Quality of Yorkshire Productivity's training endorsed by OFSTED report
'Learners improve their employer's business and their own working environment'.
Yorkshire Productivity, a division of Ilkley-based Virtual College, has delivered over 20,000 productivity improvement training programmes to more than 200 manufacturing companies across the north of England since it was formed in 1996.
To ensure it is providing a quality service, a cross-section of 12 of Yorkshire Productivity's manufacturing customers was visited as part of an independent Ofsted inspection. Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills) reports directly to Parliament. This independence means it can be relied upon for impartial information.
The Ofsted inspection judged that Yorkshire Productivity exhibited the following key strengths:
·High overall success rates
·Very good acquisition of social and workplace skills
·Good training and learning
·Good support for learners
·Strong strategic and operational management
·Particularly good partnership working
From its visits to Yorkshire Productivity's customers, the Ofsted inspection team found that: "Learners...demonstrate improved team working and better communications between work departments."
"Learners...have more confidence and a greater awareness of their company's business. They are able to translate theory into operation, improve their employer's business and improve their own working environment."
In many instances, Yorkshire Productivity is able to offer its manufacturing customers government funded support for training. In the light of the economic downturn, the government has shown an increased commitment to providing this financial support in order to ensure skills are developed and the workforce is ready when the upturn comes.
Alistair Gladstone, Divisional Director of Yorkshire Productivity, commented: "It is almost unheard of for a training company to get such a good report from a first Ofsted inspection."
"It endorses the investment and commitment we have made to provide a quality service for our customers which delivers tangible business results."
As part of the inspection process, Ofsted visited the Batley paint manufacturing facility of PPG Architectural Coatings UK Ltd, and Marshalls, the Halifax-based producer of landscaping products, interviewing both the companies' management and workforce and seeing for themselves the improvements created.
One learner commented that, as a result of the training undertaken with Yorkshire Productivity, "We had more appreciation of how other aspects of the company worked and stopped blaming each other when things went wrong and worked out solutions instead."
Yorkshire Productivity is a division of Virtual College plc, a pioneer in e-learning solutions, and specialises in offering productivity improvement training and consultancy to manufacturing organisations.
http:// www.yorkshireproductivity.co.uk/