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Providing services (Jul 4 2003 9:48AM)Training is the key to successGraham Cruickshank recently visited Taylors Poultry Services that within two years has made a name with many of the top poultry companies.
One of the least glamorous in the industry, catching, vaccinating and beak-trimming birds has been turned into one of satisfaction by Nottinghamshire based Taylors Poultry Services. Run by the two Taylor brothers, Ivan and Eric, they have created six trained service teams who travel the country working for most of the top poultry companies.
The company has worked closely with Business Link Nottinghamshire (BLN) which provided a wealth of advice with regard to all aspects of the business and grant aid available. The organisation worked closely with Ivan and Eric helping to develop a web site and support as they worked towards obtaining the Investor in People Standard. "The Investor in People Standard is a national quality Standard aimed at good management practise and we at BLN worked closely with the company and were delighted when the independent assessment of their staff relationships led to them receiving the Award, which was presented in April," said Heather Bingley of BLN.
"When we first started the business we knew exactly what we wanted but we just didn’t have the knowledge to do everything ourselves. BLN were brilliant in that they helped us to get funding for staff training and made us a much more professional organisation," said Ivan Taylor.
He explained that they had recruited people with virtually no experience of poultry husbandry but staff were not thrown in the deep end being encouraged to attend a series of half-day courses on various aspects of poultry husbandry run by Peter Sharman of Poultry Industry Partnership (PIP). At the end of each training course staff were tested on their understanding of the topic and received a PIP certificate. "Most of the staff had not received any real form of training and few had any qualifications. It is amazing that by encouraging them to attend the courses they have become confident and appreciate the importance of the tasks they have to do. The result is that we are able to offer the industry the highest standards for service work," explained Ivan Taylor.
In fact such has been the success of this in-house training that the company is now able to offer with confidence, emergency cover on farms and a consultancy service. The training programme devised by the PIP involves 10 modules.
“ Staff responded extremely well to the courses and there is no doubt they have boosted staff confidence and in dealing with both stock and customers,” said Ivan.
In addition to the PIP courses they have invited vaccine suppliers to visit and train staff in vaccination techniques. Today they employ the latest vaccination air guns, which are fully portable and operate off a compressed air cylinder thus removing the need for noisy and bulky air generators. The equipment and vaccination technique has been inspected and approved by the Veterinary Services.
