Polished performance by Peterlee's Gem Training

Gem Training is delivering pre-employment training as part of its partnership with Profound Group through the Adult Education Budget and has now helped four young people –Paul Reveley, Andrew Lowery, Luke MacDonald and Dean Wilkinson – find work at manufacturer Snorkel Europe Ltd.

Gem continues to support the Washington firm, which manufactures a comprehensive range of aerial lifts, with its recruitment and training needs.

As part of a long-term relationship with Snorkel, Gem Training is assisting the organisation by pre-training potential employees with skills essential for the company’s needs and supporting and training them up prior to starting work as production operators in the Stores, Paint. Assembly and Test/PDI areas.

Tanya English is a lead trainer with Gem Training: “As part of our partnership with Snorkel, we have been helping the company identify what their recruitment needs are,” she said.

“From there we have been identifying candidates from our talent pool, who we think have the potential, however, not necessarily the skills that Snorkel are looking for.

“So, our training team have been putting them through our pre-employment training course to prepare them for the world of work, and this has resulted in four people securing jobs with the organisation.

A further four are currently at the second interview stage which is fantastic.

“Pre-employment training is proving particularly popular at the moment, as employment generally is high, however companies often don’t have access to the right people.

“And what we’re facilitating is that ability to help local job seekers secure employment that otherwise they might struggle with.”

Jane Simpson, HR Manager at Snorkel, is hopeful that the training programme will ultimately result in a reliable pool of talent.

She said: “We want people who want to be here and the training is inviting people to come and see if we fit them and they are a suitable fit.”