All credit to the Purple Pod PR agency. They say it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and they proved it. On the day that snow brought southern England to a standstill, Purple Pod issued a press release for its client Funded Training: Made Easy, suppliers of a software system that allows training providers and their students to work remotely via the internet. If they’d been using the system, according to the agency, schools, colleges and corporate trainers would have been able to beat the freeze and carry on regardless.
In this day and age, said Purple Pod, a bit of snow should not bring a big chunk of the country’s education to a halt, adding that “perhaps if Britain was more technically competent it wouldn’t be in this situation”.
Of course, this was all good promotional stuff, with an element of tongue-in-cheek, but it made some serious points. In this ever more globalised, competitive world, we cannot let anything distract us, as companies, industries and as a country, from training and education. And that applies to a frozen economy as well as freezing temperatures – not least because a skilled, knowledgeable workforce can help minimise the impact of recession and position firms to climb out more rapidly when the general upturn kicks in.
Thankfully, this is increasingly appreciated by timber sector companies, among them, as we report this week, Rowlinson Timber. It is not only stepping up training for its own personnel with a raft of Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) courses, it is also encouraging customers to put their personnel through its “Introduction to Timber” course with the “Rowlinson Timber Training Academy”.
More good news on this front is that the Norton House group of timber sector bodies, including The Timber Trade Federation and BMF, have signed an accord to co-ordinate, improve and secure funding for industry-wide training. One of the first fruits of this will hopefully be a training conference this summer, which TTJ will support – something to look forward to, to help keep out the chill!
