ESOL Brings benefits to everyone
Many businesses in the South West region have recruited large numbers of migrant workers to fill vacancies that otherwise would not have been filled, but English language barriers often mean that employers are unable to get the full value of their migrant workers workforce.
Wilshire employer, Airsprung Beds have greatly increased the skills of their migrant workforce and boosted their productivity through a learning agreement with the GMB.
Around 30% of Airsprung’s 409 employees are migrant workers, mainly from Poland, but also from Slovakia and Albania. Originally very few spoke English and therefore could not be trained to take on new areas of work. There were often tensions with UK born employees which the company needed to step in to resolve, sometimes leading to costly disciplinaries.
In 2008 the GMB negotiated a learning agreement with Airsprung to provide English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and literacy provision to the company’s workers. Since then, the learning agreement has been extended for the whole of the Airsprung Furniture Group and will cover all four sites from now on.
Although a recognition agreement already existed, there wasn’t a history of close co-operation between the firm and the union. However, Airsprung’s management was impressed by the success of the two taster courses in ESOL arranged by the GMB the previous autumn and were concerned about their own capacity to organise ESOL on their own.
Under the agreement, six union learning representatives were elected, three of whom were Polish who have been given 3 hours a week to fulfil their duties and arrange courses. A Learning Needs Survey was carried out to discover which learning areas were in demand from both UK- born and migrant workers. As a result, both ESOL and Literacy by IT courses were organised.
ESOL is provided within the workplace by Wiltshire College and the course is tailored to the work environment and the questions are related to work issues, such as health & safety. ESOL tasters were free, but changes in funding had meant that students needed to pay a fee of £120 per head, of which Airsprung contributed £50 for each worker.
A successful Literacy by IT course also reassured UK-Born workers that it wasn’t just migrant workers who were receiving the training. The literacy course was provided free by the College, but a mobile Learning unit was brought in to deliver it on site, with Airsprung paying part of the expenses.
The ESOL course has brought major benefits to the company; Productivity has increased by 20% over the last six months, as the course has enabled the multi skilling of migrant employees who could previously not undertake certain courses due to their limited English. Migrant workers are now employed in almost every job at every skill level including high skilled areas. Before the agreement there had been only two workers, now there are many more.
Migrant workers have greatly improved knowledge of health & safety as a result of the course and are able to work better now that instructions do not need to take so long. The induction process for new workers has been strengthened and the time spent on training declined considerably. Migrant workers are now much more able to socialise with their UK-born colleagues and the number of disciplinaries as a result of tensions has significantly declined. Average team bonuses have also gone up due to the increased willingness to work among both migrant and UK workers.
The agreement has also helped to develop the relationship between Airsprung and the GMB – making future joint working more likely.
