Case Study Shaped to fit
The Isle of Wight Council currently employs approximately 3,500 people. It is committed to staff training and has achieved both the Go Award and signed the Skills Pledge.
The Council is in the process of carrying out a full skills audit to identify staff that would benefit from additional training. To date, the audit has revealed that staff at Level 1 are experiencing problems with basic maths, including fractions, percentages, ratios and statistics.
To assist people in increasing their skill levels, awareness-raising workshops were held for staff at various council venues, supported by Unison Learning Reps and the Isle of Wight College. This identified 68 staff that would benefit from support and they were signposted to the local FE college. Unfortunately, none of them took up the offer of Skills for Life classes, so in response, the Council’s Adult, Community and Family Learning Service contacted them to arrange bespoke programmes in the workplace through a Train to Gain contract, which were a great success.
To celebrate the achievements of those taking part in the training, an event was held in the Council Chamber and the Council’s Chief Executive presented the first training certificates to staff. During the event, the Council’s commitment to the Skills Pledge was refreshed.
The success of Skills for Life at the Isle of Wight Council was largely down to the commitment of heads of service who promoted the training opportunities to their staff and word of mouth among staff who had completed training programmes.
The scheme was widely publicised throughout the Council with campaign posters in every office and business cards promoting training opportunities distributed around schools, leisure centres and health centres.
BUSINESS BENEFITS • Improved interest and productivity in work section.
• Improved motivation for use of mathematics/numeracy in workplace.
• Improved job prospects – several promotions and all redeployed. • Improved communication skills through increased self-esteem. • Greater interest in further study and upgrading qualifications.
INDIVIDUAL BENEFITS
• Staff who were facing redundancy and completing numeracy qualifications have been redeployed within the Council or have new jobs elsewhere.
During the skills audit, the council’s Leisure Service approached the team for assistance. Through the personal development review process they identified staff without Level 2 qualifications and hoped to organise additional training. The Skills for Life team arranged talks and presentations at the leisure centres and began teaching sessions, taking into account shift working patterns.
• All learners with numeracy qualification have benefited from gain in self-esteem and greater self-confidence.
• Learning assistants have greater ability to help pupils in schools, using improved mathematical skills.
• New and improved techniques for financial skills when running a team.
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