CRISTAL HELPS STAFF SHINE

Every year Cristal’s Humberside site produces 165 thousand tons of Titanium Dioxide, which is used as a whitening agent in everything from window fittings to food. The site, which was bought by Cristal two years ago, has been on the banks of the Humber for 55 years and houses both manufacturing and research and development operations.

Cristal initially began staff training with internal courses designed around NVQs. These courses were open to anyone within the company who had a need for team leading training and were set up to introduce Cristal’s employees to work based qualifications. The idea was to begin an accredited course once the workforce had become used to the requirements and language of NVQs. This is where Intec came in, helping Cristal set up a suitable NVQ programme, designed specifically to cover the areas of team leading that the company felt needed bolstering.

“We needed specific team leading training in two areas – identifying learning needs and attending meetings,” says Steve Mumby, Training Superintendent at Cristal. “Being able to tailor the NVQ programme and add in these elected units was a real plus point for us.”

Staff from both the research and development and the manufacturing sectors took up the chance to gain a Team Leading NVQ, and Steve said this has had the added bonus of bringing together the two sides of the business. All the staff undertaking the qualifications started at level 2 and will be given the chance to go onto higher levels if they wish.

“The great thing about these qualifications is that staff are now performing to a standard, whereas there was no set standard previously,” says Steve. “I have seen an increase in motivation as well as an enthusiasm to carry on with training, a result of Cristal giving staff the choice of whether to do a qualification or not – we have no pressed men.

“We have also seen staff who didn’t initially choose to take an NVQ asking to do so at the next enrolment, showing the benefits are filtering through the workforce. They see that they can gain extra skills at the same time as carrying out their duties, which is very appealing.”

Cristal intends to carry on with staff training with Intec and hopes to widen out the NVQs on offer in the future to give more staff the chance to gain a recognised qualification.