Specialist hose company serious about e-learning
After years of under investment in training, Phoenix Beattie’s new Managing Director, Andrew Esson, realised a complete overhaul of the company’s training provision was in order. He wanted to cultivate a more positive attitude to learning within his workforce and to ensure the business continued to offer the best possible service to its customers.
As Phoenix Beattie is a small company, employing 90 staff, it was vital that training fitted in with employee workloads and disrupted productivity as little as possible, so learndirect seemed an obvious choice. The company, who manufacture specialist hoses for the oil and gas industry, together with Ashington learndirect centre, assessed each employee’s skills devising individual training programmes to bridge any skills gaps. The learndirect centre also offered onsite and phone support to staff and Phoenix Beattie’s training coordinator, Julie McCallum.
Since Phoenix Beattie began offering learndirect courses in spring 2006, 22 members of staff have taken 32 courses, covering IT applications including Excel, PowerPoint and Access.
Managing Director, Andrew Esson said:
“We were looking for a low cost way to improve our employees’ computer skills without losing productivity and learndirect offers the flexibility we need. The courses are relevant to our business needs and as they can be completed online and at work staff don’t have to give up their own time, which helps encourage them to enrol.
“learndirect also helped us to overcome the additional issue of an initially suspicious staff, who were unsure about the training being offered. Ashington learndirect centre has been a great support and they have helped tailor courses to interest staff. Being computer literate has transformed the way our business is run, for example employees can now use laptops offshore on oilrigs to monitor data, rather than having to return to the mainland to input everything, saving time and making the data available quickly for our clients to use.
“We plan to continue developing our training programme with learndirect and are hoping to roll out training further to incorporate NVQ level qualifications.“
Sales Administrator, Sandra Krzoska, said:
“I have worked for Phoenix Beattie for 12 years, and in my job good IT skills are vital. Having the opportunity to develop my skills has been really beneficial, it has given me so much more confidence and rather than muddling along, I now know how to deal with any problems I encounter.
eing able to complete the course at work in the IT suite has meant that I can fully focus on what I am doing, rather than trying to juggle my work and learn at the same time! I’m hoping to continue developing my skills in the future and complete a PowerPoint course.”