Plant operator digs up new talent

Citation

(2011), "Plant operator digs up new talent", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 43 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2011.03743daa.004

Plant operator digs up new talent

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 43, Issue 4

A company that hires bulldozers, excavators and the like for construction works such as road building, land reclamation and flood defence has a five-year rolling program to train new recruits and improve the skills of its existing operators.

The business model of 243-employee Greyhound Plant Services is to supply both the machinery and a trained operator, while providing service, maintenance and transport. It is therefore vital that the plant operators are properly trained to keep their customers both safe and happy.

The company, based in Shropshire, UK, was not satisfied that its operators were all trained to the standard that the company demanded. While it could vouch for the standards of training given to those operators it had trained itself, this was not the case with others.

As a consequence, the company was suffering high staff turnover, with many operators leaving the business within a year. Employees lacked training and motivation, which was causing dissatisfaction among customers. At the same time, the construction industry was spearheading national training standards for operators. Getting on to any major construction sites across the UK would require recognized qualifications.

This was the spur Greyhound needed to train new recruits and improve the skills of existing operators.

The company sought to train unqualified recruits to operate particular items of machinery to a national standard. Around 100 existing staff were enrolled on the National Vocational Qualification program for Level 2 in Plant Operations. The trainees included ex-servicemen, the unemployed, non-English speakers, people with disabilities and learning difficulties and those looking for a career change.

The company chose the Construction Plant Competence Scheme (CPCS) as the qualification for all its plant operators.

Its training division is now certified as a CPCS test centre and assesses Plant Operations Level 2 NVQs. The program includes a mixture of office-based learning and hands-on training, covering maintenance, daily checks and safety as well as the physical operation of the machinery. The annual cost of the training is around £200,000, not counting machinery costs.

With its training program, Greyhound made a skills pledge, committing itself to attaining the Construction Skills Certification Gold Standard. It achieved this goal two years later, when 75 per cent of the workforce was registered under the Construction Skills Certification Scheme. The following year that figure reached 95 per cent.

To date, 436 trainees have completed a foundation course and 217 have achieved NVQs. For many of the trainees it is their first-ever meaningful qualification to a national standard. It has both increased their feeling of self-worth and demonstrated that the company values them.

The average length of time that operators stay with Greyhound has increased from two years to three. Meanwhile, Greyhound’s customer-satisfaction ratings have increased by 10 per cent over two years.

“The success in the training of both new recruits and existing employees in plant operation has been a key factor in the company being a market leader in the supply of operated plant across the UK”, said Greyhound’s Finance Director, Andrew Strickland. “The massive improvement in staff retention and the almost 100 per cent registration of the workforce in NVQ Level 2 is a remarkable achievement.”

The training won a medium-size employer prize in the UK National Training Awards.