MITIE secures funding to act on its skills pledge

25 March 2009

MITIE has secured a National Employer Service (NES) contract to fund a series of training programmes as part of its Skills Pledge to help its people across England to develop their skills, including literacy and numeracy

The Skills pledge is a government initiative to try to combat the findings of the Leitch report in December 2006, which found that more than 1/3 of adults do not hold the equivalent of a basic school-leaving qualification, 17 million have difficulty with numbers; and 5million are not functionally literate

On 14 June 2007 MITIE became one of the first employers to make the Skills Pledge – a specific promise, made by an employer to its employees, to support its people in developing their skills, including literacy and numeracy, and work towards relevant, valuable qualifications to a minimum of Level 2 (equivalent to 5 A* - C grade GCSEs). It is a commitment to train and develop all staff – from fundamental skills training to opportunities for higher-level qualifications. It’s a promise that, through training, the employer will work to boost the productivity and efficiency of their business and realise the potential of their employees.

In November 2008, MITIE secured funding from the National Employer Service (NES) to help deliver on its promise. Since then, the Skills Pledge team within MITIE have been working to develop a plan of action to roll out the programme across the company.

“Signing up to the Skills Pledge gives us the opportunity to demonstrate publicly the importance MITIE places on investing in the skills of our people,” said Joanne Bacon, HR Director for MITIE. “Now that we have the funding in place, we will start to roll out the training commencing with our security and cleaning teams who make up 65% of our 49,000 people.

“We are offering a number of different courses including maths that could help our people to manage their money and English that could help improve their quality of life. There are also nationally recognised qualifications and apprenticeships on offer including specialist security and cleaning NVQs.

“We will be testing the literacy and numeracy needs on-site and will be delivering the learning in a variety of ways to best suit the needs of each individual including on-site tutorials, e-learning, or group sessions that will be delivered by a contracted college.

“For the Level 2 training we will assign a coach or assessor to each learner who will work with them to develop an individual learning plan and then support them throughout the duration of the programme. The courses will be tailored around the needs of each site to minimise the impact on operational roles. We will also be developing specific areas within the Level 2 qualification to meet the training needs of individual client sites.

“Over the next few years, we hope to help thousands of our employees learn skills for life helping them to increase their confidence and performance. The training will also provide benefits to the business including reduced turnover and improved service to customers.”