Skillstories

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Business Drivers

Moy Park has identified some employees, even those who recently completed full-time education, who have literacy and numeracy problems, which has affected their competence with various tasks. These tasks include reading labels, weighing ingredients, understanding dates for 'best before' labels. Moy Park needs to ensure that operatives are suitably skilled for their job and are employed in the areas appropriate to their skills.

“Literacy, numeracy and communication are very important aspects of our industry and society, which in the past have either been taken for granted or neglected. Our people have a right to this basic skill. I am very proud of the team members who are all volunteers for the programme. It is essential in this increasingly global market place that we have the best team in order to compete, investing in our people, giving them the opportunity to improve themselves, will continue to underpin out future development plans. With the success of this programme we will now be rolling it out to our other sites.” Trefor Campbell Non-Executive Chairman of Moy Park

Implementation

The Chairman supported the programmes in Northern Ireland, providing senior level leadership in workplace learning. Essential skills are now tested after recruitment, during the induction stage. It is not used in the recruitment process to remove candidates of a particular skill level. Tutors have found it is better to start any learning programme as soon as possible after assessment. At the beginning, the programme was a pilot scheme of 3 hours a week for the employee in conjunction with the Upper Bann Institute, the local further education college. Now there is a full-time teacher at the Craigavon site with a part time tutor at the Dungannon site, teaching after, before and during shifts. The training is also now linked to IT training, with employees often more interested in IT training. Participation on the programme is open to all and employees participate on a purely voluntary basis. Employees are given permission to attend classes during their shift. The majority avail of this opportunity while a few prefer to attend outside working hours to avoid drawing attention to their participation in the programme. In a typical week 70 people will be involved in classes. People are assessed on entry and gaps identified in their capabilities which is mapped to the curriculum.

Partners

• Upper Bann Institute • Improve – Sector Skills Council • East Tyrone College, Dungannon

Impact

• Over 1,000 employees have now benefited from the scheme since its introduction • External qualifications have recently been introduced ranging from Entry 2 to Level 1 City & Guilds. So far 8 achievers have gained qualifications in ICT, 20 for literacy and 20 for numeracy. • Improvements – the company has endeavoured to correlate improvements in productivity and product safety with the essential skills programme. In fact this cause and effect relationship has been difficult to prove even though we intuitively believe it exists. In a dynamic manufacturing environment there are so many other influences on productivity and product safety. • Improvements – employee confidence. Improvements in employee confidence are demonstrated by the increased flexibility of employees who have benefited from the essential skills. For example they are willing and able to undertake job related tasks which require more skill such as using keyboards and filling in reports. With these skills they can rotate their role during a shift which keeps the job more interesting. As a result they are inclined to be more interested in their job and remain with the company for longer. • English and Maths learning is offered as part of the induction programme for new employees. • Moy Park needs to ensure that operatives are suitably skilled for their job and are employed in the areas appropriate to their skills. This programme has helped improve in areas such as: - reading labels, weighing ingredients, understanding dates for 'best before' labels, etc. • Learning programmes have led employees onto further learning such as NVQs, intermediate health and hygiene and other business related qualifications. • Employees have volunteered in the Quick Reads programme from the Learning and Skills Development Agency and participated in the associated research.