By working with the National Skills Academy for Manufacturing and Warwickshire College, Land
Rover has been able to offer its employees a more accessible way to achieve industry-recognised
qualifications in business improvement techniques. The result is an empowered, motivated and skilled
workforce that wants to develop itself into the most effective and efficient manufacturing team.
Power to the people
LAND Rover as a company is
committed to development. Its
dedication to ongoing business
improvement and the creation of the
world’s best workforce was framed by a
challenge from Ford in 2004 to review
the way it worked with customers,
partners, suppliers and, most critically,
employees, to achieve world class
standards of performance within five
years. During the past three years, Land
Rover has worked to create an
environment where people thrive and
engage in the transformation. Land
Rover treats all staff as members of the
team and helps them develop their
skills to the benefit of themselves, their
teams and the business as a whole.
Part of this process was Land Rover’s
decision to offer production line
employees the opportunity to learn
more about business improvement
techniques and how they can be
applied to the workplace. It wanted to
encourage individuals to move away
from routine working practices,
understand how they could play a role
in the overall efficiency of the business
and apply their knowledge to making
Land Rover an even better
organisation.
‘This is part of our corporate journey
towards business improvement,’
explains Lloyd Neal, training team
leader at Land Rover. ‘External
pressures mean we must continually
adapt if we are to outperform the
competition and survive. To respond to
changes in the automotive industry
november 2007
Land Rover treats
all staff as
members of the team
and helps them
develop their skills to
the benefit of
themselves, their
teams and the
business as a whole
our team needs more than just
knowledge - it needs to understand
how that knowledge can be applied to
our working environment and the role
that each individual can play to
suggest changes which improve the
whole company. You can give people
the tools to do a job but until they
understand how their part impacts
everything else, you will struggle to
make sustained improvements.’
From the many avenues available
Land Rover chose to offer employees
the National Vocational Qualification
in Business-Improvement Techniques
production management
(NVQ for B-IT). A key factor in this
decision was the impact of ongoing
efforts between the National Skills
Academy for Manufacturing, the
Learning and Skills Council and
Warwickshire College. Together they
had shifted the NVQ’s emphasis from
classroom theory to onsite learning
and assessment, by introducing an
industrial placement programme as
part of the NVQ Level 2. This made it
more accessible, more relevant and
reduced the amount of time Land
Rover candidates would need to spend
offsite.
MWP
27
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