Association of Colleges

Malcolm Bond’s world is full of boxes. Hundreds of thousands of them. Curved or straight, large or small, the boxes created by the company he works for contain the computer servers that make our 21st Century world tick.

But surrounded as he is by boxes destined for Hewlett Packard, Dell, and IBM, one of the things that’s making his Plymouth factory even more successful and profitable is the thinking he does... outside the box.

As Training Manager for the electronics cabinets manufacturer Rittal-CSM, the decisions he makes have a direct effect on the morale, motivation and efficiency of the entire workforce – and those 500 people’s attitudes and output have a direct effect on the company’s bottom line.

“Two years ago, we decided to sponsor all of our employees for training up to NVQ Level 2 qualifications,” he says, surrounded by metal enclosures at the Roborough factory.

“More than 50 of them have completed it or signed up, and as new people join, we sign them up straight away.

“The advantage for us is that all NVQs have an element of health and safety, customer focus and teamwork involved. The training improves our health and safety by raising awareness, it helps to improve quality, and is a motivational tool.”

In many cases, the training was even paid for through the Government’s Train To Gain scheme, which supports training up to NVQ Level 2.

Apart from courses in welding, warehousing and distribution, manufacturing, engineering, business administration and customer service, all supported by the college, Rittal-CSM has been putting 23 of its frontline managers through a development programme leading towards an NVQ Level 3 in management.

Much of Rittal-CSM’s training is arranged through City College Plymouth – a partnership that’s working for the company’s people as well as for its profitability in a very competitive market.

The company felt its appraisals system needed updating, as those doing the assessing weren’t always singing from the same hymn sheet, with no benchmarks for them to follow or refer to.

Sending everyone to college wasn’t an option, so City College Plymouth came to them.

“We had to standardise our assessments, so in partnership with City College Plymouth we put a training programme together with their expertise and our practical experience, forms and processes.

“It was a very cost-effective way to do it,” says Malcolm. “We would have lost 60 people for half a day, and it would have taken forever because we couldn’t have released them all at the same time.

“Instead, we ran two three-hour sessions a day on three separate days, allowing candidates to attend the session best suited to their individual schedules. This gave us 100% attendance with minimum disruption and positive feedback from all.”

One of the Rittal’s most effective training methods is the “learning island” – a small, simulated assembly line, which is very inefficient, badly overstaffed, and very wasteful.

“People spend the whole day in improvement teams, looking at the assembly line critically, finding its faults, and finding ways of improving it. It’s all about communication, teamwork and involvement.

“Once back in the workplace, these employees will be involved in improvement teams aimed at making our business more productive, cost-effective and customer focused”.

“In Germany, our sister factories in the Rittal group saved half a million Euros by engaging their employees in these types of improvement activities.”

In Plymouth, training has helped some employees who lacked confidence and didn’t realise the potential they had.

‘Many employees have used their qualifications and newfound confidence to go on to more demanding roles. Our training strategy is all about developing people and engaging all our staff in moving the company forward.”

The college is always Malcolm’s first port of call for training, and its involvement has made a dramatic difference to the factory and the people who work in it, he says.

“We’re seeing improvements in areas such as on-time delivery, productivity and quality – and that always affects the bottom line. We’re saving money every day through it.”

And that, you might say, is boxing clever.

For more information see: http://www.fecolleges.co.uk

 

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