Assessors

Only assessors who have undergone training, development and quality assurance by emqc Ltd are registered as matrix assessors. They can easily be identified by their official matrix registration card and inclusion on this website. Assessors are allocated by emqc Ltd to your organisation, based on a number of criteria; this includes ensuring that expenses are kept to a minimum.

If you are already accredited to the Standard or are having a review, often you will be allocated the assessor you have previously worked with, however if this is not your preference then you will need to contact us to let us know. Once emqc Ltd have processed the booking for your assessment we will let you know who your allocated assessor is. Search here for your assessor if you would like to know a little about them before they contact you.

The activities that your assessor will undertake with you can be broken down into four key areas as described below.

Planning

It is the assessor's role to ensure that they plan your assessment with you effectively. They will ensure that you have sufficient opportunity to show, tell and let your assessor see how you plan, do and review your organisation and its service against the requirements of the matrix Standard. The output of this activity is a formal 'assessment plan' that the assessor will send to you.

Ultimately your assessor will use interviews as the focus of evidence collection and as such your assessment will be planned to include a selection and diverse range of people. This will include one-to-one interviews with managers, group interviews with clients/staff/volunteers and telephone interviews with partner organisations.

It is still helpful for assessors to have a tour of your facilities and as an example you may wish to invite your assessor to experience a team planning meeting.

As well as the above activity your assessor will also build in time during your assessment to undertake an opening and closing meeting at the beginning and end of each day, and a final feedback meeting at the end of your assessment.

Assessing and Making Decisions

There are often situations that are beyond anyone's control, for example someone being late for an interview. Your assessor will work with you and remain flexible throughout your assessment. It is however your assessor's responsibility to ensure they gain sufficient evidence in order for them to be able to make a decision.

During your assessment, your assessor will be in constant communication with you about how things are going to avoid any unnecessary surprises, and they will give you as many opportunities as possible for you to provide them with the answers they are looking for.

Feedback & Recommendations

At the end of the last day of your assessment your assessor will undertake a final feedback meeting with you. You can invite as many or as few people to this meeting as you wish, however we would recommend that senior managers are present. At this meeting your assessor will provide you with their final decision and discuss with you areas that they believe are working well within your organisation, areas that would benefit from improvements and, if appropriate, areas that need to further develop and improve in order to meet all the requirements of the matrix Standard.

This feedback will be tailored and specific to your organisation and will be supportive and developmental. This part of the assessor's role is where organisations receive the most benefit:

"clients have risen from 600 to 1446 (59% increase) since we adopted our assessor's recommendations" Voluntary and Community Organisation'.

The feedback that your assessor provides will also be formally confirmed in your final report. For information on the assessment process please click here.