The White House Care Home
Posted on March 23rd, 2007
Christine Sykes
A meeting was arranged with Christine Sykes, Care Home Manager of The White House, to discuss her company’s training and development needs. Christine’s initial reason for agreeing to the meeting was because she felt Business Advice Direct could offer the required training in a more time effective manner and she was interested to see how e-learning could support and deliver her training requirements. Christine was already familiar with the learndirect brand name adding an element of confidence to the first meeting.Having discussed at length Christine’s training requirements and the importance of investing time and effort in training to ensure all her staff felt valued and the company felt the time, effort and cost was beneficial. Due to the nature of the business, it was imperative for Christine to be confident that all her staff received the correct training, that they could display the benefits of that training and that it was certified as this was a fundamental industry requirement, and subject to external auditing so evidence of training in personnel files was mandatory. Christine agreed to place some staff members on the Basic Food Safety course to test the content, delivery and value of the training.Christine was also pleased to learn that she could include learndirect Skills for Life training alongside the Basic Food Safety training. The Skills for Life training would assess individual skill levels and support staff to a National Test in Adult Literacy. This would be done prior to the Basic Food Safety course to ensure all staff attending were at the required level to complete the course with no issues. It would also provide an additional qualification for the staff and demonstrate both Christine’s and the company’s commitment to staff training and qualifications. It would also be a big help for any staff going on to take an NVQ, ensuring they had the right skill levels to tackle the NVQ itself.The feedback received was extremely positive; the team members felt valued and the enhanced knowledge improved their confidence. From a company perspective, Christine confirmed the results had been impressive, the feedback positive and an immediate improvement in morale had been seen from those in attendance. As a result further training was arranged for other members of Christine’s staff.
“The food safety training was delivered by e-learning and even those staff who were not particularly familiar with a PC had no problems working through the course, as Business Advice Direct tutors were on hand throughout the day, to help and support anyone who needed it. The training has definitely been a success and turned what could have been a lengthy and expensive training programme into a simple, cost effective solution. And the learndirect Skills for Life learning ensured all staff had a good level of skills and gave each of them confidence in their ability. Learndirect is a great way to deliver training as long as it sits alongside good quality tutor support which is exactly what we got”Christine Sykes – The White House Care Home
Christine is confident that she has covered both training and audit requirements and will be making a point of highlighting training on her future marketing materials. Remaining staff and those new to The White House, will undertake relevant training with Business Advice Direct in the future.
