The business benefits of a skilled, qualified workforce are hard to ignore. Employees who understand what’s required of them, have the skills to perform their role and the confidence to use their initiative, are able to boost productivity, improve efficiency and make your organisation run more smoothly. Having the right people, with the right skills, doing the right jobs, is vital for the long term success of any business.
Investing in your people – by encouraging them and supporting them to improve their skills and qualifications – increases staff motivation, strengthens their commitment to your business and makes them less likely to look for alternative employment, which all helps to reduce your recruitment costs and minimise the disruption caused by an unstable workforce. Plus, nothing exceeds the sense of satisfaction you receive when a member of staff develops over time to their full potential.
St Helens Chamber has an excellent track record in providing training and education. We have an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education) for Personal Development, Behaviour and Welfare. We have ‘Gold’ standard Investors in People accreditation, and we were the first Chamber to receive the Award for Excellence in Business Education. As an accredited provider, we deliver standard and bespoke training courses, Apprenticeships and qualifications for a wide range of subjects. We have a proven track record of working for businesses in this way and can do the same for you.
The first step is to contact one of our expert Advisers who can work with you to assess the training requirements of your business. They will identify the skills gaps in your workforce and suggest suitable courses to fill those gaps and help increase your competitive edge.
We now have more nationally accredited qualifications available than ever in a range of key business areas, including management, marketing, IT, customer service, business administration, and many tailored courses for particular job roles, such as retail, logistics, hospitality and health & social care.
Importantly, though, this training is different in two ways from a traditional course:
Firstly, each of your employees, in conjunction with you as their employer, can work with our Training Advisers to devise the course that exactly fits their job role, or the role you wish them to develop into. A course in management may include some units developing skills in customer service, or marketing – depending on what you as the employer wish them to study. With a wide range of flexible and tailored individual units available which can be mixed and matched to suit individual job roles, all our qualifications are made to measure.
Secondly, many of our qualifications are delivered on a one-to-one basis in your workplace. You can expect our Training Advisers to visit your staff approximately every three weeks, to assess their work, set projects, teach units of study, and ensure all is progressing well with their course. With this workplace based learning, you don’t experience the inconvenience of ‘day release’ type courses. Be aware though that some units and some courses are classroom based, which of course brings all the benefits of peer group learning for the individual. This will be an area that our Training Advisers will talk through with you in detail when we work with you to develop your training plan.
“We received regular updates on how our staff were getting on and how their learning was progressing. It was very reassuring and helped keep things on track. We were very impressed with the approach and would definitely use the Chamber again.”
Rod Wah, Beverston Engineering
“We worked with a Chamber Training Adviser to discuss what we needed for our business, the areas we wanted the training to cover, and the standard we required our staff to achieve. It’s worked out even better than expected.”
Alan Brown, Brown’s Respite Care
