Have you ever taken a moment to think about what you could achieve through business planning and developing the skills of your staff? A Victorian initiative aims to help small and medium sized businesses, including franchises, with skills development.
There are advantages to improving the quality of your service or products; on keeping ahead of the pack with the most up-to-date industry knowledge and skills and in making it easier for your business to adapt to change.
As part of the Bristol Franchise Corporation Network, Warrick Broad of Bristol Paint & Decorator Centre, Bendigo, knows they have a national reputation to uphold.
Since buying into the Bendigo-based franchise in 2008, Broad and his wife Rebecca Paton recognised the need to focus on the strategic direction of their business and believe training and developing the skills of their staff is an investment in their business’ future and part of long-term planning towards business growth.
In looking to meet these challenges and to uphold Bristol’s national reputation, Broad registered the business in Skills for Growth: the Workforce Development Program, which has given them the head start they needed to identify the right way forward.
“As part of the Skills for Growth Program, we engaged with franchising business experts, who are genuine experts with real business experience. Our service provider, Phalanx Consulting Group was able to easily relate to our needs in a tangible way and identify the best ways to achieve our aims,” explains Broad.
“The program is a fantastic service to support and complement any existing planning or business practices you have in place, if you don’t have the skills for the planning and the structure they are there to assist and educate you.
“We have been recommending the program to a number of other franchisees and other business owners. It’s such a useful and relevant resource for small businesses.”
Broad says one of the most valuable aspects of the program was the opportunity to identify and support their greatest need, to develop the skills of their staff.
“We realised we needed to invest in training, not just for learning’s sake, but to add value to our business,” Broad adds. “Skills for Growth allowed us to access government supported placements to train all four of our team members, who are now undertaking a Certificate III in Retail Operations.”
From the many training options available, most employers identify vocational qualifications as a sound investment providing a range of positive returns. Current research shows that more than 50 per cent of employers use
vocational training to provide specific job-related skills for their employees.
The benefits of investing in vocational skills training include improving the skills available to your franchise, ensuring that your internal regulations meet the provision of industrial awards and enterprise agreements, increasing the competitive capacity of your franchise and improving the skills available to your franchise.
The Skills for Growth Program is part of the Victorian Government’s Securing Jobs for Your Future – Skills for Victoria initiative, dedicated to working with small and medium-sized businesses to explore training and education opportunities that will benefit businesses and develop the skills of their staff.
More than 1,000 businesses are registered in the program, of which 20 per cent operate in the retail environment.