Our work for employers covers a very wide range. To give you a taste of what we have helped companies and individuals to achieve, we have included a number of Case Studies.

Case Study: Ikea

The College were approached by the HR Manager of Ikea who was trying to source a basic electrical awareness course to address health and safety requirements for their display staff, who often had to deal with small electrical appliances (lamps etc) when dressing their windows. The Business Development department worked closely with the electrical curriculum area and Ikea's maintenance manager to design a bespoke course which met the needs of the Company.

A proposal was put forward by the College, outlining the proposed competencies, prices, venue etc for approval by Ikea. The course competencies were amended slightly at the request of the employer to include some practical tasks such as changing and wiring plugs that would prove useful in the employees' job role. The required adjustments were made to the programmes and the course went ahead and was delivered to 12 employees.

Case Study: Culina Logistics (Part of Muller Group, 650 staff employed over 3 sites) 

The initial enquiry was for a specialist Distance Learning programme in Logistics for 6 warehouse employees.  The Company had identified a need to increase retention rates of warehouse operational staff and aimed to do this by developing progression opportunities to team leaders/management for this identified group of employees. A College business adviser visited the company to discuss their needs, conduct a training needs analysis and to offer advice on how they could aim to meet the Company's long term strategic objectives. 

Employee ‘open sessions' held on site across all shifts for employees to discuss training and development opportunities, progression opportunities and how they could move forward in their career with the Company. This led to over 70 staff enrolling on NVQ programmes in Warehousing and Distribution across all shift patterns. A College assessor was based on site for advice and guidance and to capture maximum opportunity for assessment visits. On review of outcomes with the company and feedback from the employer survey showed that company retention rates of warehouse staff had improved following the delivery of the training solution and warehouse staff applied and were successful in their applications for team leader posts.

Following this early success, Culina asked the College to work with them on staff recruitment of a high proportion of temporary staff with ESOL needs. As the individuals worked shifts the College were flexible and arranged initial assessments to identify their needs at appropriate times including day and night. The College piloted an ESOL programme focusing on individual's language skills related to health and safety and company policy and procedures with 15 learners. The company gave the incentive that if they achieved the required standards of English within 3 months they would be offered a permanent contract (14 of the 15 took up permanent contracts). All of the 14 progressed to Warehouse and Distribution NVQ qualifications and one is currently training as a Team Leader. 

The College deepened the relationship by working with Culina to look at strategies for improving management skills of team leaders, many of whom had been promoted with few supervisory skills. A bespoke training programme was delivered to meet both company objectives and give a formal qualification (NVQ) to 12 staff. This led to an overhaul of the company appraisal scheme, where NVQ standards were linked into staff competencies.

Feedback from Culina Logistics states;

‘Staff are now being trained and promoted from within the company', this has helped on reputation for recruitment as an employer, has had a vast improvement on retention and increased staff motivation. It has also helped instigate a company appraisal scheme which had not previously existed'.

Case Study: Bucks Fire Service

The College was contacted by a South East Skills Broker with regard to IT training for fire fighters in Bucks Fire Service. The Fire Service wanted to explore the possibility of IT training being delivered across a number of fire stations to officers while they were on duty as they are unable to leave the station.

As they had been approached by 3 different providers the FBU asked that they all prepared a formal presentation, to enable them to decide who would be the best provider. The College was chosen as the preferred provider due to the flexibility of delivery and the ability to set up mobile ICT classroom facilities in fire stations mess rooms, consisting of 12 laptops with wireless networking, printer and projector.

A programme for nine fire fighters training towards NVQ 2 ITQ under the Train to Gain programme was piloted at one fire station. This programme using the same mobile facilities is now being rolled out across several other fire stations in the Bucks area.

Case Study: Unitrans

Unitrans, a large logistics employer approached the College after receiving a mail shot from the College advertising Train to Gain programmes. A visit was made to them by the Head of Business Development to discuss training needs in relation to the company's business objectives and was followed up by a formal presentation to the management team.

The Company had only a small training budget, but had identified amongst other requirements, a need to improve skill levels for staff working within the customer service department and the warehouse in order to improve their customer service levels. The company were sent a proposal offering several options that would have met their training requirements in order to meet their overall objectives. Due to limited budget the company requested staff to follow the NVQ route in Customer Service under the Train to Gain programme.

The proposal was amended to reflect this, but after discussion between Unitrans and the College, it was decided that some additional bespoke training needed to be bolted on to the NVQ to enable more in depth underpinning knowledge of customer service values. A final proposal was put to the customer and accepted. Training has now commenced for 12 employees and all have attended the bespoke workshops while working towards their NVQ. A further cohort of 5 employees will be commencing training along the same route in September 2008.

Case Study: Caton House

The College has a long term relationship with Caton House delivering both NVQs in Health and Social Care and a number of distance learning programmes. Due to new mandatory ‘End of Life' training requirements for care staff being introduced by CSki, the company approached us requesting that we provide a distance learning programme in Palliative Care. The College with the support of ‘Tribal', a distance learning materials provider, introduced the NCFE accredited programme in 2008.  Caton House enrolled 18 employees on this programme between May and June 2008. Feedback in relation to this course is that it has been ‘excellent' and has ‘enabled us to meet mandatory care standards and improve the care service to our clients'.

Case Study - Spectrum for Arcadia

The company had problems with newly appointed team leaders who did not have the necessary basic skills to carry out their job roles effectively. The Head of Business Development and a curriculum specialist worked with the company to design and develop a bespoke literacy programme embedded within a series of ‘Introduction to Management' workshops. These workshops would effectively deliver the required basic skills elements required but would also deliver some of the underpinning knowledge for general management skills.

On completion of the programme, a review meeting between the College and the company was held to evaluate the outcome, ensure customer satisfaction with the delivery and to use the opportunity to generate more business. The company decided that as the programme had been so successful it would be repeated with another group of team leaders from other areas of the company. It was also identified during this review process that the they required the first group of team leaders to progress to the NVQ Level 2 in Team Leading as this would be of benefit to both the employees and the company in meeting both personal and company objectives. The College was able to assist the company in setting up and delivering this programme, and obtain funding for the learners under the Level 2 Entitlement initiative.

Case Study - Men in Childcare

The aim of the programme is to attract men into a career in to Early Years childcare offering them free training and support into the workforce in order to meet identified skills shortages in the sector and to address gender imbalance within the workforce. The project was set up as a partnership in Milton Keynes between local employers, Milton Keynes College and the Early Years Partnership and funded with ESF monies and through the social inclusion partnership. 

The project commenced in 2007 in Milton Keynes with 11 men who were looking to change their career path into the early Years sector. Through collaborative work with employers and the organising or employer awareness events, all of the learners were attached to employers for work placements and possible employment at the end of the programme.

Training and skills delivered to the learners were designed to ensure that they met the requirements for working in the sector and included additional skills, including literacy and numeracy at a level required for working in the sector.

At the end of the first programme 8 men from the original 11 are now qualified and working full time in the sector. Feedback from both learners and employers has been excellent and the programme were successful in winning a ‘Specialists Health Care Award' in 2008 for outstanding achievement and commitment to the industry. Due to the success of the programme it has now expanded and 24 men will be commencing the programme in September 2008.