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Newsletters PILOT NEWS Issue No. 1 Issued: Spring 2006
In this issue:
WELCOME! Welcome to our first ever newsletter! The purpose is to keep you informed of Pilot's activities. This will include current training projects that we are undertaking at client companies as well as current and new course information. We will also try to keep you up-to-date on our current and new partnerships with F.E.colleges, what they mean to Pilot and to our customers. We plan to issue our Newsletter quarterly and to include some regular topics. We welcome stories from the companies we are working in, whether it's about new starters on courses, award presentations or even long term employees! One item which we intend to include regularly is a profile of one of our team of assessors. To give you a preview of who they are, we include a picture of them assembled for their recent Assessors' Meeting. Doubtless they are all now rushing to send in their "pen portraits" in the hope of gaining the prize of inclusion in our next issue. Pilot's Director joins L.S.C Committee Congratulations to our Managing Director, Mahmudur Jaigirdar (Jag as he's known!) for being voted onto the Management Board of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) Black Country. This followed a very rigorous assessment process which valued his experience and ability to understand the requirements of small businesses and their training needs. Jag's appointment will enable him to keep up-to-date with the very latest changes in funding provision, operational activities and educational issues. This is particularly helpful at the present time, as we expect to see significant changes in support for adult education provision over the next 12 months. The main benefits will be the ability to have the latest information on the availability of funding through new initiatives. This will enable our client companies to be confident that the best routes for obtaining the maximum support funding are being accessed for them. Organisational changes at Pilot Thanks to the support of our many existing customers we are now experiencing a level of demand far beyond our expectations of even a year ago. We have also been receiving more and more requests for a growing variety of both standard and tailored courses. This has led to an increase in the range and scope, as well as the volume of work which we have been undertaking. The upshot of all this demand has already been an increase in our staffing levels, both for assessors and for back-office staff, and a consequent increase in our internal training activity. In order for us to be able to continue to deliver our courses to the high standard to which we aspire, our Directors set in motion a thorough review of our operational procedures and the anticipated future workloads. The results are a re-alignment of duties within our office and the establishment of a new Operations Team. The changes, which became effective from January 1st, are:
Both have been with Pilot for a number of years, have established valued track records and are well respected. We wish them both continued success and look forward to them developing a robust operation which caters effectively for all our customer's future needs. The new team is to be guided and led by Ray Chrimes, who has been appointed Operations Manager. Ray joined Pilot last summer and has a wealth of valuable industrial experience at senior Director level. Our Directors are confident that this new structure will enable us to serve our clients' current and future training needs efficiently and effectively and wish the Team every success in their new roles. Exceptional successes at Thomas H. Gee & Co. Ltd. November 2005 marked the culmination of the training efforts of the whole production team at Thomas H. Gee & Co. Limited when they were presented with their City & Guilds Certificates for each successfully completing their nationally accredited, Health and Safety in the Workplace course. The presentation was made to them by their Managing Director, John Freeman. Outstanding amongst the successful group were the two Mehmood brothers, Asad and Mazhar. They had originally highlighted their limited English language skills. We therefore provided comprehensive translation support for them in their mother tongue, Punjabi. The brothers were however determined to complete their course in English. To achieve this, they took their workbooks to their night-school English classes and made frequent visits to their local library to research the subject. The result was that they were the first within the Company to complete the course. Pilot's project assessors Baldev Bhara and Raj Skanda, both attended the presentation, together with Richard Mole of the Learning and Skills Council, which is providing support funding for the training, and Pilot's Sales Manager, Graham Pegler. We have been working at Thomas H. Gee & Co. Limited, since mid. May, 2005, under the direction and with the close support of Works Manager, Alan Street. The course has been so successful that the Company is now planning to introduce assessment and training for a manufacturing qualification, again with Pilot as the chosen course provider. For more information on the above courses, see our Courses section or Contact us Aisin Europe Manufacturing (UK) Ltd Pilot IMS was invited by the Company to train and develop the workforce at its Halesowen plant, which manufactures car door frames. This was a major initiative by the Company and was well accepted by the employees who took part. Several City & Guilds courses are being run, including Performing Manufacturing Operations levels 1 & 2 and Technical Services levels 2 & 3. Participants were enrolled as students of our Franchise Partner, Dudley College. A group of 67 successful learners were awarded their City & Guilds Certificates at a series of presentations held at the Company's Woodgate premises late in 2005. The Company is proud of the achievements of its workforce and pleased with the outcomes of the training. It has since requested that we train the entire workforce in Health & Safety and also several office staff in Administration N.V.Qs. The health and safety training is currently underway with two assessors, Snita and James, based at the Company's Woodgate premises. They are expecting to complete their programme early in 2006. For more information on the above courses, see our Courses section or Contact us Health and Safety at Baggeridge Brick plc Baggeridge Brick plc is the biggest independent and 4th largest manufacturer of clay bricks and pavers in the UK, with several works in the West Midlands and one in Sussex. Last February, we were invited to run the City & Guilds 3681 Health & Safety course throughout the Company. This is a new undertaking by the Directors to invest in health and safety training for the entire workforce, which totals well over the 500 mark. Before commencing the courses, we designed workshop sessions to accompany the qualification. The first Baggeridge personnel to enter the programme were Supervisors at the various midlands works. To demonstrate their heightened safety awareness, they were grouped into small teams and invited to use the workshop sessions to produce detailed proposals for improving one aspect of health and safety within their works. These were required to be genuine, realistic, costed and time-framed plans, with the support of the Baggeridge Directors, who decided to implement each suggested improvement. One example already in place is the barrier gate system protecting pedestrians from the moving dryer cars at the Kingsbury Works. The training programme is now being rolled out to the remaining workforce. Everyone involved is first enrolled at a College of Further Education: Dudley College for the midlands factories and Crawley College for the Rudgewick Works in Sussex. This arrangement ensures that Pilot's delivery of the course anywhere in the country is held at City & Guilds' required, consistently high standard. In addition to the direct improvements in safety practice, the Company has the satisfaction that it is meeting its legal obligations regarding both the induction of new staff and the safety training of all current employees. Our programme is thus already proving its worth and bringing real benefits to the Company as well as increased safety to its workforce. For more information on the above courses, see our Courses section or Contact us "Seeing is believing": an update on our Media and Filming activities Our state of the art Media section last year completed bespoke DVD films for several companies throughout the country. These cover manufacturing processes, health & safety requirements and also company history and overviews. They are being used for a variety of tasks, including induction for new and current employees, operational training and for internal and external promotions. The films can typically run from 3 to 20 minutes depending on the company requirements. They can be subdivided so that individual sections can be concentrated on for emphasis. These professionally produced films have not only had voiceovers (sometimes recorded by the client's own staff) included but have also incorporated a music soundtrack. If any reader would like to see a sample of our products or to discuss a possible application, we will be delighted to hear from you. For more information on the above, see our "What we do" section or Contact us Our courses are in good health - Modifications to the delivery of Health & Safety training We are now offering a range of workshop sessions to compliment the City & Guilds 3681 Health & Safety in the Workplace course. These workshops are designed to meet the needs of two levels of the workforce, managers and Supervisors and for shop floor candidates. The programme covers all aspects of health & safety. This includes legal requirements, COSHH, fire, handling accidents, manual handling, PPE, risk assessments and working conditions. For supervisors and managers the programme includes greater detail and a practical project proposing potential improvements, as described in the separate Baggeridge Brick article above. These new group workshops help to provide the knowledge requirement of the 3681 Health and Safety course. They also aid learning for those who have long since left school. The workshop sessions run to date have been well received by both the candidates and their managers, with improvements in accident statistics to prove it. And they give the employer peace of mind in that the legal obligations regarding employees' health and safety awareness are being addressed. For more information on the above courses, see our Courses section or Contact us New Customer Service and Administration Courses Due to the increase of interest by the managers of our client companies, we have now introduced these two new City & Guilds qualifications,. They are proving to be an excellent way for office staff, who are regularly left behind in personal development by other training providers, to gain relevant and valued qualifications. Both courses follow the powerful NVQ process of focussing on the learners' current work activities and performance against their company's required standards. Qualifications are available at both levels 2 and 3, with the Level 3 looking at the supervisory and management aspects. For further information see our contact details on the back page. For more information on the above courses, see our Courses section or Contact us STOP PRESS: Jag. features in Express and Star article Observant readers of the above publication will have seen Jag's appointment to the LSC Black Country Management Board mentioned on Monday, 12th December 2005. This adds to his enviable list of media exposure, which includes an interview on a regional programme for BBC 2 shown during last summer. |
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