Countryside Residential
Countryside has worked closely with its employees to formulate a raft of initiatives designed to reduce staff turnover and increase the number of graduates and young people joining the company. The management team were keen not to force changes on employees and formed internal focus groups of volunteers who suggested their own ways of improving departments. The directors then implemented the best suggestions into a series of training and development schemes. At the heart of the initiative is a menu of 37 training schemes and regular training and performance appraisals. New staff are informed of the schemes during induction and are given an in-depth tour of the company. A twice-yearly staff newsletter, who's who directory and intranet also foster a company identity. Changes are ongoing and the company has recently employed a careers manager to implement a training scheme for graduates and school leavers. With staff levels rising from 450 to 1000 in five years Countryside realises good training programmes are no longer a luxury but essential to ride out the current skills shortage.
Second
Westbury Homes
In deciding to set up its Space4 housing factory from scratch Westbury Homes has set itself the task of retraining many of its workers. The judges were impressed by the way it tackled the challenge through training partnerships. It has commissioned the Construction Industry Training Board to design and run training schemes and is establishing implementation teams. It is piloting e-learning modules with the University of West of England and a HBF project management qualification with Reading University. Westbury now has 20 training courses and a development centre that fast-tracks its most promising employees. A graduate training programme has also taken on 25 graduates in two years.
I would want to work for them. There’s an opportunity to train and to learn, and it has terrific commitment from the top
Source
Building Homes