Recruit or upskill? That is the question

Sierra 57 Consult Project Director and Chair of the Polymer Committee (Worshipful Company of Horners) Richard Brown addresses the skills shortage challenges faced by the plastics industry.

The Plastic Industry is a sector that is troubled with a challenging skills shortage. Sierra 57 Consult has recognised this and has identified the need for cost-effective training in order to deliver tangible upskilling results. This will help mitigate the lack of moulding talent currently available.

It ought to be argued, and correctly so, that a company’s employees are their greatest asset and investing in their training and development is absolutely key to sustaining business growth and success.

Commitment to employee training and development makes sense when you consider the lengthy and costly process businesses carry out to recruit and hire qualified staff.  All too often though, the emphasis on nurturing the personal growth of employees ends once they are hired.

However, cultivating employee’s skills leads to better retention, improved performance, and better-quality products.

It was Richard Branson that said “train your people well enough so they can leave but treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Retention is a major challenge for employers but retaining effective employees can be achieved through career development. Offering career development initiatives helps employees establish a sense of value within the company, and this in turn, fosters loyalty and eventually results in increased staff retention.

Sierra 57 Consult recently created a Moulding Training Division which has developed training modules to support the upskilling of customer’s moulding staff at their own premises. This is an ideal method of training as the trainees use the equipment that they are already familiar with, and training can be personalised to close the skill gaps that have been identified, ensuring lasting success.

Initially, the process begins with our training consultant identifying the gap between employee training and the needs of the business. The baseline for training is established by undertaking a Training Needs Analysis.

Sierra 57 Consult’s training is offered in ‘bite size’ modules of a day’s duration that accumulates knowledge over a period of time by adding further modules at a pace to suit the employee and the business. The modules cover the subjects of Mould Processing, Toolmaking, Tool Maintenance, Machine Maintenance and Polymer Materials, building knowledge from basic through to an advanced level. Training cost start at £350 per module for one-to-one training, rising incrementally to £550 per module for three trainees. Also available are modules in IMM Hydraulics, IMM Electronics and Robotics. These are either one- or two-day modules for three trainees, at a cost of £900 and £1,800 respectively

The benefit of this style of training is that your team will have the embedded knowledge, and will communicate in a style that uses the same processing terminology that will lead to improved communication between all cells and departments.

Since the launch of the Training and Development Division Sierra 57 Consult, training and development engineers have seen demand for their services exponentially increase with training being delivered country wide.

For more information as to the how Sierra 57 Consult can help upskill your team and the Modular Courses available email richard.brown@sierra57consult.com

Richard Brown recently spoke to Dave Gray in Episode 3 of the Interplas Insights Podcast, available now.