Setting Up Continuous Learning

Our Client, a recognised player in the engineering services sector, was enjoying a period of continuous growth in-line with the long-term strategy. However, the company was lagging in keeping up with the required growth in the size and quality of the talent pool. To improve the internal talent pool, the business was keen on investing in a continuous calendar of training and people development activities. Additionally, in a few key skill areas, recruiting the multi-disciplinary resources required was increasingly difficult, thus making it important that the business had in-house capability to multi-skill technical workforce. The business also wanted to reduce the cost of errors and poor quality.

We were brought in as experts in training solutions and HR Consulting to formulate the continuous training programme and ensure that all team members, technical and others, were impacted by the same. We partnered the HR team in creating two training protocols, each headed by a suitable trainer whom we identified and brought on-board.

The ‘Technical Training Institute’ focused on upskilling the workforce particularly in the marine repair business including welders, fabricators, mechanics, and other related trades. Basis the skill gaps, detailed curricula were designed, and material put in place. In many cases, in-house experts from the trades delivered the learning to colleagues, thus reducing costs for external trainers while driving skill enhancement.

The ‘Behavioural Training Team’ was tasked with the non-technical competencies with the mandate to reduce gaps based on the competency framework. The programmes ranged from leadership development, management development, team leader training, team development, induction, values training, customer service, sales training, and executive coaching. Where possible, subject matter experts from within the team delivered the learning. In some cases, external trainers were invited in to deliver learning content, but with a proviso that the team would then cascade the learning to others in the organization.

Thanks to the training construct and calendar, a significant amount of learning content was delivered while reducing costs. The business benefit was significant, allowing for better utilization of resources because of the multi-skilling efforts. Likewise, the team leader and leadership interventions helped with people management, employee retention, improved motivation, and created high performing teams. The continuous, ongoing training & skill upgrading also significantly helped the cost reduction agenda by bringing the errors and rework rates down significantly.