Managing your tripartite relationship

Learn more about managing your tripartite relationship between you, your employer apprentice mentor and workplace tutor.

Who’s in your tripartite relationship

Whilst you are completing your apprenticeship, you’ll engage in a ‘tripartite relationship’ which includes:

• You – the apprentice.
• Your employer apprentice mentor – this is someone at your workplace who supports you whilst you are on your training.  NOTE this may not be your line manager.
• Your workplace or academic tutor – a colleague from NTU who works closely with the course team and supports your learning.

The tripartite relationship needs to be treated with respect and should focus on your needs as an apprentice. This relationship, particularly the one between you and your employer mentor, is critical to making the most of the opportunities in the workplace.

Top tips for managing the tripartite relationship

Establish ground rules

All parties are required to complete the progress review form in preparation for the meeting. This form will be the basis for your discussions. One way in which the relationship can fail is if one or more attendees at the meeting fails to prepare.

Set meetings in advance

All members of the tripartite relationship will be busy, therefore it is best practice to arrange your meetings in advance. This enables each person to prepare for the meeting. Best practice is to hold regular meetings with your employer mentor in between review meetings (at least once every two weeks) to discuss your progress and update the actions on the review form. We recommend allocating at least two hours per month for this activity.

Be honest and open

Discuss any current issues or barriers to progress; your employer apprentice mentor and/or workplace/academic tutor will not be able to support you if they don’t know there is something preventing your progress.

Build sustainable improvements, not quick fixes

Use the progress review meetings to exchange views and ideas. Don’t just look for the simple solutions to a problem as this approach rarely enables you to deal with similar issues in the future.

What to do if the tripartite relationship breaks down

Hopefully, you will find yourself in a supportive tripartite relationship that is rewarding for all parties. However, occasionally the tripartite relationship can encounter difficulties despite everyone’s best efforts.

Things to look out for include:

• meetings are cancelled / or rearranged at the last minute or someone fails to attend,
• a member of the group consistently fails to make progress in actions identified in meetings,
• a member appears distracted in meetings or leaves early.

The following steps may help if you feel that the tripartite relationship is at risk:

1. Get feedback: Ask your employer apprentice mentor and/or workplace/academic tutor for feedback on how they are finding the progress review process. It might be that they think everything is going well or that they have similar concerns. Once you have the information, you can decide how best to proceed.
2. Acknowledge the issue openly: If you feel something isn’t working with the arrangement, raise your concerns. Try to give factual examples of how/why you think the relationship is breaking down, for example, several meetings have been cancelled at the last minute. Explore whether there are steps that can be taken to get the relationship working more effectively.
3. End the tripartite relationship constructively: Some tripartite relationships don’t work out. Make sure you work with your employer and/or university to identify an alternative.