A day in the life of a Trainer Assessor.

Hayley Wedgwood Trainer Assessor for Cambridgeshire takes time out of her busy schedule to give us a quick glimpse of daily life as an assessor.

It’s a Tuesday and I am off to one of my favourite sites to see one of my learners, Diane. The site is about 1 hour away from where I live and is located in a lovely little village in the middle of nowhere. The pub itself is very unique in that it is bright blue and can been seen from miles away.

When I arrive at the pub it is always a fantastic warm welcome with a lovely Latte waiting on the bar for me (talk about Customer Service) I check that it is still ok for me to see Diane and that work set on my previous visit is still convenient.

We start by sitting and catching up on how things have been since I last visited. I also check if Diane is happy in her work and has no issues or concerns as well as seeing if she has had any time off from work. Being responsible for Diane’s welfare means I have to check that she is happy.

So after a little chat and being filled in on local things (mainly gossip) which I love, we get to work and Diane and I have a professional discussion on how she follows the rules in her workplace and how this impacts on customer service delivery. Diane has prepared an excellent prompt sheet to help guide the discussion and give it a structured flow, it also means Diane is prepared and there are no surprises!

I use my Dictaphone to record our discussion which in its self is a fun filled exercise. The minute you press record Diane freezes and cannot remember what on earth she wanted to say and ends up laughing hysterically, which is infectious and gets my eyes watering …. Thank goodness I have several save files and we can have another go or five

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I certainly do enjoy embracing Technology and am regularly asking Diane to let me record her. I am hoping she will agree to the idea eventually and let me capture her fantastic Customer Service Skills on video (it would make excellent training material). Once our discussion is completed, (normally by me not looking at Diane as for some reason I make her laugh?????) the pub then opens and I carry out observations of Diane serving customers face to face, delivering reliable customer service and developing relationships with all customers who come in whether they are regulars or new.

I begin to see what areas of the qualification can be covered on this visit and what other assessment methods I can use to gather evidence to close off units and hopefully lean toward Diane finishing her NVQ by the target completion date. I set Diane reflective accounts to write on complaints that she has dealt with and how she resolved the situation. We can review this on my next visit and compare to the standards in her log book.  After watching Diane for around 1 hour I set her the work