Gate Gourmet is the world's largest independent airline catering and logistics provider. With over 20,000 employees worldwide, the majority of its 2,200 UK workforce is based at their two Heathrow units.

Training Need:

The poor communication skills of supervisors and general staff were having an adverse effect on the quality and consistency of service critical to the organisation. It also meant that employees were unable to progress to their full potential because of their limited English skills and that managers were spending huge amounts of time and effort correcting the grammar and punctuation on reports from supervisors.

Joy Heward, Gate Gourmet training manager, decided bespoke training was needed to develop literacy levels of both supervisory staff and general staff. She chose us because she felt we were the provider most willing to take on the challenge.

Programme:

The account management team and course tutors worked closely with Joy and her team to develop customised training funding largely through Train to Gain.

A seven week intensive programme for supervisors (one day a week) and a fifteen week course for general staff (2 hours per week) was devised.

Progress was monitored by tutors in Individual Training Plans and discussed with HR.

Impact of training:

All attendees of the first cohort gained a City & Guilds qualification. The employees themselves were very impressed with the training and feedback included:

'I am confident at work and personally.'

'When someone phones I am not scared anymore'

'It was easy to learn and fun.'

Joy believes that there are efficiency gains as staff are now likely to get things right first time due to effective communication and greater understanding. Report writing has improved so managers spend less time reviewing the documents. There is also increased participation in team meetings. Joy said:

'It was daunting at the start but very easy to do. The results are showing now.'

The College and Gate Gourmet are now in discussion about training in Business English for managers as well as language training for employees at entry level.