Wiltan in Pontypool – putting the Employer Pledge scheme into action

Wiltan is the biggest manufacturer of transformer cores, both in the UK and possibly in Europe. The company despatches its cores all over the world for use in products used by the film and television industry, in mobile phones, hi-fi music equipment, scanners, railway signaling equipment and high voltage applications.

Wiltan produces cores in all sizes, from those that can sit in the palm of the hand, to cores weighing over a ton. The manufacturing processes and the machinery used are both complex. Most of the company’s machines are computer-driven, and depend on accurate data entry to ensure a quality product that fits the individual specification of the buyer. The order forms are full of numbers – sizes in centimetres or millimetres, weights in grams or tons – and it is essential that the 48 employees understand these orders and fulfill them to the finest degree of accuracy. Wiltan signed up to the Employer Pledge in March 2006 and since then has offered its employees a wide range of courses aimed at improving basic skills. The courses have proved popular with staff – with half of Wiltan’s shop floor staff signing up for training. Course tutors and laptop computers are provided by Torfaen Adult Basic Skills (Tabs) whilst Wiltan provides a teaching room and releases employees for 1½ hours per week to attend the 2 hour sessions (the extra half an hour is the employee’s time).

Alison Itani, one of Wiltan’s Directors, is clear that the opportunities provided through the Employer Pledge make a difference both to the company and to individual employees. The Company struggled in the past to employ appropriately qualified staff and had problems of retention, poor numeracy and literacy levels, a poor work ethic, and issues around attendance and poor timekeeping. As Alison reports: ‘Errors being made by staff in all areas could be traced back to gaps in basic skills.’

After working with Basic Skills Cymru’s Employer Pledge team and Tabs to make an initial assessment of the company’s training needs, Wiltan’s senior management were convinced of the need to sign up for the Employer Pledge.

To get started the company organised special awareness-raising sessions to secure the buy-in of middle managers and supervisors. Opportunities to learn were then advertised on Training Boards on the shop floor, introduced at monthly meetings and promoted in a newsletter and a course leaflet was given to all employees. All employees were invited to draw up an Individual Learning Plan, part of which involved their educational needs being assessed by the Tabs tutors (a commitment was made to ensure that assessment information would be limited to the learner and tutor).

The analysis resulted in:

• 19 wishing to take the IT and Essential Skills course;
• 7 wishing to take the Fitness/Healthy Eating course including a Stop Smoking element;
• 6 wishing to take the Financial Literacy Course;
• 5 wishing to improve their maths and a further 3 to study for a GCSE;
• 3 wishing to improve their literacy and spelling and 1 to study for a GCSE.

Taster sessions were then organised – attended by 14 out of 28 shop floor staff. Now, twice weekly courses on IT and Essential Skills are attracting regular attendance and a keen following.

So what has been the main impact so far? Within weeks there was an improvement in attendance and commitment and the incidence of errors has dropped significantly. ‘Staff are not only tackling and surmounting “demons” but they are affecting attitudes to learning in their own families and the community in which they live and work’ says Alison. She is committed to building on this success and cites a few markers:

• the basic skills issue has been raised in the workplace across all levels;
• all current and new paperwork is being assessed for readability;
• Wiltan has reaffirmed the value it places on staff and its commitment to them;
• the value the company puts on training has been emphasised;
• staff have discovered that they generally have a higher basic skills level than they believed;
• staff have been empowered to identify and acknowledge their learning needs and skills gaps;
• staff are willing to step into the classroom again!

At Wiltan, management has fully supported the initiative as the basic skills agenda has proved its value to the company. Now the workforce’s attitude to training generally appears to have changed. Alison reports: ‘we have a training course starting that all Team Leaders are required to attend which will give them an Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) qualification. This has been taken on with great relish in comparison with the ‘lukewarm at best’ attitudes to “mandatory” training in the past.’. Wiltan has plans for future development. The company hopes to run a Financial Literacy Course – ‘because this is an on going issue for a number of our employees.’ There are also plans for a Health and Fitness course and a Learning and Play (LAP) course, which supports parents in developing their young children’s language skills. Alison is enthusiastic about the possibilities: ‘We are continuing to support literacy skills through library and magazine subscriptions; we are planning to run a Fantasy Football League to encourage numeracy during the next season; and we hope to forge a relationship with a local school to provide mentoring and joint supportive learning for our staff and their pupils.’

Alison and her colleagues are convinced that the impact they have seen so far will be sustained into the future. ‘In the local area we have become recognised as an employer who supports diversity and encourages the development of its staff – this means we now have no issues with recruitment, and our turnover of staff is low.’