Partner Article

Delivering an impressive package

Thinking outside the box has helped Traidcraft, the fair trade organisation based in the North East, increase the number of packages it can deliver by about 10,000 a year. This five per cent increase will help the Team Valley distribution centre meet the growing demand for the developing world products it supplies to its customers throughout the UK.

It has been achieved through an programme of training and flexible working which has improved the skills and motivation of over 16 per cent of the staff employed at Traidcraft’s Tyneside headquarters.

The latest initiative has been NVQ Level 2 and 3 training in team leading, warehousing and distribution, customer service, business administration and IT delivered by Access Training involving staff working across six different departments.

Christine Borley, Director of Human Resources, said: “We have people here from different backgrounds including some from overseas whose first language is not English. Effective training not only improves skills, it creates a greater cohesiveness among the workforce, improving communication and motivation. The results have been impressive and, as a result, we are well prepared for our busiest season.”

In addition, Traidcraft has introduced extremely flexible working packages to help its staff balance work and family life, including part-time, flexi-time, job-share, annualised hours and home working.

Chris Scott, Training Manager at Access Training, said: “We began by talking with Traidcraft to understand what it wanted to achieve. This enabled us to identify the areas and types of training which would best deliver results and then we had to devise very flexible delivery. The workforce has responded very positively which has helped them to deliver impressive improvements in productivity.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .