Skills Cafe: Workshop announced for manufacturing businesses

The Skills Service is inviting SMEs working in manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and textiles to its next Skills Cafe on Friday 25 October.

The event will offer a free taste of the training available through The Skills Service with a workshop in Change Management. The morning will also include an industry update from a key partner of the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges, plus the opportunity to discuss training needs and ideas with a skills advisor who can help find the solution and funding.

Starting at 8.30am at Hub 26 in Cleckheaton, the format will begin with 'Coffee with The Skills Service' where businesses can find out about funding for workforce training through the European Social Fund and how The Skills Service can help you access it and find the right courses over a coffee.

At 9am, the Textile Centre of Excellence will give a short presentation and on the textile industry and its comparison to the broader manufacturing industry including market trends, skills issues, challenges and opportunities, training offer, emerging occupations and an introduction to the Let's Talk Real Skills project.

ITS Group, a contracted training provider of The Skills Service, will deliver a free workshop at 9.30am - Changing the Way we Think About Change. Michael Astrop, Business Skills Lead, will run an interactive session, using his experience of working with manufacturing businesses throughout the UK, to explore ways in the attitudes and mindsets of those who work in our businesses can be changed to meet the significant challenges of the future.

The workshop is suitable for anybody who manages or works with people and will provide the following 'takeaways':

• recognising that people have to change along markets, technology and infrastructure;
• what engagement really means on the ground;
• the importance of psychological safety;
• a three step process to change thinking and embed new ways of working;
• facing up to the elephant in the workplace that is impeding productivity and what can be done about it.

BOOK YOUR PLACE

If you do not want to attend the workshop or presentation, businesses can drop in between 8.30-11.30am to have a free skills planning session with a Skills Advisor over coffee (no booking required).

Event venue: Hub 26, Hunsworth Lane, Cleckheaton, BD19 4LN

The Skills Service is managed by the West Yorkshire Consortium of Colleges and funded by the European Social Fund.