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Developing a learning strategy for Remploy

Employment and development for disabled people


Remploy is a government-funded organisation that provides employment and development opportunities for disabled people. It operates 83 factories and can be described as a mini-conglomerate with twelve distinct product lines. Remploy is a direct supplier to over 50 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies; it is particularly strong in automotive products, educational furniture (where it is the UK's largest supplier) and textiles. Some 5,500 people are directly employed at the factories, with a similar number of disabled people receiving support from Remploy at other workplaces. Once turnover is taken into account over 13,000 disabled workers have some contact with Remploy in the course of a year.

The company's strategy for learning is explicit, and well understood in the organisation, and was developed from the bottom-up rather than top-down. Its starting point was a recognition that a number of local initiatives in the factory were proving successful and could be developed on a national basis.

Remploy Coventry, for example, which is one of the largest with 60 employees, provided opportunities for a group of some 40 workers on short-term contracts. In the course of their year with Remploy they were given training and a learning centre was established at the site for that purpose. Arrangements were made for staff from Coventry City College to visit this centre and offer training in subjects ranging from PC skills to communication. The evident success of this initiative led to demands from the existing Coventry staff to have access to this facility to update their own skills.

Developing and national strategy


At the Hartlepool site, at about the same time, the trade unions strongly advocated enhanced opportunities for skill development in the basic skills areas. As a result a national strategy was developed with learning centres as a major element. Currently all 83 sites (which can range in size from 150 employees down to 25) have learning centres. Gareth Parry, Remploy's Learning Resources Manager, is keen to emphasise that the establishment of these centres is demand-driven. It is not an imposed strategy. He attributes the high level of involvement and usage to an underlying desire to improve basic skills. Throughout the initiative much emphasis has been placed on skills for life: numeracy, literacy, IT skills and basic communications. There is a noticeably high demand from the workforce for improved computer skills - particularly a recognition that these are now an accepted part of the life of younger family members.

Although the use of each learning centre is locally determined, they all have the following in common: a physical location (with at least some PCs); a relationship with a local college whose tutors will visit the site to advise and facilitate; access to a suite of e-learning programmes, made available from the LearnDirect library (the national e-learning initiative).

Reviewing and refining the strategy


Remploy's learning strategy is regarded as important for the company. As Gareth Parry puts it: 'in the medium- to long-term it will be the business that will benefit - not just the individual'. The company is undertaking this initiative for sound business reasons. In early 2002 the Remploy board considered and agreed the strategy. A sub-committee of the main board was then established to monitor the strategy and this body undertakes a review of progress every quarter. The strategy is made available to all on the company intranet, but it is intended to be communicated, as it is to be implemented, at the local level. To date the emphasis has been placed on establishing the necessary infrastructure, but in the next stage attention will shift to quality of provision and better links with the business.

The provision of adequate time to learn is seen as an important element of the strategy. As an overall figure, Remploy considers that five per cent of the workforce's time at work should be devoted to learning. Within this overall commitment, every individual should have a minimum of 50 hours' development.

 
 
 
 
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