Understanding commercial awareness

Duration

14 guided learning hours

Purpose/scope

The purpose of this standard is to enable the delegate to develop an understanding of how stakeholder and client relationships and the monitoring and control of costs and waste contribute to making an organisation commercially successful as required by a practising or potential site supervisor.

Scope:

• the importance of stakeholder relationships in making an organisation successful
• the role of the supervisor in meeting client requirements
• the role of the supervisor in managing and controlling costs
• the role of the supervisor in minimising waste in an organisation
• how keeping records contributes to making an organisation successful

Occupational relevance

Training delivered against this standard would be relevant to the following occupational groups: supervision, management and leadership.

Delegates pre-requisites

There are no delegate pre-requisites as part of this standard.

Instruction/ supervision

As a minimum, course trainers must be able to demonstrate that, in relation to this standard, they have:

• an award in education and training (or equivalent, as per requirements for approved training organisations)
• successfully completed training to this standard (within the last 3 years)
• at least 3 years relevant industrial experience
• a verifiable CV
• knowledge of ILM VRQ learning and assessment processes (desirable)

Delivery

Delivery may be in an on or off the job environment.

All materials and equipment must be of a suitable quality and quantity for delegates to achieve learning outcomes and must comply with relevant legislation.

The class size and delegate/trainer ratio must allow training to be delivered in a safe manner and enable delegates to achieve the learning outcomes. Number of delegates not to exceed 20 per trainer.

The following delivery methods may be used in the delivery of this standard: face to face; virtual.

This standard is considered to contain 51% or more theoretical training.

This standard is considered to be set at an intermediate level.

Assessment

For the successful completion of training, delegates must complete an end of course assessment that measures all learning outcomes and meets the pass criteria for each.

The method of formal assessment considered appropriate for training delivered against this standard is by a combination of a question paper and a practical exercise.

The question paper should consist of 15 questions based on one question per assessment criteria point within learning outcomes 1-5 (excluding 4.4) with a bank of 2 sets of question papers. Delegates must achieve 75% correct answers to pass. For the avoidance of doubt there must be model answers for consistency.

Assessment of 4.4 should be assessed by a scenario based practical exercise where the delegate must demonstrate competence of the assessment criteria.

Quality assurance

Assured

Quality assurance against this standard will require initial approval of the training organisation and their content mapped to the standard.

CITB will also conduct an approval intervention, either desk-based or centre visit, to ensure the training organisation can meet the requirements of the training standard.

Approved training organisations (ATOs) will be required to present information on records of training and assessment upon request to CITB for desk-based analysis. They will also be visited annually by the CITB quality assurance team.

Renewal 

There are no mandatory renewal or recommended refresher requirements for this standard.

Classification

Lifetime (Please note standards using this classification will only be grant aided once per delegate) 

Approval date

May 2022

Review cycle

On request or 5 years from approval date

Learning outcomes

The delegate will be able to:

• explain the importance of stakeholder relationships in making an organisation successful
  • Assessment of this learning outcome must cover the delegates ability to:
    • list your key internal and external stakeholders and explain why they are important to the organisation
    • explain the role of the supervisor in maintaining good communications with stakeholders
    • explain how customer service standards and procedures are used to meet customer needs
      
      
• explain the role of the supervisor in meeting client requirements
  • Assessment of this learning outcome must cover the delegates ability to:
    • explain how the supervisor monitors client requirements
    • explain how feedback on client expectations can be used by the supervisor to improve how the business meets client requirements
      
      
• explain the role of the supervisor in managing and controlling costs
  • Assessment of this learning outcome must cover the delegates ability to:
    • explain the responsibility of the supervisor in controlling costs
    • explain two or more opportunities the supervisor has to impact on cost
    • describe the principal features of two or more mechanisms in the organisation used by the supervisor to maintain control of labour and materials costs
    • explain how the budget to build can be used as a control mechanism for managing cost
      
      
• describe the role of the supervisor in minimising waste in an organisation
  • Assessment of this learning outcome must cover the delegates ability to:
    • describe potential waste in the organisation within a detailed and appropriate context
    • describe two or more techniques and/or methods used by the supervisor for measuring and monitoring waste in the organisation
    • identify the main benefits of managing waste in the organisation
    • Assessment of this learning outcome must be via a scenario based practical exercise which covers the delegates ability to:
    • compile a simple action plan to minimise waste on site
      
      
• explain how keeping records contributes to making an organisation successful
  • Assessment of this learning outcome must cover the delegates ability to:
    • explain the purpose of record-keeping for the organisation
    • identify key information to be recorded by the supervisor to meet organisational and legal guidelines
    • explain the supervisor’s role in maintaining accurate records of the allocation of labour, plant and materials

Additional information about this standard

This training standard is derived from the ILM Level 3 in Leadership and Management Practice for the Construction and Built Environment Sector, unit 8626-302 Understanding Commercial Awareness