What is employer validation?

If your organisation wishes to be assessed against, and certificated to, the Training Quality Standard, your application will need to be externally validated by your organisation’s employer customers.

What is the method for validation?
The method of validation will depend on the number of customers with whom you have worked in the previous 12 months. If you have worked with 25 or more customers, your organisation will be validated via a quantitative method, which will involve interviewing, via telephone, a representative sample of your customers, asking them one simple question to provide feedback on your organisation. Organisations which have worked with very small numbers of employer customers (fewer than 25) will have their assessments validated through a small number of depth interviews, again conducted via telephone.

Who will conduct my validation?
Employer validation will be conducted by an independent market research agency, contracted to CFE. The independent research agency will interview your customers on your behalf. This will be clear to your customers in the opening to the interview.

What will my customers be asked?
Quantitative interviews involve asking your customers to provide simple feedback on your organisation through one substantive question. This question asks customers to rate your organisation, on a scale of 0 – 10, in terms of their likeliness to recommend your services. Depth interviews (for those organisations with fewer than 25 customers) will involve asking a small number of your customers a set of in-depth questions to explore their relationship with your organisation, the standard of service they received and their willingness to recommend your services.

What data do I have to provide?
You will be asked to submit your customer data in .xls (Excel) format, using a pre-defined template (supplied to you after you submit your registration form) populating the required fields. You will be asked to supply the organisation name of your customers, a named contact from that organisation (First name and last name), their job title, their title (Mr/Mrs/miss), contact telephone number, and the organisation’s postcode. In the longer term you will be able to be download this template from the Training Quality Standard website.