Contribution to the Gatwick Union Learning
News
I completed a union learning course earlier this year. During
this course I learned about ESOL lessons, these are used to help
those whose first language is not English, to learn or improve this
skill.
I work for Alpha Flight Services and within our company we have
a very diverse work force, from many non English speaking
countries. So the ESOL lessons could be the ideal way to address
this situation, I spoke to the unit Manager about the benefits of
the course, not only to the work force but to the company as well.
He had no objections to me finding out how many would be
interested, and if it could be done without disruption to the
working day. I spoke to the Polish union rep and explained
the benefits of ESOL to his members. I organised a meeting between
the learning coordinator, the local college, myself and our HR
manager during which we discussed the course, where it could be
held and possible cost.
We talked about benefits to both Alpha and employees, we set the
dates for the assessments and discussed the possibilities of
introducing the Train to Gain scheme into Alpha. We had a very good
response with 25 people taking part. Carolyn Jones from the college
was able to secure some founding for the course from the ESF and
found, this would give each person 12 hours free training. We met
with HR and informed them of numbers involved and funding
available, as a result the company let us use the training room at
the unit for the courses; they seemed quite surprised with the
response.
The lessons started in June with two classes
of 10 people and were well attended. We had to stop for the summer
holidays because they couldn't guarantee a tutor for all lessons.
They have restarted but due to shift changes and the impact of
redundancies they have not been quite so well attended.
However we have had two people finish and a
number of others have just a few lessons to go. Also we have had
quite an interest from the staff about doing NVQ's which we have
been promoting since May. One of our Polish office staff has just
finished her NVQ in Business Administration taking just 4 months,
Two others have started there's in B.A as well and we have about 10
more ready to start there's as well, which includes two of the
management staff in various NVQs.
Overall since we started back in February we
have managed to motivate quite a number of the staff from all
ethnic groups, and hope fully over the next few months we can
interest more staff to do some kind of training.
I think since we started the management have
been quite surprised at the response by the staff.
Roger Pettitt - Unite ULR
Alpha Flight services.
