Ofsted highlight good practice at McVitie’s in the North West
It seems obvious that partnerships between an employer and trade union can be a powerful force to support learning. But how can an employer be persuaded that literacy and numeracy training is a benefit and not a cost? And how can employees be motivated to make the effort to improve these skills?
At recent visit to the McVitie’s, Judith Swift, unionlearn’s Union Development Officer explains:
‘McVities, like other large employers, requires its employees to have basic levels of literacy and numeracy for health and safety reasons. USDAW, the union recognised by McVitie’s which represents nearly all of the workforce, is enthusiastic about the opportunities offered by the Union Learning Fund to its members. Many of its members are traditionally hard- to- reach learners, such as part- time women workers and shift workers. The work place representatives at McVitie’s were able to convince their employer of the benefits that Union Learning Representatives could bring to the workforce and the company. This has led to the unusually strong partnership, with a workplace Learning Centre providing a safe place where learners can be helped to achieve literacy and numeracy qualifications without being stigmatised. Everyone benefits – the learners gain in skills and confidence, and the employer gains a more skilled, articulate and motivated workforce.’
The Collective Learning Fund at McVities was set up to make learning affordable in the workplace. This is essentially pots of resource, money or time, with which the employer, workers, learning providers and union, supported by the Union Learning Fund, jointly invest to deliver courses and training for learners through the workplace learning centre. The centre offers a wide range of courses, with the highest recruitment in literacy and numeracy. Other courses include vocational training, language and a number of IT courses. The centre has also created a reading culture with ties with Stockport library and the Six Book Challenge. Now the union learning representatives are using UK Online grants as an alternative co-investor in the learning centre. McVitie’s employ over 600 people and currently have 70% of the workforce engaged in learning.
Benefits for the workforce
The most obvious benefit for new members of the McVitie’s workforce is that passing the literacy and numeracy tests means they can be taken on as an employee, rather than remaining as an agency worker. However, there are all kinds of other benefits for more experienced workers, many of whom have started working for the company before the test was introduced 14 years ago. Acquiring numeracy and literacy skills can increase workers’ employability – although moving to a different company does not often happen.
Jonathan Waterhouse, the company’s lead Union Learning Representative and winner of the TUC’s Learning Representative of the Year award said “What has happened more often, is that workers feel inclined to stay because they are pleased that the company has chosen to invest in developing their skills. It also gives a chance for progression within the company, and new opportunities are being offered in the form of the creation of the Advanced Team Member role, to release engineers from some of their more routine functions”
Benefits to the Employer
Increasingly, McVitie’s like many other employers requires the workforce to be proactive, particularly in making suggestions about possible improvements to production processes, in the face of global competition. It also needs to manage the knowledge carried in the heads of its workforce – traditionally, employees have stayed with the company for an average of 15-20 years, and the company is understandably anxious to have access to the knowledge held by long-standing employees.
As Lesley Flood, McVitie’s training co-ordinator says, ‘the increasingly sophisticated audit and customer requirements need an educated and proactive rather than a passive workforce’. It is for these reasons that McVitie’s has introduced its own tests which employees have to pass in order to be taken on by the company, and also to progress within it. The difference for the workforce is that they have Union Learning Representatives to support them to acquire the skills to pass the tests.
The role of the Union Learning Representative
Essentially, the ULR is the catalyst who makes everything happen and Jonathan co-ordinates a team of 12 other ULRs. Lesley say’s ‘He’s like a conductor, bringing in different sections of his orchestra to meet different people’s needs. He’s brilliant at matching different workers to the Representative with the right skills for them.’
As an employer, McVitie’s is spared the effort of identifying a provider and developing a programme that is right for the company and the individual – the ULR and unionlearn take on that role.
As Lesley says, ’Work like this just didn’t happen overnight’ – As the lead ULR, Jonathan has introduced systematic initial assessment and individualised training programmes for learners to follow, to prepare them appropriately for the Skills for Life qualification and for the employer’s test. Prior to this, employees would have no preparation for the test, and this was a barrier to employment and progression for many.
Jonathan said “if you’ve got someone who is in their 50s with no qualifications and you try to interest them in English and maths, it needs to be in an environment where they feel relaxed – and I think we’ve cracked that, because our learners have achieved more than 150 Skills for Life qualifications.’
Jonathan and his nine fellow ULRs have encouraged 150 colleagues to take up the myguide beginner computer courses, he runs the Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge and has established an NVQ programme which has led to 100 McVitie’s workers gaining Level 2 qualifications. Jonathan is proud of the way learning has changed from being an added extra to becoming a part and parcel of everyday life in the factory.
