of working with us?

How often do we keep in touch with our employers?

Meeting the A5/B3 Challenge

2010-01-23T16:35:00.007Z

If you're planning for your TQS assessment, you will be thinking about A5 and about B3 - if you're looking to be certificated for both parts of the standard.

What is all the fuss about?

Why do so many organisations seeking TQS certification struggle with A5 and B3?

Well, the answer has a lot to do with how the FE sector views awards and how the sector goes about getting endorsed, certificated and approved.

Anyone who has worked in FE – and that means colleges and learning provider organisations – knows what happens when an organisation decides to go for an award.

People are asked to focus their efforts on gaining the prize: Investors in People, the Matrix Standard and so on.

It doesn’t matter what the challenge is, the approach is the same.

Busy people are asked to apply lots of effort to preparing to meet the new challenge.

They are asked to focus on the requirements of the award and make sure they address them.
They are briefed about why this prize is important.
They are asked to give the award their full attention.
They do lots of extra work to ensure their areas comply with requirements.
Their organisation gains the award.
Their organisation moves on to the next challenge.

This approach is the main reason why so many organisations are struggling with the TQS. The usual methods for getting through don’t work.

Why?

The assessment process is looking to confirm that, over time, you have been doing what is necessary to achieve the standard. Come the assessment, it’s not a case of simply looking at what you are doing right now. You need a history of working in a particular way, and you need to demonstrate that the ways in which you work generate results – results for the employers you work with.

The assessment looks for results and for trends in results.

Consider the following when you think about trends.

Is progress being made towards increasing levels of performance? If already at a high level, is it being sustained? Is the trend sustained for two years or more?

Think also about your results and the targets you set.

Are targets being set and on what basis? Is performance against targets being monitored? How well are targets being achieved?

Then there are results in comparison to others.

Are results achieve being compared with those of other organisations? How well do the results compare, given different contexts?

Oh yes, and where do you write about results? You’re right, in A5 and B3.

Of course, for the moment, those who can’t show the results and the data necessary to address these aspects of the standard can gain conditional certification, but that all changes later this year.

The reason for this is obvious. Every one has had plenty of time to become familiar with the TQS requirements, so every one should now be working towards addressing them.

Of course, that’s the theory, but life isn’t really like that.

Quite a few organisations are still using the tried and trusted FE development model outlined above.

Your organisation doesn’t fall into that category, does it? You don’t go for the short-term approach, do you?

If you think you do, now’s the time for action. Change the model you use for developing your organisation, if you want to Achieve the TQS. Start to develop a longer-term perspective, and think about those trends, over time.

See also:

Planning the TQS development journey: first things first

What's the real difference between Part A and Part B of the Training Quality Standard?

A thought for January 2010 - Are you creating the right impression?

2010-01-09T16:23:00.007Z

Here's an activity to try out whilst the snow seems set to keep us all at home.

There’s nothing more satisfying when you come to think about how you’re progressing with your TQS development journey than to be able to set out in front of you your systems and processes for managing your work with employers.

I say “set out in front of you” because it’s a good idea if you organise your development journey so that you’re able to do this.

You will be better able to be clear about what you do and how you do it, if you use a visual approach.

What does your employer engagement system look like?

Some people use process maps – and there is software around to help you to do this. Some people use flow charts. Some people use a range of colourful and fancy methods. It’s not important which approach you use. What is important is that you think about what needs to be done to manage your relationships with employers. Then set out the processes you use to do the job.

When we help people with this task in our workshops, we start with the employer’s journey.

We look at the various stages of an employer’s involvement with a provider.

These include:

the time before the employer works with the provider organisation
the contracting stage
the time when the employer is working with the provider organisation
the time when the first piece of work/contract finishes.

We then look at what the provider organisation needs to do to support the employer at each stage of that journey.

This is the time to draw up a list of the processes you use.

For example, in the time before you begin working with an employer, you will need a process for managing enquiries, a process for deciding how and when to refer an enquirer on, a process for checking that the employer doesn’t get lost in the voicemail limbo, a process for undertaking organisational needs analyses, and process for getting proposals completed . . . and so on.

We provide a list and help people to decide what they need. Of course, we also have some sample processes, which people find helpful.

All of this means the value of mapping management processes is established quickly in the workshop. People draw their flow charts or their process maps. These then become the documents used throughout their organisation.

As a result of adopting this approach they make rapid progress with the tasks linked to consistency and standardisation.

They have something to work with when they are training their staff.
They have processes that they can document in more detail if they wish.
They have an approach which is easy to communicate.

Pause for a moment then, and think just for a moment about how you start your relationship with an individual employer.

Can you set out your process simply?
Can you fit the overview onto a single page?

Think about the various stages and the impressions you will create with employers at each stage.

If you have difficulties take a step back and look again at the posts on:

What exactly are you trying to do to support employers?

Employer engagement basics - the summary

Net promotion

2009-12-21T15:37:00.006Z

I haven’t written much about TQS validation and net promotion before.

Like lots of people, if I were asked to give a rating to a supplier on a scale of one to ten, unless I knew what the scores meant, I would never give a nine or a ten.

For me eight out of ten is as much as I can ever really see myself giving.

Quite a few people have been asking about net promotion and its background recently so it’s time to write a post about it.

Where does the concept of the Net Promoter® score come from?

Did it come from the LSC?
No, it didn’t.

Did it come from OFSTED?
No, it didn’t.

Did it come from government?
No, it didn’t.

In fact the concept is well established in the field of building customer loyalty and assisting business improvement. It’s also a registered mark so strictly one should always put ® after writing the term Net Promoter®.

There’s a book called: The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld which really started to popularise the concept. It has been taken up by lots of large companies hoping to build their business through building customer loyalty.

In fact, there is a whole industry linked to net promotion and using it to build business. One of the interesting statistics is that those who embrace the concept and use it to drive improvement in their business are likely to grow faster than other organisations in their industry by about 2.5 times.

Of course, there’s a lot more to net promotion than ringing up customers and asking them that question.

There’s a plenty of information to be found at:

www.netpromoter.com

Achieving the TQS, one year on - the view from Wakefield College

2009-12-07T14:51:00.007Z

Liz McFarlane, Director Services to Business, Wakefield College, offers her view today on the benefits of holding the TQS.

Thank you, Liz, for your insights.

"Definitely not a time to sit back and bask in the euphoria of achievement!

It is a time for consolidation and embedding of all the good practice developed over the year.

It was not until I addressed the question of the effect on us at Wakefield College that I really understood the depth and breadth of the issue. It has had an effect not only on the Services to Business Department and its staff but also the whole college and its stakeholders. The continuous hard work and proactive approach to employer engagement has been recognised both internally and externally which gives us prestige and thus an edge over our competitors. It easily demonstrates the consistently high quality of our service and provision and our commitment to continual improvement. This has supported the development of the Services to Business brand and enabled us to present a quality image which promotes recognition from employers.

The last year has been one of increased enthusiasm to continue the work that started with TQS.

Staff have developed an immense pride in their work thus providing job satisfaction and promoting excellent team work. There is a feeling that employers trust our quality and products and are happy to work with us not just for the first time but on a regular basis thereafter. New partnerships have been developed in a focussed way and existing ones cemented by the enhanced business approach that has been embedded over the last year.

Preparing for, and achieving, TQS was very hard work but it has had lasting benefits in terms of giving momentum for positive change and providing a framework for improvement that has led to enhanced reputation and increased business. It has demonstrated the quality of our employed engagement through Framework for Excellence to Ofsted and other important stakeholders.

The seamless quality improvement process had led some to say there is nothing different in college but there has in fact been an enormous step change that was born out of the work done in preparation for TQS. Activities are clearly planned to meet the needs of our clients and align with the college mission and objectives, processes and practices have been developed refined and streamlined giving a smooth consistent service and raised the expectations of all concerned. The confidence of teams has been enhanced and the pride in our work has led to a strong ethos of continuous quality improvement that in turn generates the confidence of employers.

Employers however do not overtly treat us differently because of TQS but they do have the confidence in our quality products that brings them back again and again.

New relationships have been developed and long standing ones enhanced. Stakeholder confidence in the college to provide a quality service is high and the TQS kite mark is held in high esteem by the Sector Skills Councils who are an excellent source of support. Communications are greatly improved which makes the employer journey smooth and seamless. These are all benefits that we have enjoyed because of the work we did in preparation for TQS that is now embedded in our practice.

Most employers however do not understand the rigours of TQS or even what it means when they are choosing a training supplier. A higher national profile would greatly assist in the recognition of TQS.

So what are the benefits?

Employers have confidence in us because we have achieved an externally assessed quality framework.
It has moved us significantly towards being the training provider of choice in the local and regional area.
An enhanced reputation among other colleges and providers
We are continuously challenged to improve and develop our quality service and assess its impact on our customers’ businesses.
Enhanced ability to win tenders and bids where TQS holds significant influence."

Achieving the TQS - Was it worth it?

2009-11-23T09:36:00.002Z

There are more than one hundred and twenty organisations listed on the TQS website as having achieved Part A of the Training Quality Standard.

In some cases more than a year has passed since they achieved their certification.

This means it’s possible to ask the question: “Was it worth it?”

You can ask yourself this question, too, wherever you are on your TQS development journey.

Will holding the TQS bring in more business?

Many provider organisations sought certification as a means of differentiating themselves from other providers. They hoped that gaining the TQS would mean that they gained more LSC contracts, or gained larger contracts, and that more employers would value their new status.

The organisations which gained their certification earliest have had the most opportunity to generate new business. Their views are, therefore, of interest to providers who are still on their journey to certification.

I interviewed Rachael Fidler of HTP about the impact of holding the TQS on her business some time ago. She was very positive about the business benefits.

She said:

“We find that employers are seeking us out, as are the LSCs. People see our certification as a statement about the quality of what we do and about our responsiveness to employer needs. That’s good for our business, because more people want to work with us.

I think the impact on us as a business is also very positive. We always knew we worked hard and tried to do a good job. Now we are confident that we do. We are also a stronger team because we worked together on this.”

So that’s one endorsement.

Several of our customers have said that following certification they have been having more conversations with more people and that some of those conversations are leading to business.

In broad terms then, they are saying that achieving the TQS is worth the effort.

Have you built your reputation?

This is a more difficult question.

There are really two parts to it. Reputation building takes place within the FE sector and with employers, too.

Within the sector organisations are looking for their work to be recognised by funding bodies and by OFSTED.

There are quite a few LSCs asking their providers to look seriously at the TQS and anecdotal information from providers in several regions indicates that holding the TQS is now being seen as something of value in the contracting process.

Most providers are aware of the links between the Framework for Excellence and the TQS, so most people in the sector know that holding the TQS certainly helps with aspects of this framework.

But what about building a reputation with employers?

This is more difficult to judge.

Where providers already have good relationships with employers, and with employer groups, there is evidence that relationships are being enhanced, once the provider gains the TQS.

Where a provider is looking for new business, holding the award seems to be of less help, simply because the majority of employers don’t know too much about the TQS. Thus, they are meeting a new provider and being introduced to a new quality badge at the same time.

However, providers do see the potential of the award. I interviewed James Billingham, managing director of TTP about how holding the TQS will help providers and he was very clear about how holding the TQS could offer an organisation advantages.

“The standard is only given to those organisations that can demonstrate a high level of customer satisfaction and a fundamental understanding of their industry. Those training providers that achieve the standard should be the first that employers turn to for good quality training.”

(This article was featured in Fast Forward, the journal for training providers in the logistics sector.)

Have you thought about what you will gain from achieving the TQS?

Now’s the time to think about that you want from your TQS certification. Now’s the time to set some objectives. Now’s the time to think beyond gaining certification and about how holding the TQS will help your business.

Have you thought about the gains you will make by achieving the TQS?
Do you know what you want, in business terms, as a result of your TQS certification?
Have you thought about the opportunities that will be available to you as a holder of the TQS that are not available to you now?
Have you thought about how you will capitalise on your achievement?

You won’t know if what you gain is worth the effort you put in to achieving the TQS if you don’t know the answers to at least some of these questions.

So ask yourself sooner rather than later if achieving the TQS is going to be worth it.

See also: Goodbye to the early adopters.

Good questions - and great answers

2009-11-16T15:59:00.011Z

Back in September I was very pleased to publish an interview with Peter Hillman, a TQS assessor with Investors in Excellence.

At the time Peter agreed to answer questions about the TQS on this blog.

Here are the first three questions that were sent to me. Thanks again to Peter for his clear responses.

Why aren't assessors drawn from education and from OFSTED?

"As I indicated in my earlier interview, the assessment includes the perspective of the "employer's experience". It is an assessment of how a provider defines, implements and manages the processes that support this, and how achievements and performance are measured in relation to the objectives defined in the strategy for each aspect of performance - i.e. planned outcomes, employer satisfaction and assessment of impact on the employer's business.
The Standard is an assessment of continuous service quality improvement which is fundamentally different from OFSTED's inspection role.

Part of this difference is that TQS is a process driven assessment framework which looks at how well specific approaches are developed and implemented, where "soundness" (or degree of "good") relates to the contribution to the achievement of the organisation's (provider's) strategy and not to an objective model of educational excellence.

Hence what might be "sound" for one provider may not be for another. Consequently assessors need to understand how organisations and processes are managed appropriately and effectively and it is this background that is looked for in assessors rather than a specific educational knowledge.

Experience has shown that having many assessors with a limited background in education (and not limited education!!!) has been valuable in bringing a fresh perspective on provider practice.
There is no bar on assessors from an OFSTED background becoming TQS assessors as long as they have the background experience and knowledge e.g. EFQM Excellence Model experience."

What proportion of organisations being assessed now are gaining conditional certification?

"This is information that is not routinely published and individual assessors do not have access to this information. However an initial report published by CFE is on the TQS website."

Is it a problem if people in a provider organisation haven't seen the TQS application?

"Not really.

However it is highly likely that the verification visit will include discussions with a range of staff involved in the employer responsiveness processes. We would expect them to know how things are done and whether this should be consistent with the information provided in the application.

Remember the application should reflect what actually happens in the organisation rather than "what is thought happens" or "what should happen". The evidence in the application should be "naturally occurring" which means it is "what happens on the ground" and it is key to ensure that this is the case.

So if you are confident that the application represents what is actually happening - particularly in relation to implementation - then it would not matter if everybody has not seen the application!!"

If you have more questions for Peter, please post them in the comments section of this post.

See also, the original interview with Peter: An assessor's view on the TQS and the series of good questions in the blog archive.

Teamwork wins every time

2009-11-09T15:48:00.010Z

I’ve written quite a lot about the TQS team over the past few weeks. That’s because it’s important to remember that gaining the TQS is all about teamwork.

Good teamwork doesn’t just happen.

There’s a lot to creating effective teams, but it always starts with the senior team. That’s why one of the early posts in the series was about preparing the senior team to support your TQS development.

There are still quite a few senior managers who are less aware of the differences between the TQS and inspection than you would like them to be. This means you will need to allocate time to working with your senior team to ensure they have the right level of understanding of the TQS.

Then there’s the issue of getting a working team together.

Of course, there are teams within teams, and teams working in different areas of your organisation. There are larger teams and smaller teams. There are teams with more influence than others.

Your job is to keep them focused and moving in the right direction. This can be easier said than done.

That’s why I wrote a post entitled: Is your TQS team really working as a team?

It’s a good question. You need the answer.

I also wrote about the TQS Part B team.

It’s important to give some thought to how best to help the people working on Part B. Often they are not as heavily involved with the TQS development journey as those who are working on Part A. They can be forgotten, unless you keep reminding yourself that they need to be included in just about everything you do.

Finally, I brought many of the key issues together in the post: Fantastic TQS team – what’s the secret?

That’s a post that shows what you can achieve when you take your team seriously and take the time to build a strong TQS team.

So now you know.

Teamwork wins every time.

Teamwork will definitely help you to achieve the TQS.

Fantastic TQS Team - What's the secret?

2009-10-30T14:09:00.007Z

My series of posts on the TQS team has generated some discussion in TQS training sessions we have been running.

The issues are always about that secret ingredient that makes one team successful and another team – well, less so.

I’m not sure there is a secret, but there are a few things that really help.

Check out if your TQS team would benefit from doing any of the following.

Focus on systems and processes, but also think about their deployment.

It’s important to work on the systems and processes you know you need, and it’s necessary that you do this. You will need an organisational needs analysis (ONA). You will need a way of measuring the impact of what you do in employer organisations. You will need a system for managing the employer’s relationship with your organisation.

It’s essential to your TQS success that you have sound systems and processes for managing your work with employers in place. It’s also important make sure they are used consistently.

The organisations we have worked with which make most progress with the TQS most quickly think about their new or revised systems and processes and how they will be implemented at the same time.

In TQS terms they think about getting sound systems and processes set up, but they think about the deployment of those systems and processes, too.

On quite a few occasions I’ve seen assessment dates put back and applications stalled because the work has been done on getting the right systems and processes devised, but little or no thought has been given to getting them used. As a result, take-up of the new ways of working is piecemeal.

Therefore, the secret ingredient in the TQS mix is not related to getting the right systems and processes in place. It’s about having a plan in place to ensure they will be used

Get the principal/CEO on the TQS team.

If the person at the top on the organisation is actively involved in your TQS development work, progress towards certification will be faster than if it is left to people with less authority to ensure that things happen.

With the most senior person in the organisation on the TQS team things just happen faster. If you have the authority of the person who leads your organisation behind you, it works wonders when you have to deal with the pleas from people who want to carry on doing things as they always have, or to devise their own way of working with employers in their department, or faculty or on a particular site.

If it’s not possible to get the most senior person involved in making sure that your organisation does embrace change, then the second best option is to have someone on the TQS team who can act with the most senior person’s authority.

Check out if you really have senior management support.

Doing this boils down to a very simple question.

Can the TQS team insist?

In lots of provider organisations the TQS team is not in a position to insist the new approaches to managing employer engagement are used.

If this team can’t insist, if the team members can only exhort, then some people will adopt the new approaches, and some won’t. Some will make use of the new CRM system. Some will keep their employer database to themselves. Some people will use the new ONA. Some will just carry on talking to employers about training.

Check out if you have the support that will allow you to insist. Then make sure you insist on changes where they really are necessary.

What do you need to do now?

It’s easy really.

Be clear about what you can do and what you can’t.

Separate the tasks linked to devising new ways of working from the tasks of implementing them.

Get on with the developmental work.

When it comes to implementation and to making sure the systems and processes are embedded, stand back.

Look to the highest levels of management to take the lead here.

Remember that the TQS team knows how to steer the ship, but there aren’t enough team members to man the oars, too.

See also: Your route to TQS certification: adopt a realistic timetable.

Who’s on the TQS (Part) B team?

2009-10-21T16:16:00.008+01:00

It’s very easy, when thinking about the TQS, to focus exclusively on the requirements on Part A. After all, you need to achieve Part A in order to be in a position to be certificated for Part B.

Focusing on Part A often means that the people you are going to call on to work on the Part B application are excluded from a lot of your TQS activity. As a result they don’t really know what is expected of them when they come to be involved.

This is causing problems in quite a few provider organisations. Are you facing these same problems?

Problem one: Wrong focus

The person who will lead on a Part B isn’t sufficiently familiar with the TQS requirements to be aware of the differences between TQS Part B and the requirements of assessment and inspection frameworks with which your organisation is more familiar.

When critiquing applications I’ve seen lots that are all about the curriculum, about courses and about learners.

Solution: Plan ahead.

Decide early who will be writing the TQS Part B submissions. Keep these people involved in all your TQS development activities. Make sure they develop their understanding of the requirements of the standard before they are asked to write anything.

Problem two: No close links with the Sector Skills Council (SSC)

Some provider organisations just haven’t made the time to build up good working relationships with the relevant SSCs.

In some cases this means that a Part B application isn’t clear about the SSC’s footprint, so the writers can’t explain to the readers which areas of the SSC’s remit the application covers. People1st, for example, covers fourteen different industries, including hospitality, catering and travel and tourism.

As a result, some providers define their application in terms of their curriculum and not with reference to the SSC.

I’ve seen applications that deal with all aspects of care: childcare, adult care, social work and care in the education world and so on. I’ve also talked to Part B writers who don’t see any reason to change such an application.

I’ve seen applications that muddle the work of Skills for Logistics (freight logistics) and GoSkills (passenger transport).

Solution: Make sure your Part B specialists are familiar with the relevant sector

Whoever is writing your Part B application needs to know that these applications are reviewed by the relevant Sector Skills Council (SSC) once they are submitted, and the SSC’s reviewer will identify issues and questions for the assessors to pick up on.

Therefore, make sure your Part B specialists are familiar with the work of the sector, as it is defined by the SSC, and make sure it is very clear how you are supporting the work of the SSC in the application.

Problem three: You don’t actually have a relationship with the sector

When it comes down to it, some provider organisations are not working closely with the sector where they want to gain Part B certification. Sometimes they think they are; sometimes they know they aren’t.

To have sector expertise you need to know what the issues facing the sector are. You also need to know how you are supporting the sector – as opposed to how you are supporting individual employers – to deal with at least some of those issues.

The sector has local, regional, national, and in some cases, international dimensions. Does your sector expert know how you support your sector at each level, or how your work contributes to the work of the sector at different levels?

Is your sector expert active in the work of the SSC and other relevant bodies, for example, some of the trade associations?

If not, are you sure you have sector expertise?

Solution: Get to know the SSC

If this is your problem, start building relationships with your SSC and with your National Skills Academy (NSA), if you have one. Build up your contacts and your knowledge over time, but start now.

Problem four: Part A and Part B applications are completed in isolation

You know why this happens. There’s the issue of time. There are other priorities. You had good intentions, but somehow co-ordinating everything is more difficult that you anticipated.

As a result the emphasis of the two parts of the application is different. Worse still some of what you say in Part A is contradicted in Part B. Where you have more than one Part B then conflicting statements are sometimes made in the different applications.

Solution: Sequence the writing of Part A and Part B

It really is the solution.

Sort out Part A first and then think about Part B. Your Part B writers will be more confident about their tasks, if they know what has been said about the whole organisation. They will have some guidance in front of them to help them to shape and construct a good Part B submission. They can also share Part B applications within the organisation if there is more than one Part B being written.

So, in the end there is a lot you can do to support your Part B writers. The most important thing to do is to bring them into the TQS team as soon as possible.

How about starting that process today?

See also: What's the real difference between Part A and Part B of the TQS?

TQS Assessment – Seize the opportunity!

2009-10-19T09:44:00.010+01:00

Just about every one in the FE world will have heard, by now, that the deadline concerning conditional certification has been changed. You now have more time to gain conditional certification than you thought you did.

I’ve already had ‘phone calls from people in colleges saying:

“It’s great. We can take things at a more leisurely pace now.”

I have no problem with this.

After all, people have always been able to choose the pace at which they travel the road to TQS certification.

However, before putting the TQS on the back burner it’s worth remembering that TQS success is not just about having sound systems and processes set up. It’s about operating them, too.

Take your time

You need time – and quite a bit of it – to do justice to your application.
Our customers tend to take between four and seven months to write their applications.

Why?

It’s because they change things about their practice as they go along. They also give themselves time to review, edit, and then revise their applications – often more than once.

You will get a lot more out of the development process if you take your time with it. The benefits you gain will be more far reaching, and systems and processes you set up will be more robust, if you take the time to make sure they work and that the deliver the outcomes and benefits you are looking for.

So what should you be doing now the heat is off?

Put the heat back on.

Stick to your original TQS schedule for getting your application written.

Then you will have time for all the reworks and rewrites. You’ll also have time to improve your approach to employer engagement before it comes under the assessors’ scrutiny.

See also: Goodbye to the early adopters

Is your TQS team really working as a team?

2009-10-05T09:50:00.008+01:00

You created a team when you first started work on the TQS. Perhaps you have a steering group. Perhaps you have a monitoring group.

However you have chosen to divide up the TQS responsibilities, is every one working together to achieve the TQS?

If your organisation is like most provider organisations, then your team members are probably working in their own ways and focusing on the things that are important to them. Maybe they’re not really working on the TQS much - except when you have your TQS meetings.

Here are three things to do to help your team to work better together.

Work together on defining the key management processes

You need to work out the key processes for managing your employer/customer journey. Do this as a team if that will work. If not, bring the team together to agree and to approve the processes which have been devised.

Make it clear that approval of a process also entails getting involved in ensuring that people use the process.

For example, if the TQS team agrees that all employer information is to be recorded on your CRM, then they must share the responsibility for making sure this happens.

Create a timetable of tasks to be completed

When you begin work on the TQS and you start to make your list of what needs to be done, you will probably be overwhelmed by all the things that end up on the list.

Other people will feel the same way, too.

Above all you need to help every one else to avoid that feeling of being overwhelmed, because you want the other members of the team to take action. People who are overwhelmed by a task are unlikely to take action, so it’s in your own interests to help them to keep control of their involvement with the TQS development work.

Therefore, you need a timetable of tasks, and agreement within the team, about what will be done when.

Make sure the list of activities is realistic. It’s very easy to set up a timetable that is just too demanding. Once your team members fall behind, they will become demoralised and give up. They’ll stop attending team meetings and just quietly drop out of things.

Use your TQS team meetings to check progress and to find ways of helping the TQS team to meet deadlines and complete tasks on time.

Give feedback on progress

When people are working on something new they need to know how they’re doing. When people are being asked to take on extra roles and extra tasks they need to know that they are making progress with the TQS and that their efforts are appreciated.

Make sure you monitor what is happening and take steps to help people to avoid mistakes. This means that when you give feedback on progress, your comments will be positive. You will be able to reinforce success.

Every one likes to be associated with success, so this will help your organisation to make the progress you know is needed.

Keeping a team together, even a motivated and committed team, takes time and effort. Your progress towards TQS certification will be faster and smoother if you think about how the TQS journey should be managed as well as about how to achieve the TQS itself.

See also:

Three Questions – Karen Kimberley
Preparing the senior team

Who should be on your TQS team?

2009-09-25T14:24:00.006+01:00

There’s a simple answer to this question.

It depends.

It depends on where you are in your TQS development journey. It depends on how large your organisation is. It depends on how you are approaching the way you use the TQS. It depends on how quickly you aim to gain the TQS.

You might need more than one team, or you might need to change your team during the life of your TQS project.

However, you will need the following at some point in the development process.

The big guns

You will need senior management support for your work with the TQS. Some of the changes that you are likely to need to make must be made at the highest level, so you need backing and support at that level.

This might mean that your most senior person is on your team. It might mean that a member of the SMT is on your team.

The beavers

You will need people who will just keep on working on the TQS. They will be building up people’s understanding of what you are doing. They will be keeping their teams and their colleagues moving in the right direction. They will be modifying their practice to ensure you meet the requirements of the standard. They might be rewriting your processes. They might be reworking your employer journey.

They might not have a high profile, but their work will make all the difference to your success.

The promoters

Some people are good at helping other people to understand what your organisation is trying to do. These people are your promoters.

Your promoters might be working with people within your organisation. They might be working with your employers. They might be working with your stakeholders, including the relevant Sector Skills Councils.

Whoever they are working with they keep on explaining why it’s important to gain the TQS, what your organisation will gain from being certificated, how your reputation will be built as a result of certification and how you will be even more responsive to the needs of employers as a result of your success.

You need a number of promoters on your team.

The application writing team

The application writing team is an important team. It is this team that makes or breaks your application.

There are four principal roles in this team: the principal writer, the principal reviewer, the principal evidence gatherer and the project manager.

You need a minimum of two people in your application writing team. This team needs time and space to allow it to succeed.

I’ve written before about the application writing team. There is a link to that post below.

The whole organisation team

Sooner or later you need to ensure that you take every one with you, so that you can be confident that every one endorses your work with employers and with the TQS.

So now’s the time to think about who is on your team and if you need to shake it up.

See also:

Preparing the senior team
What, no team? – big mistake number three

Preparing the Senior Team

2009-09-17T15:40:00.010+01:00

Senior staff in your organisation are likely to be involved in the TQS verification visit. You will need to ensure they understand their role in the process leading towards TQS certification.

Here are five actions to take sooner rather than later.

Explain the differences . . .

TQS assessment is different. Let senior people know this. Explain that other assessments senior people may have taken part in are rather different.

Use briefings, newsletters and one-to-one meetings to help you to get your message across.

Produce clear messages and repeat them often

It’s not enough to produce your wonderful guide to the TQS. Make the messages more personal.

“Everything you need to know about . . .” is a possible heading for your guide.
“Three things you need to remember about ….” could also help you.

However, reiterating your messages often is even more important.

Don’t let people forget their role in the TQS assessment and verification process.

Go through the application with senior managers

Make sure senior managers understand that it is your application that is assessed. Then make sure they are aware of what has been said in the application about aspects of your work for which they are responsible.

Think about who you would speak to in order to verify practice with the different parts of the TQS. Then discuss the specifics of the application with those people.

Use the magic words often

In the TQS world the words consistency and standardisation have magical qualities. So much of the TQS is about proving you have systems and processes in place and operational. Talk to the relevant senior managers about some of the issues about standards and systems they need to be aware of.

Ask managers the: “How do you know …” questions.

How do you know that every employer who receives a visit from the college has an organisational needs analysis?
How do you know that employers really do value programme x or y?
How do you know that employers are gaining more from our programmes now than they did three years ago?

Spend time explaining that the TQS is about more than what you achieve. It’s about the systems and processes you have in place to help you to deliver what you promise to employers consistently.

Preparing your senior team for the TQS assessment and verification process will be a lot simpler, if you follow this advice.

See also:

What ... no team ...
TQS assessment is different
Build a good TQS portfolio . . .

TQS assessment is different

2009-09-10T15:30:00.009+01:00

When I deliver sessions of TQS assessment I show a slide about the different stages in the assessment process. People listen and nod, but in many cases, they don’t really think too much about what I am saying.

Most people in provider organisations know what to expect in assessments. They know what inspections are like. They know what is coming.

Or do they?

Well, in many cases, they don’t.

Remote assessment

Lots of people still think that the assessment takes place on-site. They think TQS assessment is like Investors in People, or Matrix or OFSTED. It still comes as a shock when they realise that the assessment is completed prior to the on-site visit.

That’s one big difference between TQS assessment and other assessments.

Teaching and learning – who cares?

Another big difference is that the assessors aren’t that interested in the teaching and learning process. All of us who come from the teaching and learning world are drawn back to teaching and learning. We understand the language. We understand the objectives. We understand the issues.

The majority of TQS assessors don’t have that background. They are not steeped in the teaching and learning process. They don’t know the sort of things those of us who have taught for many years take for granted about teaching and learning. They don’t want to read about teaching and learning in TQS applications.

Thus, if you’ve been tempted to cut and paste information from documents you have produced for other audiences and to place it in your TQS application, there can only be one piece of advice. Don’t.

Write about your business

When you write your TQS application, you’re writing about your business. You’re writing about how you help employers either individually or in particular sectors.

Other assessments do not really have this sort of emphasis.

I try to make these points in that slide I mentioned earlier. I reinforce the slide with two questions about how to influence the on-site visit, which is about verification.

How are you going to drive the assessment in a particular direction?
How are you going to make sure the assessor has the right information?

The answer, of course, is: “Write what’s needed in the application.”

If that doesn’t get the message across, I know that, when I get the application to review, I’m going to be making quite a few suggestions for changes.

See also:

Never mind about the application
Underestimating the job – big mistake number two
Writing for the wrong audience - big mistake number four

An Assessor’s View on the TQS

2009-09-02T10:44:00.006+01:00

Most of the readers of this blog are thinking about TQS assessment when they apply the advice they find here. Therefore, the opportunity to receive guidance from a TQS assessor will always be welcome.

During August I spoke to Peter Hillman, a licensed assessor with Investors in Excellence.

We discussed assessment and captured below are some of his personal insights into the assessment process together with lots of useful guidance to every one working with the Training Quality Standard.

What do you think is the main value of TQS assessment to providers?
I think there are several aspects of the assessment which really add value to providers.

The assessment helps a provider to focus on the employer and the benefits that employer gains as a result of working with that provider.

The assessment offers an independent objective review of how the provider works with employers, - plus feedback. The feedback is from the perspective of how employers’ business needs are identified and met, rather than from the educational experience of the learner; this is likely to involve assessing how organisation-wide processes and performance are measured and managed. That’s what makes the TQS different from many of the other assessments with which providers may be familiar.

The assessment also makes providers look at the data they hold about employers. Their learner data is usually a lot more accurate than their employer data! There are understandable reasons for this, and TQS helps to show providers that by applying the same rigorous processes as for learner data, they can do just as much with their employer data.

How is assessing against the TQS different from assessing with reference to other standards?
The TQS assessment is application based.

It’s the application that is assessed and if some of the good practices that the provider has in place are not in the application they will not be included in the assessment. This makes the application critical to the assessment process and it needs to be a comprehensive “story” of how Employer Responsiveness is managed from Strategy through Application to Demonstration of Performance through a range of Results.

If it is not in the application it does not get assessed.

The aim of the verification visit is for the assessment team to resolve any questions they may have about the information in the application – it is not an opportunity for the provider to present the “ (new) evidence they did not include in the application”. Many providers have not yet caught up with this or the implications and how this makes the TQS different to other assessments and inspections!

It is also worth remembering that essentially the only information the assessors have about the applicant is what is in the application (and what may be on their website). Therefore it is important not to make assumptions about assessors' understanding of “how you do things”. Once providers realise the importance of the application it should raise questions with them about who should write it and who the audience is. It needs to be someone who knows the organisation, not just “someone who has the time”. The person who writes the application needs to be able to write well in order to present clearly how the organisation delivers employer responsiveness. The writer’s job is to explain how the provider does things and how they know they are happening and working.

This means that the writer must be able to write concisely and clearly.

The application itself needs to show how the provider is employer responsive. The strategy for working with employers should describe the “business” that you are in and why, together with a range of SMART objectives to support this. This provides the context for the assessment and for the application.

What are the various stages of your work as an assessor?
The assessment team has a lot to do even before seeing the application. Once Registration is complete and an “assessment agreement” finalised it’s usual for the lead assessor to call the provider and introduce himself or herself and to set up the actual dates (within the agreed window) for the verification visit as quickly as possible. It’s important to make sure, as soon as possible, that the key people will be around when the visit takes place.

Prior to the verification visit the assessors will review the application. They will do this independently including identifying Strengths, Areas for Improvement, issues to be discussed during the verification visit and then score the application. They would then share their views and arrive at a consensus on the information including the key issues to be addressed during the verification visit. When they’ve finished this part of the process, the desktop review will go to the certification body.

The preparations for the verification visit come next. The lead assessor produces a visit plan including people they wish to talk to and documents they want to see. The assessors may, for example, want to see some documents such as Employer Responsiveness Strategy, Employer Surveys, completed ONAs and reviews of outcomes. It’s fine, if they’re stored electronically. There’s no need to create copies just for the assessor.

This verification visit plan is shared with the applicant prior to the visit.

When the assessors visit, they will spend their time addressing the issues that emerged when they did the desktop review. Following this they review their findings - Strengths, Areas for Improvement - and arrive at a consensus of the evidence and hence the score - whether or not to change the scores in the desktop review. Remember the assessors will not provide you with any feedback at the end of the verification visit – no matter how many times you ask!

After the visit the lead assessor will produce the feedback report and agree this with the other assessor.

Where validation happens it is managed by the certification body and the assessors are not involved.

Following the decision on the outcome of the assessment process the lead assessor meets with the provider to discuss the feedback report which will have been sent to the provider about a week before the feedback meeting

What is enjoyable about being a TQS assessor?
You get to meet a range of people in different types of organisations – large and small, FE Colleges and Independent Training Providers. – It’s challenging, rewarding and you have many opportunities to see examples of good practice in action

You put yourself in the employer’s shoes at some points in the process and in the applicant’s shoes at other points. You check out the system the provider uses for managing work with employers. You look to see if it’s suited to its purpose.

You also have the opportunity to tell providers what they’re good at. That’s very enjoyable

What is challenging about being a TQS assessor?
The biggest challenge is avoiding giving advice to providers.

You have to remain objective, and you are not there to tell people what they should be doing. They ask. Of course, they ask for advice, but you can’t step over that boundary. You’re there as an assessor and not as an adviser. You have to be very clear about your role and about the boundaries to your role.

Also, TQS is a framework and you have to constantly be aware of what is “appropriate” for the size and complexity of the organisation you are assessing

. . . And a final thought . . .

Whether or not you apply for certification, I believe the TQS provides a world class framework for developing an effective employer responsive business and is an excellent development tool – “it is a route map for the journey to a successful future”.

Peter Hillman has been a TQS assessor for over two years and has conducted over 50 assessments including employer organisations involved in TQS for Employers.

If you have any questions you would like to ask Peter, please post them as a comment. Peter will reply via the comments, too.

A Deadline is Looming

2009-08-26T15:07:00.009+01:00

As the start of the autumn term approaches the final opportunity to gain conditional TQS certification also approaches.

The current guidance is that conditional certification will end in December 2009. If, by the end of the year, you have not registered your organisation to be assessed, you won’t be able to gain conditional certification. You’ll have to gain full TQS certification if you want to be certificated.

Before the term even begins this deadline means that managers in some provider organisations are panicking.

Try to avoid this. Step back. Make a judgement about your current readiness to gain the TQS, and the likelihood of your needing to rely on gaining conditional certification.

Consider your answers to the following.

Do you have a customer/employer journey?
Have you set down what happens to employers from the time when they first make contact with you to the time when you can be reasonably confident that they have a long-term relationship with you?

Have you thought about:

first contact with your organisation
the matching and contracting process
the period when an employer is doing business with you
what happens at the end of a piece of work
how you build on-going relationships with individual employers?

Do you have systems and processes in place to help you to manage the customer/employer journey?
Have you flow-charted what happens, or documented it in some way that allows you to communicate your approach to your staff?

Are you operating a system of organisational needs analysis that leads to the production of business-focused proposals?
Central to the way in which you manage your work with employers is the way you set up the relationship. Can you demonstrate you do think about helping the employer’s organisation as well as thinking about how you help learners?

Are you sure your training interventions really do help employers? Can you demonstrate that you do check, after a training intervention, just how well you have supported the employer?

Are you building relationships with employers for the future?
Have you a system for managing the on-going relationship with employers and building that relationship over time?
Are you measuring your successes with employers?
Are you thinking about the impact of what you do to support employers?

What are you doing about consistency and standardisation issues?
Whatever systems and processes you set up, are you making sure they are adhered to? Are you making sure that the employer always gets at least a defined minimum level of service and, yes, do you have service standards against which you measure your performance?

Make an assessment of your current situation. How much more do you need to do before you will be ready to seek certification?

If you still have a long way to go, work out how long it will be before you believe you are ready to be certificated. Make a judgement. Is the December 2009 deadline relevant to your situation?

Carry on with your development work and check your progress at the end of October.

Then think about how much more activity you will be able to undertake in the six weeks between the beginning of November and the middle of December.

This analysis will help you to be clear of whether the ending of conditional certification is something that affects you, or whether this is a deadline you can afford to ignore.

Employer Engagement Basics - the Summary

2009-08-20T11:47:00.013+01:00

Over the past few weeks I've been writing about employer engagement basics.

This series of posts offers a good starting point if you want to make sure you set up the right systems and pay attention to the right things. The series will also help you if you want to check that you are doing the right things.

The series started by covering the key elements of:

the employer engagement strategy

Next there was some guidance on:

organisational needs analyses

including a post on why you need an organisational needs analysis.

I wrote about LMI in a post entitled: What's all this about LMI?

I also answered the question: how much LMI do we need?

I wrote about measuring the impact of training and also about continuous improvement.

Use the series as a source of basic guidance and as a means of benchmarking your progress with your work with employers to date.

Attract more business - the blog

2009-08-17T16:33:00.004+01:00

I've added a new blog to my list of blogs.

It's called: Attract more business. You can access it by clicking on the blog name or via the blog roll on the right hand side of the page.

This blog has a broader focus than Achieving the TQS. It looks at how to do a lot more business with employers.

I've noted the key themes that the blog will be covering in a post today.

Continuous improvement

2009-08-11T09:32:00.004+01:00

Continuous improvement comes up sooner or later in every development programme.

If you’ve been following the series of posts on employer engagement basics, you will have found quite a few areas where you can improve what you currently do to support employers.

In the context of continuous improvement it’s important to record the detail of your systems and processes for supporting employers. You also need to show how you change your processes for managing your work with employers. When you make these changes you are creating a case study of how you manage the continuous improvement process.

Don’t worry, then, that you have four versions of your ONA and three versions of the approach you use to measuring the impact of your interventions in employer organisations. You’re demonstrating incremental development via each iteration. You’re showing how you are adapting your work to be more employer-responsive. You’re showing you want to serve your market more effectively.

If you’re looking to measure your improvement as well as describing it in narrative terms, think about the performance measures you have identified for your organisation. Remember these are not your targets. They are the measures you are using, your own key performance indicators (KPI). They could relate to employer satisfaction. They could relate to productivity issues and how you are helping employers to improve their ability to do what they do.

Do the trends you have noted show an improvement? Are you able to demonstrate that more employers believe you are helping them to improve their business, for example?

If they do, and if you have the numerical information to prove it, you are on your way to demonstrating continuous improvement.

Measuring Impact

2009-08-03T16:39:00.003+01:00

It’s all very well to talk about measuring the impact of your work with employers, but what, exactly, do you need to measure?

The answer is all to do with what you are trying to achieve for the employer, rather than for learners.

How have the training interventions you have delivered, or are delivering, helped the employer’s organisation?

What difference is your training making to the organisation’s success?

You must work out what you are trying to achieve before you begin working with the employer.

After you have completed your interventions you must go back and measure how well you did.

When you think about measurement, what sort of things should you be measuring?

The easiest way to get started is to think about improvements to employee productivity.

What can employees do now that they couldn’t do before the training?

What can employees do faster and making fewer mistakes than previously?

What improvements in employees’ performance can you see in the areas which were covered by the training you delivered?

Talk to the employer about these subjects. The chances are you will find that this sort of thinking leads on to discussions about other improvements.

Does the employer think that employees are performing more effectively now they have completed their training?

Is there a sense of improved morale and motivation in the employer’s organisation?

Can every one see what difference your interventions have made?

If they can you have begun to measure impact.

About ONAs

2009-07-24T12:33:00.004+01:00

An organisational needs analysis (ONA) is an essential element of your employer engagement strategy.

You can’t do business without one . . . but what goes into it?

I’ve seen ONAs that are long, and I mean long. I suspect you have, too.

I’ve seen ONAs that have ensured that employers never get in touch with a training provider again. Yes, they won’t even speak to the provider on the telephone.

I’ve worked with lots of employers who see ONAs as bureaucratic form-filling activities.

You need to make sure your ONA is different. You need to make sure your ONA adds value to the employer.

Remember that the primary purpose of an ONA is to support the employer, not to give you lots of information to put into your database.

Therefore, you need to think about the answer to a simple question.

What do we need to know about an employer to enable us to tailor a support package which right for the people in his or her organisation?

That’s it. Simple.

In reality, providers get carried away and try to find out a great deal more. They take up lots of an employer’s time. At the end of the process the employer feels that he or she has lost an afternoon or a morning and gained nothing.

To avoid falling into that trap decide that whatever information you are collecting, it must only take you an hour at most to collect it.

Think also about ways in which you can make that meeting or discussion something that the employer will think is valuable. What useful information can you make sure you impart? What does the employer want to know more about? – No, this doesn’t refer to your offer. What is the employer struggling with, right now – and how can you help – without selling your offer?

Of course, you need to ensure you capture the usual information about names, addresses, contact details, web addresses and so on. There are other things, too, that you really need to know about.

These include:

how the organisation heard about you, the provider – because this will help to shape the discussion

the employer’s key challenges – because you don’t know how you can help until you know what is keeping the employer awake at night

how the employer is addressing those key challenges at the moment - because that will give you a hint as to where the gaps in the strategy are at the moment

what the employer aspires to achieve in the next year – because everything you eventually offer must support the employer’s own plans

how the employer currently develops his or her staff – because that will help you to be clear about what has already been done and what sort of development the organisation favours.

There are quite a few more things, but all of the information is gathered as part of a discussion. It doesn’t result from working through a checklist.

You can add value in an ONA discussion by actually giving the employer the chance to talk about these things. You can add value by asking questions that will help the employer to clarify and advance the thinking that has gone into current achievements.

Therefore, you need to spend some time working on your ONA. It can be a great selling aide and a reputation-building activity – if you plan it correctly.

Why do we need an ONA?

2009-07-17T17:22:00.003+01:00

An organisational needs analysis (ONA) is an essential element of your employer engagement strategy.

You can’t do business without one.

You use your ONA to help you to find out what an employer’s key issues are.

An ONA is not concerned with training and what training an employer needs. It’s all about working out what is keeping an employer awake at night and where he or she feels the pain, right now.

An ONA deals with an employer’s business issues.

Whether you are dealing with public sector employers or with private sector employers, you need to know about the principal concerns of the organisations you are hoping to work with.

If you look at Part A of the TQS, you will see in A2.2 a requirement to find out about and to make sure you understand employers’ needs. The standard talks about “underlying business needs”.

This knowledge and understanding is important in the context of the Training Quality Standard, but it matters in the context of your business, too.

When you sell training commercially, you will need to link what you are offering to these underlying business needs. If you are going to stand a good chance of selling your product or service, you need to do this.

Therefore, today you need an ONA to help you to do business with employers.

Next time . . . what an ONA covers.

How much LMI do we need?

2009-07-13T15:50:00.005+01:00

There’s an easy answer to this question . . .

. . . Less than you think.

You need information that you are going to use to shape your provision.

You don’t need great tomes of data that you will never use.

Why do we gather LMI anyway?
The main reason any business gathers and then uses LMI is to help it to spot business opportunities. That’s why you want to know about the size of markets and about trends in markets.

You use the information you gather to help you to decide where you are likely to be able to build your business.

You use it to help you to be clear about where you should be investing and growing your business.

LMI will help you to be more demand-led if you use your information in the right way.

What LMI do we really need?
You need to know about national developments – employment/unemployment rates - that sort of thing. You need to know what is happening in the industries and sectors that you are targeting.

You need to know if there is anything unusual about the part of the country in which you live. Is your area unusual in some way?

You also need LMI to help you to keep up to date with what is happening in your marketplace locally. This is an aspect of LMI that lots of providers ignore. Local information is best gathered by your own organisation. You can collect it with minimal effort. It's valuable because it helps you to shape what you do.

Every time you think about collecting and using LMI your first question should be: how are we going to use this?

If you don’t know the answer, ask another question. Do we really need to know about this?

What's all this about LMI?

2009-07-02T12:47:00.004+01:00

Every one seems to want to know more about LMI and to gather more LMI. Therefore, I'll cover some of the basic LMI issues in the next post.

There is, however, a good question to start with.

What does LMI stand for?

Is it labour market intelligence?
Is it labour market information?
Does it matter?

I tend to think of LMI as being about intelligence.

There is a hierarchy of importance in this field

Data is the raw material of your investigation. The individual evaluation forms that you collect in at the end of a training programme contain data.

Information is created when you analyse that data

Your analyses are interesting, but you create intelligence when you use the information to help you to decide what to do next. You create intelligence when you do more than just analyse data.

You analyse the forms that you collected at the end of that training programme. In doing that you have created management information.

You then decide what actions your analysis suggests. It is that activity that leads to the creation of intelligence.

Thus, information has less value than intelligence. It’s an intermediate output.

Unfortunately there is a lot of labour market information around and not enough labour market intelligence.

Don’t be satisfied with Labour market information. Insist of being presented with labour market intelligence.

Get a grip!

2009-06-29T12:37:00.007+01:00

This could be the sub-title to most of the presentations that I make to colleges and learning providers about the TQS.

People who are just starting out on the TQS journey often don’t know where to start with employer engagement.

They don’t know which are the activities they need to do quickly.

Defining how you work with employers early in your TQS development process is essential if you are going to progress rapidly. It will also add value to your employer engagement activities.

One of the employer engagement basics, then, is to think about how you manage the relationship with individual employers.

To help to be clear about how you work with employers consider the stages of the employer's journey with you. Think about:

The time before employers do business with you – when they are making enquiries and you are dealing with them
When they are considering working with you – that is when you are creating an offer and a way of working with them
When they are working with you – when the programme they have “purchased” is progressing
When the first piece of work comes to an end – when you work out with each employer just how well you have supported him or her (not how well you have supported the learners)
When you come to build the relationship further – when you think about how you can turn a single piece of business into a long-term relationship.

You need to have systems and processes in place for managing each stage of the employer’s journey.

You also need to make sure those systems and processes are implemented consistently across your organisation. (If you don’t work in a consistent manner you will have problems when you come to think about assessment.)

All of this could sound like a big piece of work.

It is, but it’s a relatively simple and straightforward piece of work, if you do it sooner rather than later.

Your Organisational Needs Analysis

2009-06-17T18:07:00.006+01:00

At the heart of your employer engagement strategy is your approach to finding out exactly what makes employer organisations tick.

You want to know what their issues are.
You want to know what keeps people in employer organisations awake at night.
You want to know the problems they are wrestling with.

You want to know this because until you know these things, you cannot possibly know what training to offer employers.

Your ONA is at the heart of your commitment to being demand-led.

Therefore, do you have one?
Do you use it?
Do you aggregate the outputs you receive from individual employers to help you to obtain a better view of your marketplace?

If you are just starting to think about ONAs, produce something very simple and straightforward.

Think of ways in which you can add value to the employer via your ONA.

Remember employers are giving you their valuable time. What will the employer get out of the ONA, on the day, immediately?

Make a list of benefits.

Check that employers think these are benefits, too.

Your ONA is vital to your success with employers. It must be perceived as being valuable by employers, so work on this building block of employer engagement as soon as is practicable.

Even in you already have an ONA, review it and check that it is fit for purpose.

Check also that employers think your ONA is fit for putpose.

The Employer Engagement Strategy

2009-06-10T15:35:00.002+01:00

Do you have an employer engagement strategy?

When I visit provider organisations the employer engagement strategy I am presented with is often the business plan.

It’s great to have a plan, but your employer engagement strategy needs both an internal face and an external face.

In simple terms, if your business plan is the internal face of your employer engagement strategy, the external face is your rationale for working with employers.

The external face is your series of statements which set out what you aim to do support employers. It’s also the set of statements you make about how you do this.

It’s that simple.

These statements need to be communicated to your staff and repeated to your employers and your stakeholders.

You will know your employer engagement strategy has been understood when your employers start telling you what you aim to do to support them and they offer you the messages you have promoted to them.

What goes wrong?
Quite a few organisations don’t really know how they help employers, so they can’t create those public statements. They don’t have an external face to their employer engagement strategy.

Check your situation. Ask three of your staff now:

What do we do to help employers? . . . . . . . .

Employer Engagement Basics

2009-06-10T15:33:00.001+01:00

The next few posts are about employer engagement.

If you are new to the TQS, use them to help you to get started on your development journey.

If you are approaching assessment, use them to help you to check your progress and your readiness to be certificated.

News about resources

2009-06-04T16:45:00.005+01:00

There are some updates to our website that you may find interesting.

I have updated our Twenty Things To Do Before You Apply for Assessment Against The Training Quality Standard.

This report has become quite famous. I'm regularly asked about the "Twenty Things" document. Well, now there are twenty-five things to do before you make that application.

You might also be interested in another of our reports. This one is about using modern marketing techniques to sell training solutions to employers. It's called: A New Blueprint For Selling To Employers.

Both documents are pdfs and both can be downloaded now from the resources page on our website.

Good Questions (5) How often do we keep in touch with our employers?

2009-06-01T11:36:00.004+01:00

This is the last of the five good questions that I introduced in our April newsletter.

How often do you keep in touch with your employers is an interesting question.

Is there a hard-and-fast rule?
Is there a right answer?
Is there an answer that satisfies the TQS requirements?

The only answer is the one that is linked to employers’ requirements and expectations.

How often do your employers want you to be in touch?
Can your systems cope with employers who have different expectations?
Can your systems cope with employers who want ad hoc contact?
Can your systems cope with employers who want contact to be triggered by particular events and not by the calendar?

An interesting additional question is:

How do you know what employers want and expect?

Asking good questions is an excellent way of helping you to progress. Use these five as you work towards TQS certification.

Good Questions (4) - What did you gain as a result of working with us?

2009-05-25T14:36:00.003+01:00

I went out on some visits to employers last week. I was accompanying a Business Development Manager from a learning provider organisation.

Whilst we were at one employer organisation, he asked the question:

“What did gain from working with us?”

The answer he received was:

“We got some free training.”

I felt sorry for that manager, and wouldn’t have liked to have been in his shoes when he reported back to his senior team about his own organisation's readiness to go forward to TQS certification.

Yet, the exchange illustrates an important point.

You need to help the employer to be clear about what he or she is going to gain from working with you before you begin a programme. If you do that, the employer can be looking out for those benefits during the life of the training programme.

I was in a different employer organisation recently where the answer to the same question was:

“As a result of the SAFED training we have reduced our fuel consumption by 2%, so despite the fact that diesel prices are going up again, we are spending about the same on fuel as we were three months ago.”

How would you feel if your employer customers said this?

I know the account manager sitting next to me in that meeting was grinning from ear to ear for the rest of the day.

Remember then, that is you want your employers to see the benefits of working with you, you need to help them to know what they will get out of working with you before the training begins.

Employers won’t make statements like the one from the owner of the transport company above, unless you set them on the right track to begin with.

Good Questions (3)

2009-05-18T09:51:00.007+01:00

In our April Newsletter there were five good questions. Here is some more guidance about the third of them.

Did you produce a proposal for the employer that dealt with business benefits?

If you think you did, the question is: are you sure?

A lot of the proposals that I see are not really business-focused. They deal essentially with training and training issues. This causes problems when you come to think about the Training Quality Standard.

If you don’t have proposals which cover the right things, you will struggle to address the requirements of 2.4 in the TQS. If you struggle with 2.4, you will struggle with 4.1. You will almost certainly struggle with aspects of A5, too.

Your proposals to employers are the bedrock of your practice. They are essential elements of your work with employers.

Don’t spend too much time thinking about how nice they look, how prettily they are laid out and if they are all written down. Think carefully about how your interventions will help the employer’s business. That’s what is essential in a good proposal.

This is a simple requirement, but it causes lots of problems.

It also takes time to rectify.

If your proposals don’t deal with business benefits, then you can’t create an audit trail which shows that you have done what you set out to do. You can’t show that your employers are benefiting from working with you.

This is one of the main reasons why you need to chip away at your TQS work over time.

You need to embed systems and processes and implement them for long enough to show that they work.

Therefore, when you think about this question, also ask:

How long will it take us to ensure we do address business benefits in employer organisations?
How long after that will we need to wait in order to prove that we are adding value to our employers as well as to our learners?

Good Questions (2)

2009-05-14T13:04:00.002+01:00

The second good question in our April Newsletter is: Are your staff familiar with the SSC’s footprint?

Unpacking this one is helpful for anyone thinking about starting on a Part B application.

It’s truly amazing how often I see an application where the writer is unaware of what the relevant Sector Skills Council is trying to do to support its sector.

Given that Part B focuses on how the organisation works to support the development of the relevant sector, it’s impossible to write a good Part B application without knowing about what is happening in that sector.

A good starting point with all of this is to find out what the SSC is doing – what its footprint is. Then it’s worth finding out what the key trade organisations are looking to achieve. Next ask: who is lobbying government about what? That will help with the national perspective.

Then there are the regional, sub-regional and local perspectives on the industry. The person writing your application needs to know about these, too.

Once you are confident about where the sector is going, it’s possible to start to write about what you are doing to help the sector.

What do people write about instead?
Well, when they struggle, they write about how they work with their individual employers and about what they do in general terms. It’s sad, because so many providers do know their sectors well and senior staff in successful providers are often very active in their industries. They simply don’t write what will show their achievements off well.

More than once, a provider has admitted to running out of steam by the time they have reached Part B.

Sometimes, the person writing Part B hasn’t had any training on what the application process requires.
Sometimes the person writing Part B is doing so without having seen the Applicant Guide.

If you’re going to make a good showing with Part B, make sure you can answer this good question with confidence. That’s your starting point with your Part B work.

Good Questions (1)

2009-05-06T16:00:00.007+01:00

Good questions are good for your organisation. They can be challenging, but good questions will help you to focus on the right issues.

In the April edition of the Achieving the TQS Newsletter I set out five good questions that it would be beneficial for you to ask in your organisation as your work towards your TQS certification.

I said in the newseltter that I would look at each question in more detail in this blog. Therefore, the next few posts deal with those questions in turn.

When you look at each question, before you think about the answer, think about the value of asking the question. Then think about the answer.

This first question is one to ask of the employer.

What briefing did you receive about the work we are doing with you?

It’s far better to talk to people who have been briefed than simply to look to check if there is a system in place to ensure that briefings to take place.

Having a monitoring system is part of your management process.

Implementing a monitoring system is part of your management process.

Proving that the monitoring system works as specified is a valuable activity.

Talking to your employers about this not only allows you to check the efficacy of your system, it helps you to build your relationship with each employer.

People in colleges and provider organisations often say they need more reasons to get in touch with employers in order to build rapport and to understand employers better. Here is one question that can start a conversation and help you to do just that.

You also need to speak to the employer about the briefing that he or she has received, because it’s the employer’s judgement that counts. You may think your communications system works well. You can’t be sure of that, until it is endorsed by your employers.

The meaning of all communication is found in the message received, not in the message sent, so your employers’ perceptions really matter.

Some providers introduce convoluted checking systems to work out in they’re doing what they set out to do. They often forget that asking a simple question can make life a lot simpler and can be just as good - or better - than those checks at providing the information you need.

The answer to this question gives confirmation that an important part of your process for working with employers works. Therefore, remember to ask it.

Magic Words

2009-04-27T11:04:00.005+01:00

People who know me know I write professionally.

I write guides to the TQS. I write books. I write articles in various journals, some for the education world, some for other markets.

This means that I focus on words, and words are at the heart of everything I do, which is why our TQS critiquing services are so popular.

Over the next couple of weeks I'm going to be focusing on words in this blog, or rather I'm going to be focusing on questions.

Good questions are really important in the world of the TQS.

If you learn how to ask yourself the right questions, you can review your progress with the TQS very easily.

If you learn how to ask yourself the right questions, you can gain an honest and accurate impression of how you far you have progressed with your TQS journey.

This new series starts next week.

Countdown to the second assessment visit

2009-04-20T19:51:00.005+01:00

The TQS launch was in May last year. Therefore, quite a few organisations that received conditional certification will be coming up for a second visit from the assessors in the new few months.

Preparing for that visit starts a long time before the visit is due.

If you’re thinking about your second visit, use the checklist below to guide you. If you’re on the road to your first visit, consider how useful these timescales could be to you.

Three months before the second visit – look closely at your assessment feedback report. Decide how many of the issues highlighted in that report you have addressed. Take action to work on anything that has been neglected. Check your progress with all the other issues.

Take action where necessary.

Two months before the second visit – start thinking seriously about the case you want to make to the assessors. Appoint a team to lead your preparations.

Think about the written submission and the visit.

Six weeks before the second visit – review all your preparations. Review documents. Review your policies. Review your submission. Update as necessary.

Four weeks before the second visit – think about the fine details. Who is responsible for what?

Two weeks before the second visit – make sure all the key players, and especially senior managers, know exactly what impact your training solutions have on employers.

One week before the second visit – brief every one about what is happening. Then slow down.

Think laterally and prepare to meet your visitors.

TQS Myths (4) “Build a good TQS portfolio and you’re home and dry.”

2009-04-03T15:20:00.001+01:00

I met someone in a provider organisation last week who was wheeling a supermarket trolley filled with lever arch files around.

As I stepped out of the way to let the trolley pass, my contact pointed to the documents in the trolley and whispered to me:

“That’s our TQS portfolio.”

As my visit progressed I learned that this organisation was putting most of its TQS efforts into building the portfolio so that when the assessors arrived they would have everything that wanted.

“Build a good TQS portfolio and you’re home and dry. That’s what the assessors really want,” was what a manager in the organisation said to me.

My question was: “How do you know the assessors will ever arrive?”

I went on to explain that whilst it’s great to have supporting evidence available, and set out in a way that makes it accessible, evidence gathering is not the only activity that is needed.

Something comes before building the portfolio.

It’s making sure the application is sound.

Without a sound application the certification body might decide not to proceed to the on-site verification visit.

I checked with that same organisation how much time people are spending on the portfolio and how much time people are spending on writing the TQS application. They seemed to think they were spending about five times as much time on gathering evidence as they were on writing the application.

Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily recommend reversing the ratios, there is probably a need to spend more time on the application.

So, as managers in provider organisations start to think about a well-earned rest, take a rest from the shopping trolley approach to the TQS, too.

Clear your minds and come back from the Easter break ready to write a succinct, relevant and informative TQS application as your first priority, and think about building your organisation’s “portfolio” second.

There’s magic in the air, or is there?

2009-03-25T12:19:00.009Z

The ‘phone has been ringing quite insistently over the last couple of weeks, and the calls have been primarily from organisations which gained conditional TQS certification last year. They are now about to receive a follow-up visit from the assessors, and they’re worried.

Conversations have begun with such statements as:

“We had our TQS action plan quite a while ago. We read through it and we meant to ….”

or

“We haven’t done much about A5, measuring impact, that sort of thing but we know we need to.”

The conversations then progresses to:

“So, do you think you can help us?”

Well, the answer is “yes”, but not necessarily in time for the assessors’ next visit.

What these callers are really asking me about is the state of my magic wand.

As you can see from the picture, it’s bent. In fact, it’s broken.

I can’t conjure up the sort of information that people are asking me to produce. I can’t manufacture data about the impact of your organisation’s work with employers.

The assessors want to see evidence about performance and outcomes. They want to see how you are doing with reference to the requirements of your own strategy.

They are looking for trends, and where appropriate, improvements in your performance over time.

This means you need to be able to demonstrate you have been doing the things you know you should be doing for some time.

Therefore, whether you are about to receive your second assessment visit, or if you are looking forward to your first assessment, remember you can’t just put lots of effort into the TQS for a short period of time, and then move on to the next trophy. You need to sustain your efforts and build your track record in anticipation of your assessment.

For the moment, focus on getting the right systems and processes in place and start tracking what you do to support employers and what you achieve with them.

Then, when the assessment approaches, you will have the necessary data and information, and you won’t need my magic wand.

Goodbye to the early adopters

2009-03-17T17:48:00.005Z

Watch out in the near future for the one hundredth TQS certification.

Looking at the list of certificated organisations suggests that someone will become the one hundredth successful organisation fairly soon. (If you count employer organisations as well, we might already have the one hundredth achievement.)

What a milepost like this will indicate is that the TQS is well and truly in the mainstream of activities.

The organisations that like to be the first to achieve an award, whenever a new one is first promoted, have got their badges. The organisations which were just about ready to be certificated, when the TQS was launched, have gained their certification.

The first in the region, the first in the sector, the first to gain full certification in …. have all achieved their successes.

The photographs with happy people holding their certificates and plaques are on the websites and life is moving on.

This all means that the organisations coming through now are often taking a bit longer to get ready for certification. They probably have had further to travel in terms of their development than the trail blazers. They have more things to do, more systems to put in place, more processes to define, implement and refine than some of the organisations that achieved certification early in the life of the standard.

Today, many organisations looking for TQS certification really do need a structure for their activities and for their TQS development journey, if they are going to gain the prize of certification.

So, from now on, the way forward for these organisations is a systematic approach to gaining certification. The best way to do this is to produce a week-by-week development plan and a checklist of systems and processes that need to be in place and operational before the application is sent off.

Now that the period of innovation and novelty has passed, as far as the TQS is concerned, it’s time for sensible development, down-to-earth planning and plenty of hard work.

Goodbye to the early adopters, indeed!

TQS Myths (3) – You can forget about the TQS for a while, once you have conditional certification.

2009-03-13T15:04:00.009Z

Well, you can, but you wouldn’t be advised to let the TQS slip out of sight.

If you’ve struggled with A5 or B3, there’s a good chance it’s because you haven’t got a history of measuring the things the TQS wants to see you measuring. That means you need to start thinking about the systems and processes you intend to use to do that measurement as soon as the assessors leave.

You might be able to demonstrate all sorts of interesting trends when it comes to how you support your learners, but with employers it’s a different matter.

Remember that:

the longer you delay, the more difficult the task.
the longer you delay, the more difficult the next assessment visit.

It’s worth remembering that any activity that relies on input from people outside your organisation will take time to organise, so the message must be: start working with employers as soon after the assessment as its practicable, and find ways of demonstrating how you add value to them.

As the weeks and the months go by make sure you think about:

how you track the impact of your work with employers
how you ensure that you know if employers value what you do with them and for them
how you ensure you know if you are helping your employers to be more successful (however they, and you, choose to define this).

As some providers are finding, time really does fly.
As some providers are finding, it is almost time to start panicking.

The assessors are looking to come back to check up on progress . . . and not a lot has happened.

Three Questions – The Experience of Assessment

2009-03-05T16:43:00.006Z

Wakefield College has recently gained TQS certification for Part A and for Part B (Logistics).

Services to Business, the business arm of Wakefield, led the college towards its TQS success and managed the college’s TQS development journey.

Every one at Wakefield College is absolutely delighted with the achievement.

As the college’s literature says: “We are proud of being acknowledged as one of the top training providers in the UK, having received the Training Quality Standard.”

I spoke to Janet Hilton, Services to Business Market Development Manager at Wakefield College recently, about the college’s experience of assessment. Janet offered lots of good advice and useful insights into the TQS assessment process.

How long did it take you to produce your application?
“From start to finish it took us about six months.

We had the systems there but not in the way the submission required. This gave us the opportunity to review how we presented our statistics to make them more sector specific. We have now altered our processes not only with Logistics but we have extended this to other areas as well.

We involved the whole college and that takes time. The exec. team, the QA team, our own staff within Services to Business including sub-contractors and the apprenticeship team – they were all involved.

We didn’t leave it at that. We involved the stakeholders, too – employers, Skills for Logistics, schools, European connection to name but a few.

As a result every one had ownership of our submission.

We found that Part A and Part B are different. Writing the two parts was different. With Part A we concentrated on the whole college. Part B was a lot more specialised.

We were very confident as we were writing because we know we are an excellent training provider and everything we said we could prove. We, however, knew we had to find the right way to tell the assessors about what we do.”

What was the verification visit like?
“Thorough.

It was rigorous. It was probing. The assessors knew what they were looking for.

They were friendly and pleasant, but they were clear about what they wanted.

The assessment process was a challenge yet the experience was very positive. We pulled everything together to make sure we were ready – and we were. They wanted to speak to different people – our executive team, human resources, the CPD unit, sub-contractors and staff – we made sure everyone was available.

We had prepared lots of examples of evidence from across the whole college ready for the visit. We could pull them out easily. That meant we were well prepared for the visit.”

What hints and tips would you like to offer to organisations preparing for assessment?
“Make sure that whatever you write about in your application you are able to evidence.

Sell yourself, and your organisation, but make sure you can evidence what you say. That’s really important. Don’t take anything you do as obvious – tell them about it.

Remember also that it’s your story and nobody else’s. Be clear about that.

Have a team of people make an input to the application. Staff, stakeholders, every one. Get their input. Get them to contribute. Their inputs are so valuable. Keep going back through your application and be willing to alter what you have put to make it flow more easily, Don’t just do this at the end. Brianstorm ideas as people from different areas will look at the submission wearing a different hat from yourself – don’t miss the opportunity to listen, and include what they have to say.

We kept asking ourselves if we were selling what we do strongly enough. We kept asking if we had enough statistics to support what we were saying and, with Part B, if we were meeting the requirements of Skills for Logistics.

We checked amongst ourselves. We checked with other people, too, and asked them to read what we were writing, because it’s very useful to have lots of people look at the application.

In the end the application was a credit to all our staff.”

Find out more about Wakefield College’s work with employers by visiting their website.

TQS Myths (2) Don't spend much time on A0.

2009-02-27T16:05:00.012Z

Ignoring or minimising the value of A0 is something that still happens quite a lot in provider organisations.

In some cases the reasoning is: there are no points for A0 so it can't be very important.

However, most people who have worked with the TQS for even a little while know that if you don't write the various parts of A0 effectively, you will have trouble writing A5.

Of course, if you don't have a strategy for working with employers then you will also have trouble stating the approaches you use to help you fulfil your strategy. This means you will struggle with A2, A3 and A4, too.

Anyone who is serious about gaining TQS certification needs to be clear that A0 is the bedrock of the application. Without sound information in A0 you will struggle with the rest of the application.

Yet, misunderstandings concerning the importance of A0 are not the only reasons why A0 is often neglected.

There is another reason why people choose not to spend much time on A0.

This is that they don't know what to write.

On several occasions when I have been working with providers on their applications they have said that they have left A0 because it is too difficult. They have explained that they didn't know what to write so they decided to leave A0 until the end.

This demonstrates a problem with understanding of the whole standard.

In fact, A0 - and B0 for that matter - are crucial to the application and to success in the assessment. These are the areas to spend time getting right.

So, the best advice is to address A0 fully and make sure you have both understood and addressed the requirements before you move on to the rest of the standard.

Ignoring A0 could make your whole application weaker.

Don't make this mistake.

Feature Article – What’s the real difference between Part A and Part B of the Training Quality Standard?

2009-02-19T15:41:00.010Z

Reproduced below is the feature article from our January 2009: Achieving the TQS Newsletter. The article is about the different parts of the TQS.

I see a lot of applications. In quite a number of cases Part A and Part B have been written by different people without reference to each other.

Since the two parts of the application deal with different perspectives, that isn’t necessarily an issue, but sometimes the Part A and the Part B documents are contradictory. Sometimes they deal with the same material. In some cases individual Part Bs, written by the same organisation, say quite different things.

I have even seen one organisation’s application where A0 and B0 were exactly the same. Text had been carried forward from Part A to Part B.

It’s worth getting your application writing team together to think about the differences between the two parts of the standard and to make sure every one knows what belongs in Part A and what belongs in Part B before you actually start writing.

What are the different parts of the standard about?
When you are writing Part A you are considering how you help all the employers with whom you work. You are looking at how you work with your direct employer customers across all parts of your organisation.

Tip: Look inwards at your existing customer relationships.

When you come to think about Part B of the TQS you need to think not just about your organisation and your customers but also about sectors.

Each sector has numerous components. These encompass:

local
regional
national perspectives.

In some cases international perspectives will also need to be included.

When you come to think about Part B, don’t just consider your individual employer customers in a sector. Look more broadly.

Tip: Remember that a sector sits outside your organisation. You are trying to build links with it.

Do you need to be involved at all four levels?
No, you don’t need to work with a sector at all four levels. (Local, regional, national and international)

You do need to know how the whole sector works and you do need to know what you are doing to help each sector with which you work.

Getting things right
Write about your work with your customers in Part A. Think about how you help them. Find your success stories and use them judiciously as you write.

When you come to think about Part B start with the Sector Skills Council’s “footprint” statement and then decide how you help the SSC to fulfil its objectives at the local, regional, national, and where appropriate, at the international level.

Beware of writing too much about your own customers here, unless the points you are making are linked to the work of the sector.

Remember that when a Part B application is submitted for assessment, it is sent to the relevant Sector Skills Council for review.

If what you have written does not state clearly how you support the work of the SSC, then you cannot expect the SSC to report favourably on the application.

Coming tomorrow . . .

2009-02-18T18:37:00.003Z

Some of you know that I write a monthly Achieving the TQS newsletter for our subscribers.

Tomorrow I shall be publishing the feature article from our January newsletter.

Get in touch via our website if you would like to receive our newsletter on a regular basis.

TQS Myths (1) – Never mind about the application . . .

2009-02-13T10:30:00.009Z

No prizes for working out when I took this picture.

The weather at the beginning of February was pretty bad.

If you look at the picture, you can see some spring flowers are coming through.

If you’re an expert in horticulture you might be able to work out what some of the flowers are by looking at their leaves, but it would be relatively hard work.

Even if you’re an experienced gardener, you won’t be able to work out what’s under the snow. You don’t have enough information.

The TQS application has a lot in common with this photograph.

If you write about things the certification body’s requirements do not ask for, for example, writing about your strategy, as opposed to your strategy for working with employers, you could be covering up your successes.

If you leave your good practice hidden in the snow, and don’t write about it at all, no one will see it. You know it’s there, but the assessors won’t, because they can’t move the snow and you can’t ask them to wait for the thaw.

The TQS application is a snapshot. It’s your snapshot of your organisation, and if you take your picture in the wrong way, or in the wrong circumstances, you won’t be able to make the points you wanted to make to the lead assessor.

The application matters; the snapshot matters. You won’t get a chance to take the picture again, so make sure you take the right picture now.

It could be years before I have another chance to take a picture of that flower tub at that time of the year, surrounded by that amount of snow. I took my chance, and I have the picture. Make sure you take your opportunity when it comes to writing your TQS application.

Planning the TQS Development Journey (7) – Writing mileposts?

2009-02-06T13:08:00.010Z

This post will come as a revelation to most readers, it deals with mileposts that most people ignore.

Think about the time you have available to you to write your TQS application.

You have, of course, as much as you want, because you can start anytime. You don't have to wait until you have registered with a certification body.

However, assuming you are working to a deadline, think first of the total time you have available to you.

Then consider the following:

After how much of the time available should you have the first draft finished?
After how much of the time available should you have reviewed and updated the first draft?
After how much of the time available should the application be reviewed by the senior team?
After how much of the time available should you be doing the final review, proof reading and consistency checking?

For most people these questions are irrelevant. Everything is squashed into a very short space of time when they are rushing around trying to get words – any words - onto the computer screen.

However, if you want to make the best of the application writing process, you will establish some mileposts and they will look something like this.

The first draft will be finished when 35% of the total time available has passed.

Your first review and update will be completed after half the available time has passed.

Senior managers will have completed their review and revisions when two thirds of the available time has passed.

You should then make further revisions. At this point you will have used up about three quarters of the time available.

You should then wait for a few days before undertaking your final review, consistency check and proof reading. It’s amazing how many mistakes and inconsistencies you find if you leave yourself time to work in this way.

Here is the link to what Sue Lowe from Hugh Baird College had to say about the application writing process. It’s worth taking her advice.

Establish mileposts.

Create deadlines – and stick to them.

Planning the TQS Development Journey (6) – What about the mileposts?

2009-01-30T12:29:00.001Z

Your journey towards TQS certification may begin with a single step, and you certainly know where you’re going, but have you identified the mileposts along the way?

There are probably between eight and ten mileposts leading to the major road sign which says: “Start writing your TQS application now.”

Most of these mileposts are attached to gates across the road. That is, you can’t get past the milepost until you open the gate and pass through it. Try to go around the gate and you’re likely to get bogged down in the mud at the roadside.

So how are you doing at getting past the first few mileposts?

Milepost one: We know who our principal stakeholders are.
Congratulations, if you do.

Test this one out immediately by drawing a diagram with your organisation at the centre and the five or six principal stakeholders clustered around you.

Then check that you have a consensus in your organisation that these are your principal stakeholders!

Milepost two: We know who owns the employer.
Great, if you do.

Quite a few provider organisations don’t.

In some cases no one owns the employer, which means no one takes responsibility for managing each employer’s relationship with the organisation.

To check that you are clear about the quality of these relationships, map out an employer journey and see who takes responsibility for ensuring that the employer’s relationship with the organisation is rewarding – for the employer, that is – at each juncture.

Who takes care of the employer when he or she first works with your organisation?
Who takes responsibility for making sure the relationship develops?
Who ensures that the employer is happy with the service received?
Who builds the relationship for the future?

. . . And lots more . . .

Milepost three: When we make proposals to employers we always deal with business issues as well as training solutions.
Time for a celebration, then.

This is a development issue that takes time to get right. Lots of provider organisations struggle with this one.

You need to be certain you understand your employers’ organisational development issues and the challenges they are facing before you are in a position to recommend any training and development programmes.

Thus, the only way you can demonstrate that your training and qualifications are relevant to your employers is to demonstrate that there is a link between the work you undertake with an employer to the business issues that employer faces.

It’s relatively easy to check how you are progressing with these stages of the journey. Success with most of them is about clarity of thought and writing down what you do – as is success with much of the TQS.

More mileposts next week.

News and Resources – Update

2009-01-25T15:22:00.003Z

For those readers who don’t already know, I also write a monthly Achieving the TQS Newsletter.

In the newsletter I cover key TQS issues – just like in the blog – but in more detail.

If you would like to receive the newsletter, please visit our website and use the enquiry form to request the next issue.

In the January 2009 issue I have written about the differences between Part A and Part B of the TQS.

If you want to access more of our resources, then I have put a couple of new items up on the QIA Excellence Gateway this month.

One of these items is entitled:

Who should write your Training Quality Standard application?
Take a look at it.

It will help you to create and manage your application writing team. The article is built around a very popular activity we use in our training.

You will also find there:

Twenty things to do before you apply for assessment against the Training Quality Standard.
This article is used by lots of people and it’s the one that people most regularly link with my name. It's a popular piece and the advice in it is acknowledged to be sound.

Planning the TQS Development Journey (5) – Do you know what you want from the TQS?

2009-01-20T09:41:00.005Z

Many training provider organisations are committed to gaining the TQS. It’s becoming the latest “must-have” in the sector.

The question is why?

There are lots of generalisations about the benefits of the TQS and the need to gain it, but have you really thought carefully about what you hope your certification, when you achieve it, will bring you?

You need to be clear about your reasons for going after the TQS. The first step on your journey to TQS certification is to make sure you know the answer to this question.

Perhaps you have more than one answer. If you do, it’s worth making a list of your reasons for seeking TQS certification.

You might even want to make the list now, before reading on.

Once you have your list check it against the outcomes of a discussion I chaired recently with a group of senior staff in provider organisations.

Noted below are the three main benefits that the participants want to gain from their TQS certification.

How does this list compare with yours?

“Training Quality Standard certification will help us to access funding.”
This is the benefit that most people talk about most often. Quite a few people believe that in the medium term only those who hold the TQS will be able to gain access to significant amounts of funding.

“Training Quality Standard certification will help us with reputation-building.”
This is where the whole issue of differentiation comes into play. What is different about your organisation? How can you promote your organisation as different, and possibly better, than the competition?

“Training Quality Standard certification will help us to build our business.”
This is a statement that is made regularly. People look to TQS certification to help them to build credibility in their marketplace and to encourage employers to choose to work with them.

So how does this list compare with yours?

It really doesn’t matter how close the two lists are. What is important is that you now know why you want the TQS.

You have taken the first step on your development journey.

Planning the TQS Development Journey

2009-01-19T14:32:00.009Z

You will have noticed that the first four posts under this heading have focused on employers and your relationships with employers.

They haven't given much attention to the Training Quality Standard itself.

That is deliberate.

After all, markets matter most.

Thus, the first four posts covered:

What exactly are you trying to do to support employers?
First things first (working out the difference your interventions make)
Have you put your own house in order?
How good are you at communicating with employers?

You need to deal with these and similar issues before you can really make progress towards certification.

The next posts will look at you and your relationship with the Training Quality Standard.

The fifth item in the series will be about the key decisions you need to make when you start to plan your journey.

Planning the TQS Development Journey (4) - How good are you at communicating with employers?

2009-01-16T17:40:00.012Z

Is your organisation good at communicating?

How would you know?

The simplest way to find out is to ask the people who receive your message what they think of your organisation.

The meaning of all communication is found in the message received, not in the message sent, so you can only check the quality of your communications be talking to those people to whom you are sending your messages.

What do employers think of you?
Have they received the messages you wanted them to receive?
Do they know what you do?
Do they know how you can help them?
Would they turn to you if they had a business need?
Would they turn to you to help them with their people development issues?

The list of questions could be a lot longer, but the answers are more important than the questions.

If you don't know what answers employers would offer, then the chances are you won't review and update the messages you send out. You won't know if you need to amend your messages, because you're not receiving feedback on your communications strategy.

It's really important to find out how you are perceived in your marketplace, because this will shape your whole approach to working with employers. How you are perceived in the marketplace will have an impact on your overall success with employer engagement, too.

If you want to develop strong working relationships with employers - which you need if you are to be successful with the TQS - you must have a communications strategy which ensures that employers receive the messages you want them to receive.

So the question stands: how good are you at communicating with employers?

Success Stories

2009-01-09T15:27:00.001Z

Hugh Baird College in Bootle, Merseyside is the most recent success story I have to relate.

I have worked with Sue Lowe, Director of Corporate Services, and her team on a range of employer engagement projects, including the TQS.

Hugh Baird College has recently gained certification in the Training Quality Standard Part A plus Part B with excellence in Hospitality and Catering.

I asked Sue about the college’s TQS journey and the challenges Hugh Baird overcame along the road to certification.

What were the key challenges you faced when you first decided to go for the TQS?
“Financing the process, it took time but it was important to do.

We’re a big organisation. We saw that TQS needed a big investment. We needed to train our staff and get every one involved, - not just the lecturers, but student advisers, caretakers, receptionists, security – every one.

We needed to ensure every one was on board because a caretaker could be speaking to an employer just as easily as anyone else, so we had to get it right with every one.

Just as important was how we handled enquiries. We included training for all our front of house staff to do this. We also put in a new telephone system, along with new service standards, for each area of the College, including reception. All the schools in the college revised their service standards, too, and we measure performance every month.

People like having a standard to work to. They can do well and achieve excellence.”

How did you organise writing your application?
“You know we were assessed in September 2008. We began writing in November 2007. I had the first draft done by January 2008 and between January and May this year we kept updating and amending it.

We knew that A0 and A5 were the areas to focus on to get right.

Part B was different and a bit more difficult to complete. We did it though. The feedback we got said it was an excellent Part B application.

How did you prepare for the assessors’ visit?
“There was a lot of preparation but we felt it was vital.

We set out to look after our assessors well.

We had all the evidence there and ready for them. We made sure every one arrived in time for their interview.

We asked the assessors about any issues we could help them with at the end of each day.”

What hints and tips would you like to offer to anyone preparing for assessment?
“Get your application checked by someone who hasn’t worked on it. We had a consultant look at ours. It really helps to do this. The person who reads the application sees all the things you miss when you’re writing it.

Make sure every one, and especially the Principal and the SMT, are fully on board. Take time to get the Principal’s commitment.

We had that commitment. It helped us a lot.

Also be positive about employer engagement – all the time. Keep it in people’s minds. Make sure it’s covered in the Principal’s address, updates in staff newsletters and in staff training sessions.

When the assessors come, make sure all the evidence is there. Organise it. Put it in the room for the assessors.

It makes such a difference to be well prepared.”

You can learn more about Hugh Baird College by visiting the college’s website:

http://www.hughbaird.ac.uk

2009 and the Training Quality Standard

2009-01-02T12:30:00.008Z

2009 will be an interesting year for the TQS.

It’s the year when the perception of the TQS will change.

It’s also the year when people will start to feel comfortable with the TQS.

What’s so special about 2009?

It’s the year when the Training Quality Standard will become a mainstream development tool. It’s the year when lots of key players will start to expect training provider organisations to have the TQS, rather than thinking that holding the TQS is a novelty.

That’s because:

those who wanted to be first to achieve a new award have gained the TQS
those who wanted to be the first in class – the first to gain Part B in….. or the first in the county to gain the TQS have gained certification.

Those who saw gaining the TQS as a means of differentiating themselves from their key competitors have either gained certification or will do so in the next few months.

This means that it is no longer quite so unusual or out of the ordinary to hold TQS certification as it was six months ago.

Before long the focus will be on those organisations which haven’t gained certification. People will be asking questions about training providers that don't hold certification.

Why haven’t they gone for certification yet?
What’s the problem?
Have they tried and failed?

The result of this development?

Achieving the TQS in 2009 will be an important objective for even more training providers.

Keeping up to date

2008-12-24T15:09:00.015Z

The readership of the blog is growing.

I know it is because when I ask people if they read my blog, I get a lot of positive responses. I also hear people promoting the blog as a useful source of information about the TQS.

It's great having plenty of visitors to the blog and knowing that people like it.

If you would like to know each time it is updated you can sign up to receive the blog using the Subscribe to service. This will ensure you are kept up to date on all that is being posted.

You can become a blog follower. You can do this publicly or anonymously. Click on the Follow this blog statement at the bottom right of the screen to learn more.

What's coming up in 2009?
When I have been speaking at events or working with training organisations recently, people have been asking me what is happening on the blog in the first part of 2009.

Well, there is a lot to post about.

For example, there will be another success story fairly early in the New Year, plus more in the three questions series.

There will also be more about the TQS journey and a series of posts on the differences between Part A and Part B of the Training Quality Standard.

However, that is all for the future.

The next post will be early in the New Year. It's time for a holiday now!

Planning the TQS Development Journey (3) – Have you put your own house in order?

2008-12-16T09:35:00.003Z

The FE sector understands initiatives.

There have been projects, awards, imperatives and opportunities to innovate in the sector for just about as long as anyone can remember.

Most of us who work in, or with, colleges and work-based learning provider organisations know how initiatives usually work.

You have an idea.
You find a champion, or a group of supporters.
You obtain an amount of funding.
You create a pilot project.
You use the pilot project to refine your original plans.
Finally – and somewhere along the line – you roll out a modified and must improved version of the original idea to the whole organisation.

If that’s how you’re planning to work with the TQS, there is one thing you can be certain of. Your journey will take a long time.

Why?

Two really important concepts, as far as the TQS is concerned, are consistency and standardisation.

In order to get consistency and standardisation in an organisation, you need systems and processes.

You need your systems and processes to be applied across your organisation. Then you need to track the use of those systems and processes so that you can be confident that they are being implemented.

You need to know, and to be able to demonstrate, that your approaches and ways of working are embedded into the life of your organisation.

Putting your own house in order – as far as the TQS is concerned – is about getting those systems and processes up and running as soon as possible.

You know, for example, that the system for establishing business benefits with employers when you come to discuss training solutions needs to be in place and operating quickly. Without this system in place you will not be able to generate evidence for parts of A2.

You also know that you need a mechanism for measuring the impact of the work you do with employers - actually with employers themselves. You need to be able to do this to help you to address A4 and, of course, A5.

Therefore, take some time to get these things set up now. It will save you time later on. It will also help you to be realistic about when you will be ready to seek certification.

Planning the TQS Journey (2) First things first

2008-12-08T09:58:00.004Z

Now that you know what you do to help employers, you can begin to ask yourself the really important question.

What difference do your interventions make to employers?

If you did nothing would the employer be better off? You hope not, but how do you know?

Is the employer more profitable or, in the case of public sector organisations, is the organisation achieving more of its objectives, as a result of your interventions?

If you don’t know, you need to find out.

Set up the audit trail when you first begin to work with an employer.

Think about business benefits. When an employer chooses to work with you, what’s in it for the employer?

Think about key performance indicators – business performance indicators, that is.

It’s hard work establishing the right KPIs but you need to do this so that you’ll have something to write about when you get to the stage of working on your TQS application. You’ll need the answers to help you with A0 and A5.

Start working on these issues now.

Be prepared to work on your system for several months before you seek certification. You will need to show that you are actually identifying business benefits, setting performance indicators and measuring your success.

Planning the TQS Journey (1) What exactly are you trying to do to support employers?

2008-12-01T15:28:00.003Z

Do you know?
Do your employers know?

Thank carefully about your answers, because those answers should be linked to what you know employers want.

I wrote about what employers want in an earlier post. You can re-read it here.

However, here’s what you need to do to help you to be clear about where you’re going.

Review what you currently say about how you support employers. (If you don’t have such a statement, then here’s your starting point.)

Remove everything from you statement that refers to: training, qualifications, courses, NVQ, Train to Gain, Apprenticeships, funding, skills . . . You get the picture.

Then remove any statements about helping employers to build a skilled workforce, or to meet their business objectives, or to solve their problems, or to become more profitable etc.

Why? Well, it’s aspirational and fuzzy and every one promises to do these things, so to get their business you need to do more – a lot more.

Stuck?

Here’s a clue. Those readers who have worked with us for quite a few years will remember our early How To Do More Business With Business programme. I used to say to anyone who asked me about it:

“We help colleges to do more business with business.”

It’s a simple statement.
It’s memorable. (People still quote it back to me.)
It encapsulates how we helped colleges then – and now.
It’s also the sort of thing the customer wants to hear, because it’s a statement about the benefits the customer will gain. It’s not about the products and services the provider can offer.

Employers want to hear about benefits they will gain, not what you can offer, when you talk to them.

So, December is a good time for strategic planning. Give some thought to the essence of what you do.

Write it down.

Work on your statement and refine it.

Succeed here, and you’ll also go a long way to preparing to write A0 in your TQS application.

Three Questions . . .

2008-11-24T13:56:00.008Z

Three questions is a series of interviews in which I talk to experts who offer insights into how to address many of the issues provider organisations seeking TQS certification face.

Data strategy, measuring the impact of training solutions on employer organisations and dealing with trends in employer engagement are all issues that colleges and learning providers are grappling with as they progress towards TQS certification.

I asked David Willis, who helps organisations to use the data they collect to improve their business decisions, about how managers working to achieve the TQS can make sure they meet the data challenges posed by the Standard.

What sort of data should colleges and learning providers looking to gain TQS certification collect?

“You need to gather feedback on everything and track what goes on in your organisation. You need to gather information about your courses, your employers, your successes with employers, how you meet their expectations and so on.

This includes finding answers to the following:

How many employers do you support?
How many employees do you train?
What skills do employers ask for – that is individual employers and groups of employers?
Do you supply what they ask you for?
How happy are employers with your performance?
What additional skills do employers want you to help them to develop?

This is all valuable information. It’s the basis of your understanding of your employers. It’s part of your on-going market research.”

How can managers make progress with all this quickly?

“Think about producing a data strategy to help you to collect, and then make good use of, your data.

Your data strategy will set out what you want to achieve using the data you collect. It will also describe how you will do the job of collecting data. Having all this in place will help you to track what you do, to establish cycles of activity and to compare what you’ve done in the past with what you’re doing now.

For example, you know you need to gather employer feedback, so give some thought to that. Think about ways of collecting the feedback you need quickly and easily.

You could gather this data digitally by encouraging employers to log onto your system to leave their answers to your questionnaire. These responses can be analysed quickly. You can then appraise responses at a higher level – the level of the programme, the faculty or on a whole college basis. You can also think about what happened this year and last year.

You could set your system up so that you record what skills employers ask for when they come to you, and then check if they think you deliver what they want as part of your feedback process.

You’ll need a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to help you to put all of this into practice. Most organisations in business have them now. You’ll need to think about how you intend to use the system and what you want it to do for you. This is part of your data strategy.

All of this is straightforward. It’s not difficult. You just need to think it through.”

How can managers justify the expense of such an approach to working with data to the most senior people in the organisation?

“Working with data in these ways is not just about helping you to get the TQS. It can also give you a competitive advantage in your marketplace.

With this work you’re building your understanding of employers. You’re undertaking highly specific research. You are getting to understand the local economy and local employers. You’re learning about the skills shortages in your area and about the demand for skills.

Your organisation needs that information. You need it for the TQS. You need it for your marketing.

Managers need to explain that working on your data and your data strategy will help you to gain the TQS. It will also help you to improve your overall performance with employers.”

If you would like more information about using your organisation’s data effectively contact David Willis via his website.

What next?

2008-11-21T09:31:00.003Z

Several organisations I have been working with have recently achieved certification. I wrote a blog post about TTP back in October. There will be more interviews with organisations which have recently achieved certification following a period working with me over the coming weeks.

Now, however, as I start work with several new organisations, and at a time when a number of existing clients are looking to check their progress towards certification, the next series of blog posts will be about planning the TQS journey.

The series will take the form of questions about the things you really should be doing long before you start to write your application.

The first of these questions will be: do you know where you’re going?

It will focus on what exactly you are trying to do to support employers.

This series starts next week.

The next post, however, is another post in the Three Questions series.

Look out for that on Monday.

The Seven Strategies

2008-11-19T18:24:00.005Z

Here are the seven strategies for success.

And the bonus strategy was: Make sure you are clear about the evidence you ask for.

Apply these strategies and you will make good progress on your TQS journey.

Your Route to TQS Certification (7) Adopt a realistic timetable.

2008-11-14T10:32:00.004Z

“We must get the TQS within six months.”

I hear statements like this a lot. They tend to be followed by a series of reasons why the organisation must have the TQS soon.

They are rarely followed by statements about how time is going to be made in the busy life of the organisation to do the job properly.

A realistic timetable is one that ensures that the organisation sets up the right systems and processes to ensure that the developments it introduces work. It also allows time for these systems and processes to be shown to be working.

Consistency and standardisation are concepts that need to be borne in mind throughout the TQS journey.

Do you do what you say you do?
Do you do what you say you do – consistently?
Do you work to clearly defined standards in terms of your performance?
Can you demonstrate that, over time, you are working to these standards in a consistent manner?

Setting up the right systems is one thing. Demonstrating they work and are used – embedded in other words – is something else.

So, the final strategy for success is all about being realistic about how long your journey to certification will take.

Three Questions . . .

2008-11-07T12:41:00.001Z

Three questions is a series of interviews with experts who offer insights into how to address the issues that slow down the progress of provider organisations looking to gain TQS certification.

Recently I spoke to Karen Kimberley, a specialist in making communications work better in large organisations, about how managers working to achieve the TQS can ensure they get the support they need from their organisation.

Some managers in colleges and provider organisations really struggle to get senior management backing for their work on the TQS. What do you suggest they do to ensure they get the support they need to succeed?

“Struggling to get senior management support is a common problem in organisations.

If you’re going to succeed with the TQS you need to manage your stakeholders carefully.

Telling senior managers, governors, other managers and colleagues, – all your stakeholders, in fact, – about the importance of the Training Quality Standard isn’t enough to ensure it will become important to them and move up their agenda. Senior managers don’t always listen or hear what you say and, as often as not, they’re not fully aware of the scope of the situation you are dealing with.

You need to find creative ways of showing how gaining the TQS will be a benefit to them and to your organisation. It’s really important that they understand these benefits, and it’s your job to help them.

You also need to help them to understand the size of the task you are working on. Maybe you could come up with a visual analogy. For example, create a picture which shows 150 steps leading to TQS certification. Explain to senior managers that each step in your picture equates to an hour of work. You can then show senior people where your organisation is on the stairway and how much effort you still need to put in to succeed.

You need to think hard about how to get your point across. Doing something like this will help you to engage your audience’s imagination and get them on board.”

How can the manager with responsibility for the TQS ensure he or she gets the right amount of support from every one in the organisation, not just senior managers?

“Organise a steering group.

Large organisations do this. They know where they’re going. They plan what they are going to do. They have milestones and timelines.

This approach means they are able to devolve many responsibilities to quite junior people. The tasks they will be asked to do are clear. People are working within a structure and aiming to achieve defined goals.

It’s also important that you take steps to keep your steering group posted about progress with the project. Use the web, and your intranet, to share information.

You could, for example, use Google Documents to share your plans, and your application as you are working on it. It’s better to do this than just send round drafts. All the people who share the Google Document can see the most up-to-date version. They can also add their input to it. This approach will help to keep people informed and enthusiastic.”

What single, important piece of advice would you like to offer to anyone leading a TQS project in a provider organisation or college to help them sustain commitment to the TQS?

“You need to involve people. That’s really important. Get them working with you.

Remember your success here depends on face-to-face communications, not solely on e-mails and documents.

If people are close to something, if they experience it, they understand it better. They need to experience what you are doing with the TQS if they are going to want to support you.

You must help them to be aware of what you are doing, to understand why the TQS matters and how they can get involved to help you. That way you will make progress quickly.”

Karen has provided a free planning guide to stakeholder communications which she is making available to readers of this blog. Contact her via her website if you would like a copy.

http://www.karenkimberley.co.uk

Success Stories

2008-10-30T12:09:00.003Z

Success stories is a series of interviews with senior people in organisations which have achieved the Training Quality Standard

It offers insights into those organisations’ TQS development journeys and advice to organisations still working towards TQS certification.

I recently spoke to Paul Coxhead of Targeted Training Projects Ltd (TTP), the first company to gain TQS certification for Part B in logistics, about TTP’s success.

Tell me, Paul, what did you gain from the process of achieving the TQS?
“We formalised things.

When we first looked at the Standard we saw that we do all that it asks us to do, but that a lot of what we do wasn’t written down and structured.

I really liked the TQS from the start, because I saw it would give us recognition for the way we work with our customers.”

How difficult was the TQS assessment?
“Difficult.

The submission was hard. I thought we needed about four days to write the application. In the end it took us eleven. We were working on it right up to the deadline.

The assessment visit itself was great. The assessors were professional. They put staff at their ease. They knew what they had come to do.”

Do you think other providers should get involved with the TQS?
“Yes, yes, they should.

It will really sharpen you up as a company. We do more measuring of things now than we did. Staff had noticed we do. It’s also helpful to our employers. We help them to understand how the training we do is supporting their business.”

Do you think achieving the TQS will help your business?
“It’ll be great for business.

I accept it’ll be a slow burn. I think it will help us to retain our customers and get new ones.

The industry does talk, you know.

They’ll talk about TTP, and say there’s a provider who will help you to decide if the training is working. That’s good for us. It’s really valuable, in fact.”

Targeted Training Projects Ltd, a company which delivers tailored transport and logistics solutions to the logistics industry, has achieved the TQS in Part A and in Part B (Logistics). They are based in Kingswinford in the West Midlands.

Click here to visit TTP's website.

About the Achieving the TQS newsletter

2008-10-29T14:09:00.013Z

This post is an information note for readers of the blog who do not currently receive my monthly Achieving the TQS newsletter.

If you would like to be added to the list of subscribers, go to the enquiry page on our website.

Just put the words: “Newsletter Request” in the message box on that page and remember to include your name and e-mail address with your request.

You’ll receive the next issue, which will be the November edition.

This issue will be celebrating the TQS successes of some of the organisations I have worked with which have gained certification recently.

The newsletter will be out about midway through the month.

Your Route to TQS Certification (6) Be clear about the differences between Part A and Part B

2008-10-22T18:01:00.007+01:00

I recently reviewed an application where I started to have a sense of déjà vu when I reached B0.

It wasn’t a mistake. The text in B0 was exactly the same as what had been written in A0.

This provider, like quite a few organisations preparing for TQS certification, hadn’t really thought through the differences between Part A and Part B of the standard.

There is a difference.

Part A deals with employers as individual customers and how the provider organisation responds to them. This could mean responding to local employers. It could be responding to large employers, small employers, public sector employers, private sector employers and so on.

Part B deals with how the provider works with a specified sector, and how the organisation develops and then deploys and delivers support to a sector. This means thinking about the expectations of the relevant sector skills council and being familiar with its “footprint”. It also means trying to demonstrate a local, regional and national perspective on developments within the defined sector.

Writing about the two different employer groups will be easier if you think about horizontal and vertical slices in the employer marketplace as you write.

Part A looks across the whole spectrum of employers and so can be seen as the horizontal slice.

Part B is the vertical slice, looking up and down a specific sector.

When the organisation I mentioned at the beginning of the post reworked its application the managers wrote about broadly the same issues in Part A and in Part B but the perspective from which the “story” was written was different. The managers used horizonal and vertical perspectives.

That also led to the organisation writing about different approaches and, of course, the two parts of the application then highlighted different results.

Your Route to TQS Certification (5) Look forward to your success

2008-10-16T10:09:00.001+01:00

Be clear about this.

You are going to succeed with the TQS. You are going to progress smoothly, overcoming obstacles, working systematically and achieving your certification.

Therefore, take a moment now to look forward to the time when you have achieved your goal.

What will be different in your organisation?
What will have changed?
What will you want to tell the world about how you have improved?

Take some time to think about this and write down your answers. Make a list of the successes you will have achieved by the time you gain TQS certification.

Now review your list, because it’s an important list for several reasons.

First, you’ve just drawn attention to the successes you want your organisation to achieve as a result of your TQS certification. Doing this means you have focused on your goals.

Second, you now know what you are going to put on your website and in your newsletters once you have gained the TQS.

Third, and probably most important of all, you have identified the benefits you need to promote incessantly to the senior team in your organisation to help to maintain their commitment to the TQS project.

So, make sure you draw up that list . . . and keep on dreaming about the future.

Your Route to TQS Certification (4) Measure impact

2008-10-12T11:40:00.011+01:00

Measuring the impact of training interventions has been one of the challenges facing every one looking to achieve certification since the TQS was introduced.

With conditional certifications still being awarded it’s clear that measuring the impact of training remains a challenge.

The advice out there exhorts people to identify, at the outset, the outcomes training will deliver, and the measures to be used to establish outcomes. This seems straightforward advice, but quite a few people still struggle.

Measuring the impact of training interventions on employee productivity is the easiest way to begin. Think about:

Learner (Employee) Achievement

Leading to Enhanced Employee Performance

Quantified via Performance Measures and Indicators.

Use expected learner achievements as the starting point from which you will measure enhanced employee performance. Work with the employer to establish these outcomes and the key performance indicators of success before the training takes place.

And the measures to use?

I use five different types. Three to try out are:

Employee productivity - for example, getting more done
Employee efficiency - for example, working faster, reducing errors and error rates
Employee flexibility - for example, multi-tasking.

You won’t need to worry about being able to answer the questions employers ask about how your training will help them. If you have your list of measures and improvements in mind when you first start the dialgoue, you will be in a strong position.

If you plan your interactions with employers, and show that you know how to measure the impact of your interventions, employers will be more likely to want to work with you.

When this happens you will be well on the way to TQS certification.

A Bonus Strategy

2008-10-06T06:33:00.007+01:00

Does your TQS application look like this?

Well, I hope not.

Last week in an organisation that doesn’t need me to remind its managers of what happened, we drew together all the evidence that people had sent over to the application writing team.

There were so many folders and guides and reports we had difficulty in getting into the room. We certainly couldn’t see each other across the table where we were working.

We decided to measure the depth of the paperwork that the team was being asked to go through and to use to help with the application.

I’ve added up all the figures.

If all the pieces of paper were piled on top of each other, each of the four people on the application writing team would have a pile of documents like the one above to work through.

So, here’s the bonus strategy for success.

When you ask for help with evidence gathering, be quite specific about what you say you want. Otherwise you could end up with a pile like the one we ended up with at ………… (Your secret is safe!)

Your Route to TQS Certification (3) Speak the right language

2008-10-01T16:53:00.011+01:00

I regularly hear staff working in colleges and in provider organisations struggling to communicate with employers, especially private sector employers.

I hear people telling employers about Train to Gain, NVQ and diplomas and using the FE jargon that they understand so well and which is of little or no interest to their listeners.

The result: frustration on both sides, – and all too often a decision on the part of employers to avoid further contact with the FE sector.

If you’re going to make a success of working with employers – showing your responsiveness and demonstrating your understanding of the particular sectors in which you have expertise – then you need to speak the language of employers.

Their language is easy to understand.

Employers want to hear about three things:

how you will help them to make more money, or if they are in the public sector, how you will help them to achieve their objectives

how you will help them to keep more of their money, or to save money by working more efficiently

and, a long, long way down the list of priorities:

how you will help them to improve their personal skills and abilities and their professional standing.

Therefore, the real task for every one trying to build up good working relationships with employers, and along the way to progress towards Training Quality Standard certification, is to talk to employers in their language, not in the language of education, skills, learning, qualifications etc.

So think about how you promote your programmes and qualifications to employers.

Discard everything you would normally say about learning and development and practise explaining to employers how your offer will help them with the first two points above.

This, more than almost anything else, will help you to be more in tune with employers and their concerns and to speak the right language when you meet them.

Your Route to TQS Certification (2) Make sure you understand employers

2008-09-26T10:30:00.002+01:00

It’s a simple strategy and one that is often overlooked, ignored or just forgotten.

How can you be responsive to employers if you don’t know:

what keeps them awake at night
what they consider to be their problems and concerns
their aspirations and goals?

Equally how can you claim to be serving a sector if you’re not familiar with the issues employers working in that sector are facing?

You need to understand the employer’s business before you can start to recommend training solutions, because until you have that understanding there’s not much common ground on which the two of you can stand.

Talk to employers. Get to know them. Ask them how the credit crunch is affecting their business. Ask them if they are worried about the downturn in the economy. Get on their wavelength. They’ll be far more likely to want to work with you if they are confident you understand them.

This strategy will help you to build you business. It’s also an approach that will help you towards Training Quality Standard certification.

Remember, if you take steps to find out where the employers you want to work with are feeling the pain, you just might get the opportunity to help them to do something about it.

Your Route to TQS Certification (1) Plan for the Future

2008-09-22T09:59:00.001+01:00

Achieving the Training Quality Standard is important to you and to your organisation, but it is only a milestone on your journey to success.

You are looking, over the medium term, to develop your business with employers. You are looking to do more work with employers and you’re looking to build relationships with employers.

This means you need a plan.

Some organisations immediately say they have a plan. It usually turns out to be a business profile with income targets. That is, it’s full of the sort of information that is of interest within their organisation, but has no place in front of employers.

What you need is a real plan, a document that says how you intend to help employers. You need a document which explains how you intend to support employers as they seek to make a profit, meet their objectives and survive in difficult times. You need a plan that is clear about your role in their success.

If you have that sort of plan, then you will be able to write about your strategy for supporting employers (A0) easily, and your strategy for supporting a sector, or sectors, (B0) with confidence.

Thus, your first strategy for success is a broad business development strategy and one that will help you to be more successful overall, as well as leading you closer to TQS certification.

The five big mistakes

2008-09-15T09:36:00.003+01:00

Here are the five big mistakes providers make when they start to write their Training Quality Standard applications.

Make one of these mistakes and it can harm your application.

Make more than one mistake and you could find you are seriously off course.

Use this post as an aide memoire for when you are writing your application. Avoid all five big mistakes if you can.

So what comes after the five big mistakes?

Now is the time to step back and think about planning the route to certification and to identify strategies that will help to you achieve success.

There are seven of them. What comes next are seven strategies to help you to make progress towards TQS certification.

Failing to follow the guidance – big mistake number five

2008-09-10T18:06:00.003+01:00

The last of the big mistakes is one that no one needs to make.

When I am asked to review Training Quality Standard applications, I am always amazed at the number of documents sent to me which have clearly been produced without reference to the application writing guidance.

The Assessment Guide and Evidence Framework document is an excellent support to the whole TQS application writing process, as are the Part B support documents produced by the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). Managers writing an application should use these documents to guide their work throughout the time they are writing their submissions.

However, in many cases – and probably in the majority of applications that I see – people have written what they think they should write, rather than using the published guidance to help them to be clear about what to include in their applications and what to omit.

As a result they just don’t cover the issues that need to be addressed, or they cover them badly, or they include lots of material that just isn’t relevant.

Remember, you don’t have to make this mistake.

It’s probably the easiest of the five big mistakes to avoid. . .

. . . so, make sure you follow the instructions . . . and avoid this particular problem.

Writing for the wrong audience – big mistake number four

2008-09-05T12:28:00.000+01:00

Just who are you writing the TQS application for? Think carefully about the question because the answer will shape your whole submission.

Are you writing with the audience for your self-assessment report in mind? Are you writing for OFSTED? Are you writing for the LSC, or for another funding agency? Are you writing for nobody and no one, and just aiming to get through the job as quickly as possible?

If you write your submission primarily for any of these groups, you are writing for the wrong audience.

If you are going to write a good application, you need to think carefully about your audience. In this case, you are writing for the lead assessor, the person who will manage your TQS assessment and who will be your main contact with the assessment process.

As you write consider this person’s situation, and what he or she needs to find in your application. Put yourself in the lead assessor’s shoes, and think about what you would like to read.

You know that the lead assessor will want to gain an understanding of your organisation and what you do, so make sure this is clearly stated.

You know the lead assessor wants to undertake a scoring activity, so make sure you write clearly. Give him or her as much help as possible, by dealing with what is asked for in each section of the application.

You know the lead assessor will be visiting your site, and only has your application to help him or her to prepare, so make sure you include everything you want the assessment team to be aware of, before they arrive.

Avoid this big mistake by taking time to craft an application that is written with a clear purpose and for a defined audience. Your application will be stronger and more coherent if you follow this advice.

As a result you will understand your own organisation better, too.

Can you outsource the writing of your TQS application?

2008-09-01T18:41:00.005+01:00

Before I deal with the final two big mistakes that organisations make when they’re preparing their TQS application, I thought I’d deal with a question that people ask again and again. It’s the question about who writes the application.

The question is really about if you can offload the whole job onto someone else, preferably someone outside your organisation?

It does happen. I’ve already been asked to write a Part A application on at least four occasions.

But does it work? Well, it depends. . .

If you want to hand over the whole job to someone else, – a bid writer, a copywriter, a consultant, anyone who will take the job away - the application produced probably won’t present your organisation as well as it might.

However, if you take the advice in the previous post, and appoint a project manager from inside your organisation, then get some people collecting the evidence that is going to make up the meat of the application and have someone ready to review and edit and revise the document – then, maybe.

Keeping the whole job in-house must make most sense, but if you really are struggling with the writing, getting someone who likes to write on your team could help you with the task and make life a little bit easier for you.

Just don’t think that you can hand the job over to someone outside your organisation and forget about it.

There’s more to the TQS application than that.

What, no team! – big mistake number three

2008-08-25T14:25:00.005+01:00

You do have an application writing team, don’t you?

If you haven’t, you’re making one of the five big mistakes that people writing their Training Quality Standard (TQS) application make.

This is because producing a sound TQS application is a big job. In fact, it’s a job for a team.

You need at least two people in that team, but if you have the capacity in your organisation, you will make a better job of the application by bringing more people into the application writing activity.

Four is a good number to aim for, because there are four principal roles to be filled when you are producing your application. These are:

the principal writer – the person who writes the text of the application;
the principal reviewer – the person who reads what has been written and who tries to read it as an assessor might. He or she looks for inconsistencies and contradictions, omissions and inaccuracies and then gives feedback on the application to the principal writer;
the principal evidence gatherer – the person with a real in-depth knowledge of the organisation who can find the right examples of practice to fit into the different parts of the application;
the project manager – the senior person who makes sure that the team has the time and space to do the job well and who fights the battles with the most senior managers to ensure that application writing has priority in the team’s timetable. This is also the person who, in the end, decides when the application is ready to be submitted.

Team responsibilities will be divided up in ways which make sense to you because you know where the talents of the people in your organisation lie.

However, you must ensure that the principal writer and the principal reviewer are different people.

Remember that getting a team on the job of application writing will make the task easier.

Getting a team on the job will also make the application that is sent off to the assessment body better – so it’s worth doing.

Underestimating the job – big mistake number two

2008-08-20T14:38:00.003+01:00

Writing a Training Quality Standard (TQS) application takes time, but it is also a task that needs careful planning.

The second big mistake people make when writing their application is to underestimate the size, scope and scale of the job itself and as a result plan the application writing badly.

Ask a plumber, a carpenter or a removal man about estimating and how important a task it is. Any one of these people will tell you that if you get the estimate wrong the whole job goes awry.

You don’t have the right amount of resource. You don’t have the right number of people. You don’t allocate the right amount of time to the job. The result is a mess.

It’s the same with the TQS.

Mis-estimate the job and you might decide you don’t need to write an application from scratch. You might decide you can cut and paste bits from your most recent self-assessment report or from a tender you have produced.

Mis-estimate the job and you’re also likely to think that one person can research the application and write it up, possibly over a couple of days, or maybe over a weekend.

These are big mistakes.

In fact, writing a good TQS application requires a structured approach, a commitment to gather good evidence and a willingness to spend time on building a case about how you address the specific requirements of the different parts of the Standard.

Mis-estimate the job, or if we’re being honest, underestimate the job, and you’ll be making the best you can of things without the right tools and with the wrong allocation of resource.

To avoid this big mistake accept that your TQS application is a new document. It’s a document that will take time to research and to write, and it needs a team working on it.

To avoid this big mistake, take care with your estimates.

Running out of time – big mistake number one

2008-08-16T10:38:00.004+01:00

There’s something you can do, and do easily, that can have a catastrophic impact on your Training Quality Standard application. It’s a big mistake, possibly the biggest of all, and it’s one from which it is almost impossible to recover.

It’s the mistake of allowing yourself to run out of time.

When you begin to think about writing your application you’re probably relatively relaxed. Writing your organisation’s application might be a big task but, as you tell yourself at this stage, you have weeks in which to do the job . . . and a week is a long time.

Yet, the hours and the days and the weeks are eaten up. There are other priorities, emergencies, and all sorts of calls on your time. Before you know where you are, you are running out of time, and you still have the application to write.

Of course, when you realise what’s happening, you start writing, but by now you’ve lost a lot of the available time. In some cases you might only be a few days away from the submission deadline. For some people this realisation means they end up writing right up to the last minute.

This approach doesn’t help you to write a good application.

Get things right when you come to write your application. Start early. Create a writing schedule. Get a draft done quickly. Leave yourself time – and lots of it – to review and to rewrite.

Do all of these things and you’ll avoid big mistake number one.

Welcome to this blog

2008-08-11T15:21:00.001+01:00

If you already know what the TQS is, and you’re interested in achieving it, then this is definitely a blog for you. Welcome!

If you’re new to the TQS – the Training Quality Standard – then you’re also welcome.

There’s a lot of interest in the TQS in the UK right now. Further education colleges, learning providers and, more recently, Higher Education organisations, are working with it and looking to become certificated.

I spend my time helping organisations in the post-compulsory education world to become more business-focused and more business-orientated and, yes, doing what they need to do to achieve the TQS.

Finding the right place to start with the TQS is a challenge. Perhaps the place to begin is with the standard itself. Perhaps you’d like to hear about how to manage the development journey leading to assessment. Perhaps, and perhaps not.

What I find that people really want to know about are the problems, potential disasters and pitfalls. That’s why I’m starting the blog by dealing with the five biggest mistakes people make when they’re writing their applications for assessment – and, of course, I’ll be offering some guidance on how to avoid them.

Come back soon to see what these mistakes are.

Come back soon to ensure you avoid making them yourself.