Keeping up to date as a Registered Training Organisation is an ongoing challenge in this ever-developing VET world. IIT has been an RTO since 2004, and we leapt into this VET space as we felt that being an active member in the formal training and education space was an important part of presenting the best services we could to our clients, current and potential! We already had a Quality Management System in place (ISO9001) and so felt we had valuable experience in measuring service deliverables and meeting quality standards.
Our trainers were (in 2004) qualified to the level of Certificate IV Workplace Training and Assessment, and over the years, we have maintained currency to ensure we now have TAE40110 Certificate IV in Training and Assessment across our training (and administrative) professional team members.
Our systems were already geared towards meeting standards: firstly our own internal policies and procedures. ISO requires us to examine our processes and outputs to meet their quality standards, measure our compliance, improve and then measure again. So we already knew how to map policies and procedures to the relevant external standards, and where we find gaps, to remediate! This is not new. All good businesses are mindful of meeting standards as set down by various relevant regulation and legislation, depending on the type of business. I think the trick is to do it formally, measure performance on a regular basis, and then look for innovative ways to incorporate change and growth. This can then form the basis of a continuous improvement cycle.
It is not so much time-consuming as it is a discipline in staying focused on the details of effective business process and procedure. Thus the model we have established is founded on flexibility, self-evaluation and continuous improvement. So, the challenge of maintaining these two certifications within our business model has been met over the years – sometimes not easily, but always providing huge rewards, we feel, for our stakeholders.
It is very rare for organisations to hold both of these qualifications, and for more information on Registered Training Organisations, see the Australian Skills Quality Authority website at www.asqa.gov.au, and for information on ISO9001, visit http://www.saiglobal.com/Information/Standards/
