Moy Park - Seeking excellence through Essential Skills

Company Background

One of the first businesses in Northern Ireland to address the need for Essential Skills training at work was Moy Park, Northern Ireland’s largest poultry and food processing company.

Why was Essential Skills implemented?

Moy Park identified that some employees had varying degrees of literacy and numeracy difficulties, which interfered with their competence in tackling some important and essential tasks. Even in cases of mild difficulties, it reduced the flexibility and efficiency of work performance and caused those concerned to withhold the many positive attributes they could have offered.

These tasks are vital to the health and safety and ultimately the success of the business. Moy Park needed to ensure that operatives were suitably skilled for their jobs and were employed in the areas appropriate for their skills.

The Solution

In the early days of the introduction of the Essential Skills programme, Moy Park was a lone pioneer within the industry and help was unavailable or difficult to find. Union approval was sought and immediately given and the Upper Bann was fast in supplying a tutor, firstly for the requested few hours per week, then days and eventually full time. From three employees a week in 1997 to an average of 35 per week currently undergoing Essential Skills training, the company continues to implement tailor-made programmes to develop the skills of its workforce.

Dr Trefor Campbell, Managing Director of Moy Park, explained how Essential Skills training was introduced to the company:

“Although this programme now benefits the industry, in the early pioneering days the main objective was to encourage, motivate and increase the confidence of our employees while trying to remove the fear of trying something new.”

Moy Park worked in partnership with Upper Bann Institute. The initial pilot scheme, with a tutor visiting the plant a few hours a week, has been so successful that a tutor is now on site full-time to provide teaching before, during and after shifts. In a typical week, 35 people are involved in classes, designed specifically to meet their individual needs and using adult-learner materials linked to IT.

Comment

Dr Campbell said, “Over 100 employees have now benefited from the scheme since its introduction. The results have been an improvement in productivity and product safety.”