If you’re thinking about applying for Certification against the Training Quality Standard for Employers, the first step in your journey will be to register with a Certification Body. For more information on Certification Bodies please refer to the next steps page here.

During registration, particular actions will include:

• confirming your organisation’s eligibility for assessment

• working with your Certification Body to identify the most appropriate scope for your assessment i.e. where the Standard for Employers will sit in your organisation, and the boundaries for assessment

• ensuring that you get the backing and commitment from your corporate customer, who is able to comment on the training function’s ability to meet corporate aims and objectives in relation to training needs

• working with your Certification Body to agree on your timescales for submitting your application, and the cost of your assessment

Once these points have been confirmed, you will be ready to move onto the Application stage of the process.

Once you have registered with a Certification Body, the next step in your journey is to write your Application.

The Application is simply a document or web-tool where you address, in turn, each Indicator of the Standard.

Your Certification Body will provide you with the opportunity to attend an Applicant Training Course, which will give you more information on how to construct a good application – but the critical point is to make sure that the claims you make are backed up with hard evidence.

Your Application should:

• reflect how your training function runs, as your claims will be rigorously tested

• include an organisational chart as the only appendix, as this will help the Assessors to identify who they need to speak to on the Verification Visit.

Alongside your Application you should also submit full details of your corporate customer and internal customer contact information to allow for Customer Feedback.

You can access more general hints and tips here on how you might tackle your Application.

Prior to submitting your Application, your Certification Body will have allocated an Assessment Team, who will contact you at an early stage to arrange a convenient date for the Verification Visit.

Once you have submitted your Application, your Certification Body will first check that it’s fit for purpose and the Lead Assessor will then subject it to a rigorous review, in anticipation of the Verification Visit.

Your Assessment Team will:

• Conduct a Desktop Review, working through your Application and identifying Strengths, Areas for Improvement for each indicator

• Assign an initial score to the Application, following the Standard for Employer’s Scoring Framework.

The scoring mechanism is derived in part from the RADAR scoring Matrix used in the EFQM Excellence Model copyright © 1999 – 2003 EFQM.

The scores are recorded in your own Scorebook, which will eventually form the basis of your Feedback Report.

The Assessors will also compile a list of issues for amplification and clarification on the site visit.

After the Assessment Team has reviewed your Application, the team will finalise the arrangements to come to your premises to conduct a Verification Visit.

The visit will typically last a day or two, and will involve a team of two Assessors. Their task will be to verify, amplify and clarify issues identified from your Application.

Tasks the Assessors will carry out include:

• talking to you about your Application, and talking to senior management to understand the training function

• sampling documentary evidence to see how it supports the claims made in your Application

• talking to operational staff to check that their experience chimes with the account given in the Application

• revising the assessment score on the basis of their findings, and formulating a recommendation to the Certification Panel.

Under the Training Quality Standard for Employers, you are being assessed on how responsive you are to your internal customers in Part A, and how the training function meets the wider corporate aims and objectives in Part B. Accordingly, your Assessment Team will want to speak to a selection of your customers and your corporate customer to validate your application, quantitatively and qualitatively; this is Customer Feedback.

Customer Feedback is carried out by your Assessment Team as part of the Verification Visit. Therefore you will need to make sure the appropriate people are available on the day to speak to with your Assessors.

Particular actions here will include:

• checking customers’ experiences of working with you and validating how the internal training function meets corporate objectives

• the Assessor collating this information to create a Customer Feedback Report

• using this data for an analysis of your customers’ backing for possible Certification.

If you’d like to know more about Customer Feedback, please see the FAQs about the assessment, which can be found here.

Once the Assessors have concluded their work, they will write up their findings in the form of a Feedback Report, which they will forward to your Certification Body.

After moderation, the Certification Body (using an independent Panel Review process) will decide, on the basis of your Assessor team’s recommendation, to award one of three outcomes:

• No Certification: your organisation will still receive comprehensive Feedback

• Deferral: your organisation is given a further three months to resubmit part or all of its application to resolve specific issues before it is reconsidered

• Certification: your organisation will receive Feedback and Certification (subject to signing a Certification Agreement).

Your Certification Body will let you know the outcome once the decision is made.

After the Certification Panel have made their decision, two things will happen. First, you’ll receive notice of their decision, including any offer of Certification.

Second, your Lead Assessor will contact you to arrange a visit to your premises to deliver full feedback on your assessment.

Particular actions here include:

• providing you with a detailed Feedback Report, with Strengths and Areas for Improvement highlighted for each indicator

• providing you with a Customer Feedback Report, detailing the perceptions of your customers

• providing you with headline scores for your Application, to allow you to review your performance

• talking you through the Feedback Report, and responding to your questions at the Feedback Visit.