cleaners
• community leaders
• co-tutors
• council staff
• counsellors
• customers
• e-learning staff
• emergency service personnel
• exam invigilators
• financial support staff
• government officials
• governors
• guest speakers
• health and safety officers
• health care professionals
• human resource staff
• journalists inspectors
• internal and external quality assurers
• language translators
• learner/learning support assistants
• maintenance staff
• managers
• mental health staff
• other teachers and trainers
• other training organisation staff
• probation officers
• religious leaders
• reprographics staff
• security staff
• safeguarding officers
• staff development personnel
• social workers
• supervisors
• support workers
• teaching assistants
• technicians
• union staff
• witnesses in the workplace
• work-placement co-ordinators.
When communicating with other people, it’s best to be polite, remain professional, and treat everyone with respect, no matter how they treat you. This should be by whatever method you use, i.e. telephone, email, in person or via online face-to-face communications. You will want to build up a good reputation; therefore you should try not to let any personal issues or problems affect your role. You might not yet know about all the different people who can help you; therefore you will need to find out who they are and how you can contact them. There might be an organisation chart you can locate to see who does what and how the lines of communication work.
It would be useful to understand a little bit about the job roles of the people you will work with the most. This would help you to know how they can support you, and how you can support them. However, don’t feel you need to support them too much by carrying out aspects of their role for them, otherwise you might be blurring the boundary between your own professional role and theirs.
Activity
How will your role involve you working with other professionals? Make a list of those who you might work with who are internal, and external, to your organisation. It might be useful to ascertain and keep a note of their contact details for when you need to get in touch.
Examples of working with other professionals might include (in alphabetical order):
• attending team meetings and contributing towards issues under discussion
• communicating with administrative staff to ensure that your learners have been registered with the relevant awarding organisation for a particular qualification
• contacting companies to purchase or hire equipment, resources and materials
• getting handouts photocopied by the reprographics department to ensure they are ready in time
• liaising with an internal quality assurer to enable them to sample your work, and/or an external quality assurer from an awarding organisation
• liaising with learning support staff to address individual learner needs
• liaising with the caretaker to ensure the room and/or building is open when you start and secure when you leave
• obtaining technical support when using equipment you are not familiar with
• talking to a learner’s supervisor or a witness in their place of work to gain feedback regarding their progress and achievement
• team-teaching or co-tutoring with other members of staff, i.e. planning who will do what and when.
You might experience some issues and need to know who to turn to. You should never feel you have to resolve a situation on your own; there should be others who can help you if necessary. There might be occasions where you are teaching a session in a venue or a building away from the main premises. If this is the case, it would be useful to know who you could contact and how you can contact them in case of an emergency. Having a mobile phone with you, with contact details saved in advance, would be useful.
You might have other roles besides teaching which involve working with others. For example, attending promotional events and conferences, or visiting learners who are taking part in a work placement. If so, always remember you are representing your organisation and should uphold its values and act professionally at all times.
Example
Frieda, an experienced teacher, attended a conference regarding new developments in her subject area of electronics. Although she attended on her day off, she still dressed smartly and wore her name badge. She was polite to everyone she met and ensured she networked with others during the day. She came away with lots of information and the business cards of others she had met. When she returned to her organisation, she produced a report about what she had learnt for her manager and colleagues. She also arranged to demonstrate some practical electronic skills to the staff in her department.
In this example, Frieda maintained her professionalism even though she had attended the conference on her day off.
At some point, you might need to liaise with people who are external to your organisation. For example:
• auditors and inspectors if you are assessing qualifications
• employers and supervisors if you are training and assessing in the workplace
• parents and guardians if you are teaching younger learners
• visiting
