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Karin Brocklebank, sales director at the safety equipment supplies firm on Roose Road, said assessor and training provider Nicola Kett was “extremely helpful and professional throughout the process. I cannot commend her highly enough.”

Deltawaite’s commitment to continuous learning gave Karin, who is also responsible for company personnel, the chance to respond to an IT skills offer from Furness Training. The Furness College-based business development arm was willing to come into the workplace to provide a training package in IT skills, tailored to meet the needs of the firm and the candidates. The package was designed to give an IT level two qualification to all who took part.

Six candidates from varying disciplines signed up and each was given an hour’s one to one training at a time to suit each individual’s working day. The flexibility of the learning “suited us perfectly,” Karin said. Candidates came from management, customer services, warehouse and accounts. A key factor for all of them was that their existing IT skills had been self-taught, largely because of their 40+ age bracket. Among them were Wendy Lightfoot, Trish Winder and David Hermann, all from Walney, plus Vanessa Shepherd from Dalton. Wendy said: “I use the computer to update company accounts, but I don’t use it every day. The course gave me a quicker way of doing different things to do with computerised salaries. It’s definitely been useful.” Trish said: “I liked all of it but what I enjoyed the most was the power point. That’s been very useful. It was a good idea to give us an hour a week each over several months because you needed the rest of the staff to continue working while you were being trained.” David, working with stock, uses a computer regularly at work. He said: “The training gave me a far greater understanding of IT. I did my first Power Point presentations as a result. No matter how old you are you always benefit from training.” Vanessa works with computers daily. She benefited from the new shortcuts she learnt. She said: “Computers aren’t hard. You can usually fathom out a way – but it’s much quicker to be given the shortcuts. We did a bit of everything – Excel, graphics, Word, Power Point, all the Microsoft Office, and every one of the programs taught us something.”

The two other candidates were Doreen Buckley and Karin. All found their first taste of formal IT training “an eye-opener” Karin said “The delivery of the training programme was excellent. I can truly say we are delighted with the service Furness Training has given us. “Not only has our company benefited from having better-trained and more efficient staff, but the individuals have personally benefited. We have recently taken on new staff, increasing our workforce from 20 to 25 and will definitely be using Furness Training for future development.”

Nicola Kett is ICT Assessor for Furness Training. She said: “I first approached Deltawaite in April 2010 to see if any staff would be interested in updating their existing IT skills and knowledge and gain an IT qualification. Six members of staff signed up on to the ITQ two in IT User Skills qualification which is delivered in the workplace. Staff selected what units they wanted to work on and I assessed their current skills level giving training when required.

“One member of staff wanted to be able to produce PowerPoint presentations and improve his knowledge of spreadsheets, by the end of the course he was confident with both. Another member of staff wanted to choose a unit where she could produce evidence straightaway. She was able to produce evidence from the computerised accountancy system she works with and was then able to concentrate on other units where she wanted to upskill.
“Although staff differed in levels of IT ability by the end of the course they all got something out of it and enjoyed the learning experience.”