What do 22 workers at Tesco Goole from 11 different nationalities all have in common?  They all achieved Functional Skills qualifications in English as a part of a Learning and Development programme delivered for the learning partnership between Usdaw and Tesco by training provider Profound Services.

Usdaw Project Worker Martyn Warwick said:

We know about the benefits of Functional Skills having run several courses in the past, and we wanted to build on that success by working with Profound Services, our nationally recognised training provider.”

Management here are committed to developing staff confidence and efficiency through learning and that’s good for both staff and the business. We are very proud to work in partnership with them on such an important programme.”

The learners started their 15-week programme on 8th June 2017 covering 45 guided learning hours across five different levels from ‘entry level 1’ to ‘level 2’.  Learners came to work out of hours to study while Tesco Goole supported their commitment by giving back 1 hour of pay per session. The staff were drawn from of 11 different nationalities including English, Egyptian, Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Czech, Hungarian, Greek, Slovakian, Polish and Russian.

Martyn said: 

It wasn’t an easy programme to deliver, because the learners covered three separate shifts across early mornings, afternoons and nights. This meant that some training sessions were delivered at midnight”. 

Profound Training Advisor Joanne Errington agreed:

Coordinating the sessions across the three shifts was certainly a challenge, but the learners were all committed to the programme and Tesco Goole really got behind us and gave some amazing support.”

Martyn was full of praise for their provider. He said:

Joanne and the team at Profound have been nothing short of amazing. We gave them a massively diverse group of staff, and they really went the extra mile to make sure they got the results.”

Lucia Timis, one of the learners, originally from Romania, said:

We are all so proud of what we have achieved and want to say a huge thank you to Tesco Goole and especially Joanne who believed in all of us and made the sessions so interesting.”

Martyn is very pleased with the way things are developing and said:

Happily, this is just the start. We have just agreed with management to commit another 45 staff to English Functional Skills programmes. This includes 16 from the original group who are progressing onto higher levels”.

Barry Nelson, Operations Manager at Profound and is delighted with the partnership with Usdaw on this initiative. Barry said:

It shows that both Tesco Goole and the learners are seeing real value in the learning, so everyone’s a winner.”