33
PRO INSTALLER DECEMBER 2014
PRO SKILLS
@proinstaller1
EFFECTIVE
TRAINING
CULTURE THE KEY
TO SUCCESS
At this year’s G14 Awards, Quickslide, a leading
manufacturer of windows and doors, took home the
trophy for Best Training and Development Initiative.
Quickslide recently
revised their approach
to training and development, which lead to
their success at the
awards.
Here, the company discusses what they did and
the skills they employed to
make their Training and Development Initiative a success as their reassessment
of its training and development strategies resulted in
a seismic shift of the entire
operational culture involving every member of the
workforce.
Winning the trophy for
Best Training and Development Initiative was a
matter of great pride for the
Yorkshire-based fabricator
but the real prize was the
transformation that was
behind it – not to mention
the six-figure savings that
came along with the new
regime.
The process began with
identifying and categorising
where improvement was
needed. In general, there
was a lack of clear direction but this broke down
to specific issues such as
lack of problem-solving
skills, outdated and limited
skill matrices, short-term
decision making and lack
of succession planning. In
practical matters, there was
no record of training hours,
no effective annual appraisals and the workforce was
controlled by an inflated
bonus system.
Chairman, Adrian Barraclough explained they
pinpointed an issue, which
many companies face: “We
identified a distinct ‘them
and us’ culture along with
a general lack of any sense
of ownership and accountability, both of which were
affecting everything we did.
At the same time, we recognised that the business had
grown so quickly there was
no time to build the kind
of business architecture we
needed for the larger business we had become.
“It then became clear that
we had focused our growth
on increasing turnover
rather than long-term profitability so, while we saw
sales increasing, we did not
realise that the profits were
being eaten away by inefficient working practices.
“There was also a lack of
understanding of how to
standardise training and reward systems for the benefit
of all. Something had to be
done and we knew training
was the key.”
An interim action plan was
brought into effect immediately, beginning with a
‘state of the nation’ briefing
to let every employee know
where the company was,
where it was going and
specifically emphasising
how every one of them had
a part to play in the shared
vision of its future. The two
main targets within the plan
were:
‘we had to have a supervisory management
team who actually listened’
1. To reduce the Cost of
Quality total by £203K by,
among other things, creating a company-wide skills
matrix, World Class Standard operating procedures
and a standardised roles
and responsibilities template as well as standardised
recognition of what could
be expected from each
individual.
2. To reduce labour costs
by £269K, mainly by replacing a bonus payment
scheme which had encouraged numbers at any cost,
with a transparent annual
reward and review system
based on pay-bands as well
as company-wide profit
sharing.
Then came the longterm plan. Before anything
else was a top-to-bottom
commitment to Continuous
Improvement as a norm in
everything the company
does. Next was a regime of
six monthly reviews using
a standardised and well-understood format, followed
by monthly budget tracking and team development
reports to the board. After
that came a drive towards
excellent training systems to
standardised systems for all
employees.
‘accountable
problem-solvers’
The biggest step, however,
was not in practice but in
basic philosophy, as Adrian
Barraclough explained:
“Most important of all, we
had to have a supervisory
management team who
actually listened, and of
course, we had to make
sure everyone knew that.
“The result now \