5 Responses

1. A lot to do…
   There are a lot of things to determine for this kind of assessment. Firstly do you have a range of competencies that have been determined for your trainers and if so how did you arrive at these competencies? (Were they set by management in isolation, or in consultation with training staff or in consultation with managers, training staff and trainees?)

   Have you defined what makes for a successful training session and is there a degree of flexibility in this? (Not all trainers will deliver a course in the same manner but it doesn’t mean the outcomes will be any less useful)

   If you have those two steps in place then you need to determine an assessment process. 360 degree feedback can be very valuable if everyone delivering this type of feedback has been trained in it’s use and delivery. Do you propose to use 360 degree feedback elsewhere in the organisation or just in regard to training? As that may influence whether it’s practical to use here or not.

   I’d use a simple “traffic light” feedback form (i.e. things people want the trainer to stop doing, things they want them to continue doing and things they’d like them to start doing). In conjunction with any happy sheets and post training evaluation results this feedback should be collated and delivered by line management. Also a competency assessment should be performed by management.

   If you are not using any form of post training evaluation for skill transfer etc. I’d question how effective this exercise will be. People may sometimes not like a trainer’s style etc. but if they deliver the results then often it won’t matter.

   Hope that helps, I think it’s a good idea but implementation maybe quite difficult.

2. Assessment or Accreditation?
   I think the comments below on assessment are very valid – the only addition I would make to that is self reflection and assessment.

   However, if it is internal accreditation you want then you can accredit trainers with the relevant units from TDLB NVQ’s by clustering some units to make a Core Trainers Award. We find this works particularly well in industries such as Pharmaceutical where trainers must have a qualification. You can then provide them with a mixture of development and assessment to truly gain consistency.

   Please call if you would like to discuss.

3. Two suggestions for Internal Accreditation information
   Check out http://www.iitt.org. Even though this organisation focuses on IT training provision, many of the concepts can be taken across all types of training. The IITT has lots of information on your question topics.

   In addition, the company I used to work for had its own Trainer Accreditation programme. If you would like to know more about this, please email me ([email protected]) and I’ll see if I can help further.
   Good luck, Stephanie.

4. Self Reflection
   I would make sure that the process allows the trainers to self reflect and to do peer observations. Both processes encourage thoughtful input from the trainers and will enable them to create a review process which is meaningful to them. The acreditation needs to relate to their willingness to reflect and change their approaches.
   Have you got the trainers themselves to identify the key performance measures and how they could get feedback on performance?
   Finally using video feedback is very valuable for trainers because sometimes we don’t see things that are obvious to the participants. With digital video you can easily record and edit learning points and use this to evaluate performance.
   Hope it goes well.
   Christine

5. Qualification or training or assessment
   The word assess….
   Raises many questions in it’s own right.
   To what standard do you want to assess?

   Would this be a National Standard (NVQ), or is it an Accredited Standard (VQ), or is it a company produced qualification that is being assessed, or are the people being assessed by an individual standing watching the work process and asking some questions to ascertain knowledge and understanding?

   The qualification for this is the NVQ LDR/001 A1 or A2 assessor, this is a stand alone Lv 3 NVQ, which is part of the Learning and Development suite (this means that there is no more TDLB D32/33).

   There is as aprt of the Learning & Development suite some stand-alone instructor units LDR 020 (classroom) LDR 021 (practical) LDR 022 (coach) which require the candidates to put together a portfolio and of course be doing the job. It does tend to focuss the instructor on their abilities and knowledge.

   Good luck in your quest!