ThirdForce, a provider of technology enabled learning solutions and services, has announced today that after a highly successful pilot project it has won the contract to become the exclusive supplier of Skills for Life provision to Whitbread, the UK’s largest hotel and restaurant group.
Whitbread brands include: Premier Inn, Beefeater, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns and Costa Coffee.
The successful contract win follows on from the astonishing results that were achieved in the pilot scheme at 16 sites. The pilot delivered unprecedented numbers of learners completing literacy and numeracy diagnostics and significant numbers completing the final National Skills for Life exam in a short period of time.
The full rollout will now take place at all 937 Whitbread hotel and restaurant sites nationally, with an aim of supporting 1000 learners through to both their Literacy and Numeracy qualifications.
Whitbread signed up to the Skills Pledge in 2007 and has successfully developed their own ‘Whitbread Apprenticeship Programme’ with Skills for Life qualifications being used to provide a large element of the Key Skills provision in the innovative ‘Whitbread Model’ approach to Apprenticeship and NVQ delivery.
Delivery of the Skills for Life provision is outsourced to ThirdForce who delivers the provision through an innovative blended solution:
ThirdForce e-learning content is used to successfully underpin Skills for Life delivery and the learners are fully supported by a team of dedicated professional Learning Support Managers (LSMs), who provide the necessary on-site additional guidance, support and assessment for learners in the workplace as appropriate. The ThirdForce el-box™ touch screen tablet PC delivery method enables Whitbread to facilitate anywhere, anytime access to learning for employees.
The ThirdForce Skills for Life solution enabled Whitbread to confidently outsource the entire Skills for Life delivery requirement of their NVQ/Apprenticeship programme and has resulted in significantly faster completion times and learner engagement compared with more traditional methods of Skills for Life delivery.
Alan Maguire Managing Director of ThirdForce commented “ThirdForce is both proud and delighted to have been selected as Skills for Life partner in Whitbread’s ground-breaking apprenticeship programme. We share the Whitbread vision that learning & skills assume even greater importance in these challenging times and that the right partners using the best technology and people can deliver on that vision better than any other solution.”
