Southern Cross Forest Products Thames Timber sawmill in New Zealand saw the opportunity to improve staff and its operations by improving education with numeracy and language skills. Now it’s seeing a big lift in revenue. Source: Stuff.co.nz
The Coromandel Peninsula timber plant’s fresh approach to literacy and numeracy training is producing more than a $1.2 million lift in revenue.
Manufacturing manager Phil Cave, a 30-year veteran of staff training, hit on the idea of using sport and daily life situations as training tools two years ago.
Looking at the company’s continuous improvement achievements, he suspected something was stopping momentum and noticed that staff, a high proportion of whom had minimal school education, weren’t fully comprehending some of the numbers or figures talked about in the workplace.
“Often people aren’t happy speaking in public, lack the confidence to be a part of the workplace and can’t understand numbers we’re talking about,” Cave said.
“I think we expect people to understand them but they don’t always . . . so we taught them how to figure them out themselves using everyday life examples.”
His first step was to approach local training provider Valley Education and Training Enterprises Ltd (VETEL) where he found out about available funding to further literacy and numeracy skills in the workplace.
The business was granted NZ$185,000 and with support from VETEL and the Forest Industries Training and Education Council (FITEC) its new training program was launched in early 2011.
“We never labelled it a numeracy and literacy program,” Cave says.
“We set it out as a personal development and business improvement program and by doing that everyone was keen to come on board.”
“Literacy and numeracy is buried in there but it’s of interest to them because it’s about the workplace.”
Workers needing intensive help were identified quickly – they made up around 5 to 10% of the staff – they were given one-on-one time with a tutor.
Of the 160 Thames Timber staff, about 90% have been through some form of training during 2011 and 2012.
Cave says he didn’t notice the effects of the training until six months after the program was implemented, that’s when results started to show in productivity reports.
“Our productivity went up, our yield went up and we’re still going up. It’s amazing the difference; it shows how much these things are undermining people’s understanding. It has been really worthwhile,” he said.
Annual revenue has been lifted by higher productivity and less waste.
Staff also have greater confidence and contribute in the working environment.
