Summary
This is about disciplined reflecting on and evaluating your practice to make sure that you are providing effective and appropriate business information to clients. It is also about checking that your practice meets professional standards and identifying any improvements or developments you could make.
What you need to show
You must make sure that your practice meets the following requirements.
a Agree with clients that the business information you deliver to them is the service you agreed to deliver.
b Alter your practice to take account of any changes in:
- your relationship with the client;
- their business;
- the way your service operates; and
- business information.
c Describe and analyse the following, using valid evidence, at key points:
- your methodology;
- the relevance of the information you provided to the client and their business;
- improvements that need to be made, either by yourself or through involving others; and
- any problems that need to be resolved.
d Monitor your practice regularly to make sure that it:
- meets or exceeds acceptable professional standards;
- meets all relevant regulations and organisational guidelines; and
- is always ethical and professional towards clients.
e Get regular and useful feedback on your performance from others who are in a good position to judge it and provide you with objective and valid feedback.
f Identify improvements you could make to your practice with current and future clients.
What you need to know and understand
You need to know, understand and be able to apply each of the following.
Performance monitoring techniques
1 How to apply effective informal and formal ways of regularly and fairly monitoring the progress and quality of your own practice against the standards or level of expected performance.
2 The reasons for monitoring your own performance.
3 The importance of establishing and applying valid and appropriate measures for evaluating your own performance.
4 The limitations of self-appraisal.
5 Where and how to get constructive feedback on your performance from others (for example, through a reflective practice group or learning set, through professional supervision).
6 How the type of client and their business needs can affect your performance.
Organisational factors
7 The performance goals set by your organisation or professional body.
8 The guidelines for evaluating services set by your organisation or professional body, about:
o the conditions and measures of economy, efficiency, effectiveness, value for money and quality;
o the effect of financial and time limits on services; and
o any local or regional priorities and problems.
Personal behaviours
You need to show the following behaviours.
9 Respect the client’s need for information, commitment and confidentiality. IiP1.3
10 Prioritise and schedule to ensure optimum use of time and resource. IiP5.2
11 Strive to add value by achieving results in the best way. IiP7.1
12 Be committed to developing yourself to improve performance. IiP7.2
Links to other National Occupational Standards
There are other NOS suites which you may want to refer to if you would like to develop your knowledge and abilities to a greater depth in certain topics covered by the Business Information standards. For this unit they are:
Ento Advice and Guidance units:
AG15.1 Assess own contribution to the work of the service
AG16.1 Evaluate own practice
AG16.3 Operate within an agreed ethical code of practice
Those in a supervisory role may wish to refer to the Managements Standards Centre Management and Leadership units:
A1. Manage your own resources
A2. Manage your own resources and professional development