Brushing up on our English and Maths

The basic skills initiative developed at Morganite Electrical Carbon Ltd (MECL) in Swansea, South Wales, has been so successful, it is now being championed as a best practice case study among other employers in Wales.

The initiative, which was developed between the unions and Morgan, was designed to encourage self-development and continuous improvement among the workforce.

“As part of our training needs analysis, we sent out a questionnaire asking staff what basic skills they would like to improve”, explained Catherine Daniel, Training & Development Co-ordinator. “The overwhelming answers were literacy, numeracy and IT skills, so we brought in an agency to provide this kind of training.”

Swansea Skills Services began training 30 people in January 2005. By August of that year, 15 had already gained City & Guilds qualifications.

Catherine Daniel said: “I think the best thing is how much people have got out of it. It has given some the confidence to start other courses, including NVQs and evening classes. Others have improved their performance in the pay grades’ testing and have had pay rises as a result.”

The initiative has been visited by the Director of Basic Skills for Wales and has featured in a television news report. It is a project that is shared by Morgan and their employees jointly, with Morgan supplying the training and the employees completing it in their own time. Because it has been so successful, MECL plans to continue the initiative well into the future.

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