Simon Bartley, chairman of SummitSkills, joined more than 150 employers from across the country in making a public Skills Pledge, as a commitment to continuously developing their staff
SUMMITSKILLS, the skills council for the building services engineering sector, has joined more than 150 leading employers from across England to make a public Skills Pledge to continuously develop their staff.
The Milton Keynes-based employer is one of the first companies to make a public and voluntary commitment to support their employees in gaining and developing valuable skills and competencies that support business needs and future employability.
The Leitch Review of Skills, published in December 2006, warned that the UK must ‘raise its game’ on skills at all levels if it is to sustain and improve its position in the global economy. The Skills Pledge fulfils a key recommendation made in the review, and is at the heart of a new deal where employers will be able to shape the skills system to meet their needs.
Employers that make a commitment to the Skills Pledge have access to a Skills Broker, part of the Learning and Skills Council’s Train to Gain service, through which they can access free literacy and numeracy and first full Level 2 qualification courses. The Skills Broker assesses the company’s training needs and helps to produce an action plan that will set out contributions from the state, the employer and the individual. More than 1.7 million private and public sector employees will be covered by the Skills Pledge.
Simon Bartley, chairman of SummitSkills, said: “We’re proud to make the Skills Pledge. We recognise that engaging employees through training leads to higher levels of motivation and retention and better customer service. We are here to underline our continuing commitment to investing in skills, which has been further reinforced by SummitSkills’ recent achievement as ‘Investors in People’ – a highly esteemed status, demonstrating our successful procedures and strategies among our workforce.”
SummitSkills
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