The ISO 10015+ certified QA system is well received by many business executives and CEOs because they can now rely on their training system to deliver expected competence development of their staff which in turn helps sustain the company’s performance capability.

The ISO 10015+ certified QA system ensures an effective impact of training investment on organizational performance. It helps to elevate the T&D (Training and Development) approach to a level fitting with financial management and indirectly facilitates the change of HR from traditional training to a business-impact function. An ISO 10015+ certified QA system supports an organisation’s effort in quantifying and converting people-management results into dollars. CEOs and business executives can then feel confident that the training function will deliver learning which is seamless with the performance requirements of the business.

The challenge for the executives however, is that they need to become learning partners of the HR and training department and support them in developing the human capital resource of the organisation.

AdeQuaTE 10015 offers a structure of organizing in-company training in private and public institutions in an efficient and effective manner. Most importantly, AdeQuaTE 10015 connects training with the performance management system of an organisation and contributes to the overall performance and competitiveness of the company.

In contrast to the traditional perspective and approach of training management which focuses on the individual learning and development, AdeQuaTE 10015 integrates both organisational learning and development with individual learning and development. Such a dual focus approach to training allows the organisation to ensure that training budgets spent do not only enable individuals fulfill their personal aspirations and career goals but also help facilitate the attainment of an organisation’s strategic objectives. In this way, HR assumes a strategic role in the management of organisation’s performance and business success.

AdeQuaTE 10015 provides a “royal” highway to demonstrate the economics of training. It offers a systematic way in tracking training activities and in making sure that performance matrics are included in the training design and are used to measure success of training inputs at the end of the training process. Therefore, it is no longer insurmountable for Human Resources to assess Return on Training Investments (ROI) and to identify avenues for improving its working methods and procedures so as to increase its ROI for training.

AdeQuaTE 10015 QA system should please many HRD professionals because they now can do the training design process without excluding any steps and prepare for a training approach that is sensible and logical and hence also comprehensible for non-training enterprise staff.

AdeQuaTE 10015 QA system should please many HRD professionals because they now can do the training design process without excluding any steps and prepare for a training approach that is sensible and logical and hence also comprehensible for non-training enterprise staff.

It is based on pedagogical and managerial principles and aims to increase return on training investment. Training and development is mainstreamed into HR strategy and business operations through a “fact-based” decision-making methodology. AdeQuaTE 10015 based training sustains the value of the core asset of an organisation – the talents and motivation of people.

Only a licensed Lead Auditor for this Standard can correctly inform others about AdeQuaTE 10015 and perform AdeQuaTE 10015+ certification audit. AdeQuaTE® offers for instance a Lead Auditor training through SGS in Taiwan.

The USPs of AdeQuaTE 10015 are:

1. It is a third-party based audit, hence transparent, objective and neutral. Peer review, which is the approach of EFQM, can be biased due to over indulgent self reporting .
2. It covers solely the core elements of an effective and high performance training system. Therefore AdeQuaTE 10015 is economical and easy to operate while EFQM can be more laborious and cumbersome as its scope is much broader.
3. The structured tracking system of AdeQuaTE 10015+ supports a scientific approach to training management and continuous improvement.
4. It requires clear commitment to evaluation of training and ensures alignments between training units and line management and between training investments with business strategies (Figure 1).

The ISO 10015 Quality Standard for Training is a sector specific quality assurance system. It focuses on training processes at the workplace. It was developed by a group of experts from twenty-five ISO member countries and became available to the public in the year 2000.

AdeQuaTE 10015 is a standard that is easily understandable for organisations used to ISO related Quality instrument since it is based on the process oriented concepts of the new 9000:2000 ISO family of standards.

AdeQuaTE 10015 complements ISO 9001:2000 Standard and further elaborates on the clause 6.2.2 — “Awareness, Competence and Training” and gives clear guidance for its implementation. Compared with ISO 9001, AdeQuaTE 10015 offers three main advantages namely:

1. Being sector specific, that is oriented towards workplace learning and training design, the standard offers organisations specific guidance in aligning their training investment with their business objectives; and
2. Offering a clear roadmap for analysing the performance gaps at the organisational level and in making related training investment decisions;
3. Providing state of the art guidelines in managing the training operation so that efficiency and effectiveness could be attained.

AdeQuaTE®, the Academy for Quality in Training and Education in Geneva, specialises in quality assurance of training systems and is the only certification body in the world based on the AdeQuaTE 10015 Standard. 

It means that they want to install an effective and efficient training system that will allow them to develop their core competences needed to support business objectives and to sustain competitive advantage. While India is increasingly facing talent crunch and companies have to spend much more resources in retaining and rewarding its competent staff, a third party certified AdeQuaTE 10015+ training system would help companies accelerate the process from learning to application at the work site, enhance the benefits of internal development of talents and to reduce misuse and of valuable training resources.

AdeQuaTE 10015+ Certification also means excellence in training system management. While knowledge has become one of the key ingredients, an AdeQuaTE 10015+ certified system signifies to the customers, employees and the market alike that the organisation is serious in its effort to develop its people as the most important asset.

There are different standard addressing the issue of quality management in the education and training setting. AdeQuaTE 10015 offers the most comprehensive and “demand” or customer driven approach. Instead of focusing on the supply side of the quality improvement, AdeQuaTE 10015 ensures training service providers will align the curriculum development, choice of pedagogy and evaluation criteria for success to the strategic and performance objective of the organisation, as well as the needs of the trainees.

A summary is available here

There are two requirements to be fulfilled – one technical and another procedural. The technical side is that the company/organization needs to set up a training quality assurance system (consisting for instance of a T-QMS manual) in accordance to the AdeQuATE 10015 standard and AdeQuaTE Certification Requirements (AdeQuATE 10015+). The procedural aspects means that the company’s T-QMS needs to be certified through an external audit (third party audit). In this case, the external auditor is AdeQuaTE®.

There are three possible scopes of certification. They are:

1. Training products/programmes – This scope covers specific training products that have been quality assured, such as a safety training programme or a performance feedback training programme.
2. Training management system – This scope covers the totality of a training system within an organisation that is all training being conducted in an organisation whether this be from the HR/Training department or within different business units.
3. Training function/ service /department/unit – This scope covers the training department within an organisation such as corporate university, or enterprise training center. This scope can also cover the stand alone training entities that provide training services to the market.

The benefits of obtaining AdeQuATE 10015+ certification include: Contributes to the retention of key talents and their career development Translates training investment into productivity gains and performance dollars Sustains the proper functioning of a “fact-based” T&D system Connects training to day-to-day operational needs and strategic objectives

AdeQuATE 10015 Standard is organised around two key principles. The first principle is that it helps organisations identify performance gaps. The second principle is that it ensures that the process used to address the performance gap through training is done adequately and appropriately. In general, these principles have been around for a relatively long time.

According to the State of Industry Report put out by the ASTD, American Society for Training and Development, most of the companies except the companies known for their excellence, tend not to implement the best practices of training management. Therefore adoption of ISO 10015 training management system is important because it will help ensure that BOTH line managers and training managers participate in applying best practices to corporate training and human resource development.

The critical question is whether HRD professionals are actually aligning their work according to these principles and whether they are able to carry out these principles. Thus, AdeQuATE 10015 is important because it helps ensure that managers remain committed to applying the best practices of organisation-focused training.

Yes, AdeQuATE 10015+ can be applied within the SMEs. The size of the company does not affect the utility and applicability of the AdeQuATE 10015+. However, comparing to the large companies, SMEs tend to outsource their training . Therefore, the AdeQuATE 10015+ based training system within the SMEs will focus more on how to procure smartly so that they get what they want from various training vendors.

By applying AdeQuATE 10015+ ,SME’s training quality system give more weight to defining the training needs and in evaluating the training outcome and monitoring the service provided by external training providers. These actions are meant to ensure proper ROI for the training expenses of SMEs.

AdeQuATE 10015+ Standard is suited for both organisations where there is a lack of systematic approach to training and for those organisations which are in need of new ways to create value through human capital investment.

An ISO 10015+ system requires a training plan which is aligned to the business objectives of the organization. This alignment requires documented proof (analysis and data), not just management declaration or intentions. Documented proof needs to follow a standardised diagnostic analysis as depicted in the Figure 1 of the AdeQuATE 10015+ Standard. Therefore, AdeQuATE 10015+ creates values that can be traced to productivity gains, reduced down times, improved service quality at the collective (team, department or organizational) levels.

AdeQuaTE®, the Academy for Quality in Training and Education in Geneva, specialises in quality assurance of training systems and is the only government accredited certification body in the world based on the ISO 10015 Standard.

In 2003, AdeQuaTE® received its full accreditation from the Swiss Accreditation Services, a Swiss Government Body mandated to accredit Swiss-based certification and registration body and was given the registration number SCES 081.

So far, no other accredited body provides ISO 10015 based certification and registration services

AdeQuATE 10015+ in principle is applicable to all sizes of companies. However, from the investment point of view, the SMEs might find it expensive relative to the actual budget and expenditure that they spend per year on training.

From the HR function point of view, SMEs normally do not have a fully equipped HR department. They tend to buy in training and ensure competence through on-the-job mentoring. Therefore, AdeQuATE 10015+ system is more easily adopted by the larger companies and MNCs where human capital investment is substantial.

China was one of the first countries that adopted AdeQuATE 10015+ standard in 2001 as a national standard and made it a working requirement for Chinese training institutions affiliated with the economic sector. Heier Group company, a Chinese company with a revenue of 1.6 billion USD in 2005, is one of three companies in China that have obtained AdeQuATE 10015+ certification by AdeQuaTE®. The other two companies are JAC Automobile Company Ltd. and Shanghai Telecom Company (Nanhui Branch).

The most recent company that achieved AdeQuATE 10015+ certification and registration is Ernst and Young Bahrain.

In other countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Switzerland, Taiwan and USA, AdeQuATE 10015+ certification work and training of lead auditors have started. Some leading Swiss companies in the financial services have gone through pre-audits and are in the process of finalising their preparation for certification.

From our experience, most companies took about six to nine months in order to establish the AdeQuATE 10015+ based training quality assurance system. At the final end, the length of time needed in order to set up a complete AdeQuATE 10015+ system and develop the requisite QMS documentation will depend on the size of the company and the maturity of its training management system.

It is advised that at least one internal audit shall take place prior to the on-site certification audit.

The duration of the on-site visit depends very much on the size of the company. No matter what size of the company, AdeQuaTE® tries to conduct on-site audits within a maximum duration of three days at one location.

If a large organisation prefers fast auditing processes, AdeQuaTE® can add more auditors to its auditing team in order to complete the audit within the requested three day time parameters.