Magicard

Leaving Ultra meant that Magicard had to create a reputation for themselves. Business has increased so far this year about 25%, which in itself creates its own challenges. In order to keep business flowing they have needed to recruit extra staff and internally promote others, which has led to them needing to train the newly appointed employees to enable them to fulfil their roles. To date Magicard have not had a huge amount of money to spend on training, but now they are their own entity they have been given a higher budget to spend.

After attending a breakfast meeting at Weymouth College where Debbie Clarke, HR Manager at Magicard,  learned about the project, which is co­ funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), she sat down with the Operations Director and suggested they could implement some of the training within Production. Before now they have had difficulty finding a training provider who could deliver bespoke courses on site within a reasonable budget.

Felicity Ayles from the Skills Support for the Workforce Team at Weymouth College was assigned to Debbie as their Training Consultant. They met, and identified the training that would be most beneficial, both to the company and the participants. A Team Leading training programme was devised, which included units from the Team Leading Diploma, as well as a variety of workshops on more specific elements of team leading such as disciplinary, motivation and probation management. These were identified, not only for the current team leaders, but also for newly promoted ‘line leaders’ who may have little or no current management experience. They also discussed and identified a range of computer skills that needed development, including Excel and Powerpoint.

The Skills Support for the Workforce Team and Magicard have worked together to create bespoke courses which can be delivered on site. By doing this the staff do not need to take out additional time for travelling, and the delegates are all colleagues, which has created an environment where they feel able to communicate with each other, which Magicard believes helps them to get the best out of the course.

The majority of these members of staff met the criteria for the free training, which is delivered on behalf of Serco in the Dorset area, and delivery commenced in February 2017. By the end of the training, close to 100 certificates of achievement will be awarded to staff from Magicard.

Even throughout the training, Debbie started to see improvements in the staff’s abilities and knowledge and by the end of the planned training 4 members of staff completed the 3 units from the Team Leading Diploma and 20 staff members in total attended a range of training sessions including Excel, PowerPoint and Team Leading skills.

“Magicard would like to thank Weymouth College for working so closely with us.  Felicity has made the whole process simple and stress free, with no hiccups! The training which has been delivered so far has given our employees the opportunity to learn new skills and then go ahead and put these into practice.   Exactly what any business needs.  I would strongly recommend if you haven’t already signed up for this training, you should strongly consider it!”

Magicard

“It has been a pleasure to work with Magicard, who are one of the larger SMEs involved with the Support Skills for the Workforce project, to create a training plan which is allowing the participants to develop their own knowledge and skills, which is in turn benefitting  the business. We have been able to create a range of regulated and non-regulated courses which fully meets their needs, and we look forward to continuing to work with them for the remainder of the project.”

Felicity Ayles, Training Consultant – Weymouth College

“I have found that the training is helping and making me more confident in my ability as a supervisor. I feel like communication with my team has improved, and the theory is really interesting.”

Ian Mackenzie, Learner