Company provides employees with a stairway to training
Jeld Wen manufacture and supply stairs and windows to the construction sector. With the decline in new homes being built Jeld Wen is experiencing a reduction in orders. Inevitably this has resulted in some redundancies and reduction to a four-day working week.
The company is keen to try to retain staff, as if a shift in demand occurs they will need the staff they have to respond to this. Adrian Milward, Production Manager, said: "We value our staff and we want to do what we can for them. Ideally this means keeping them on until the economy and the construction industry turn around. Even if the staff we help train do not stay with us, we want to do what we can to improve their chances."
Business Link – Business Support Broker Louise Harrop has been working with the company since January 2009. "We saw the reduction in hours as an opportunity for employees who use the downtime effectively. By offering those affected by the four-day week a chance to gain better skills to support them in their current role or, in the worst case scenario of further redundancies, to make themselves more employable in a highly competitive labour market."
To get the message across, Louise worked with Jess Stuart, HR Co-ordinator at the company, to arrange an event to promote what training is available. Brooksby Melton and Leicester Colleges, who are already working with the company, and Skills for Life experts were there to offer advice and encouragement to the 60 employees who attended the event.
The office staff at the company are already quite well catered for as they are carrying out a lot of training with Brooksby Melton College, and it was hoped that production staff would now benefit from the training on offer. Louise Harrop adds: "The colleges received a lot of interest and will be following up with the company and myself to convert that interest into training groups taking place at Jeld Wen."