Nissan
has launched a specialist learning centre at its Sunderland plant in an effort
to encourage voluntary personal development.
The
centre is open to all 5,000 employees at the plant and offers a wide variety of
learndirect courses, both on- and off-line, covering a range of key business
topics including productivity improvement, skills for life, business management
and ICT.
The training
is run by Assa – the training organisation set up by Nissan in 1997 to support
automotive and manufacturing workers in the North East.
The
centre is open between 7am and 11pm each day in order to accommodate shift
workers. Assa staff are on hand to support workers.
Steve
Pallas, training and development manager for Nissan, said the centre is already
proving a success in the four weeks since it opened. More than 550 staff have used it already. Computer courses are the
most popular.
“People
want to catch up to their kids on PCs and the Web," said Pallas.
He
told Personnel Today that the company is also building up a stock of laptops to
allow staff and their families to learn from home.
Nissan
has given staff up to 12 hours a week off from work to use the centre to
encourage people to get into the habit of making use of the facility.
Pallas
said this has led to a large take-up of employees using the centre in their own
time.
Ann
Limb, chief executive of the Government-backed scheme learndirect which helped
fund the project, said: "Nissan requires adaptable, accessible learning to
develop the skills of its workforce and I look forward to hearing of the
success of individual learners and the contribution made by learndirect to Nissan’s
efficiency and productivity."
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