On Monday 22nd April 2002, Mr John Healey,
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for
Adult Learning, visited Elite Forwarders new
Distribution Centre in Wortley, Leeds.
The reason for his visit? Well…
When The Elite Group first started the Wortley
Moor Road project, approximately 300 additional
staff were required within a period of 6-8
weeks! An invaluable resource in locating
these staff was provided by a local government
run centre: the West Leeds Family Learning
Centre. The centre aims to gain partnerships
with local employers to provide local jobs
for local people. The centre helped us to
fill the vacancies with various schemes such
as Job Guarantee and Work Placement schemes.
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The centre doesn't stop there though - they also
strongly believe in "Life Long Learning",
to enable people not only to get a job, but also to
improve their prospects of moving to a better job
in the future.
The centre was ideal for The Elite Group because
we strongly believe in encouraging our work force
to undertake training once employed. Courses currently
include Health & Safety (IOSH), First Aid at Work,
and various computer courses, such as Microsoft Excel
(all levels) and Microsoft Word Processing (all levels).
The WLFLC offers all these courses at their base in
Wortley.
Training helps staff to move forward through the
company, either by promotion or just by taking a different
job within the business. The Elite Group can illustrate
many cases where staff having taken training, have
moved from the warehouse side of the business to office-based
jobs. The training also helps The Elite Group to retain
the workforce, thus reducing staff turnover and associated
recruitment costs, and it also enables The Elite Group
to keep flexible with the internal structure of the
business.
Meanwhile down in Westminster…
Mr John Healey had heard about the partnership
between The Elite Group and the West Leeds
Family Learning Centre and was eager to meet
with us to discuss how we started, how we
have progressed, and what plans we had for
the future.
Mr Healey talked to many staff who came from
the WLFLC and who have since received training
on various courses.
It was a proud moment for both The Elite
Group and the WLFLC.
What does the future hold?………
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We hope to continue our partnership with the WLFLC
and with them we will start offering additional courses
to our staff in the very near future. (NVQ's in Warehousing,
NEBS Courses and the new European Computer Driving
Licence in the very near future).
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