One company which needs no compulsion to train is Dunlop Aerospace, an
Investor in People with excellent Adult Learning Inspectorate grades and a
comprehensive, analytical system for identifying and meeting the learning needs
of its 1,200 employees.
The company assesses the gap between its current and desired business
situation and identifies six core categories of development across the company:
educational, IT, health and safety, operational, management and technical. It
then classifies the need in terms of essential, important, additional and
non-essential training.
"We look at the areas that are going to add value to the individual and
the business, that have a knock-on effect to the customer, and result in
value-added behaviour. That way we can utilise our budgets proactively,"
said Simon Cutler, Learning and Development Manager.
"The survey is a good yardstick to tell us what’s happening and we’ve
got to do something about it," he continued. "If you value your
workforce you will develop their skills because customers are asking for that
development. If you don’t, your business will start to dissolve.
"You have to be passionate about doing staff development. It’s all part
of taking training seriously," Cutler added.
