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MASTERS OF THE MAINSTREAM
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Providing both training and agency staff enables one Kent firm to offer customers a one-stop shop, as Tim Maughan discovers.
There are many training and recruitment companies, but none that is quite like Mainstream it is the biggest combined road transport training and driver agency in Kent.
The scale of Mainstream's operation becomes apparent when we stroll into the company's warehouse and forklift training facility in Sittingbourne: at 2,415m2, it is like walking into the storage area of a major logistics business, Aaron Davis, National Vocation Qualifications manager. shows us around the premises. Mainstream, he says, is split into two separate entities -MainstreamTraining and Mainstream Staff Supplies. Managing director John Casey established the group in 19%.
There are 50 staff undergoing training and the courses are varied: Class 1 and 2 truck driving, ADR, CPC, digital tachograph tuition, and forklift and truckmounted crane training. The firm runs four LGVs with which to train personnel.
There are six forklifts moving around the Sittinghourne warehouse.Training manager Jeff Hammond is about to go through the forklift training."I'm a qualified forklift instructor and examiner. I constantly assess what's going on and take account of new legislation so that there are no gaps in our training," he says.
Sadly, some road transport operators and warehouse firms fail to train personnel in the use of forklifts. Sometimes, employers may just show staff the machine's controls and then let them blindly get on with the job.
Satisfying the law
"It's a legal requirement to have training," stresses Hammond. Mainstream teaches company managers how to establish supervisors to ensure that the correct forklift training and health and safety conditions are met.
In Dartford, machinery of a different type is running.This is Mainstream's plant training centre,where students are taught the ins and outs of excavators and the like.
On the road transport side, says Davis, 250 truck drivers are trained each year, and 600 people undergo forklift training and refresher courses.These are large numbers.
The firm is deeply involved with the UK Armed Forces. Some 500 soldiers, airmen, and sailors are trained in truck driving by Mainstream every year, and another 500 are trained to operate forklifts.-We've worked with the MOD for four years," says Davis. "We go to garrison towns like Colchester, and to bases in Germany and Cyprus."
Ten full-time staff are assigned to military contracts.The British military has global reach; this, and the current host of active commitments, inevitably mean busy times. Saturdays and Sundays don't come into military thinking, so our trainers have to react 365 days a year; they have lobe flexible."
The military contracts manager is Phil Linehan,an ex-warrant officer and former master driver. "He knows his stuff," says Davis. Half the company's trainers have military backgrounds.
We move on to the agency side of the business."On the supply side," says Davis, "we have 250 full-time drivers, and another couple of hundred part-time drivers. Plus we have another 100 warehouse operatives and 100 forklift operatives on the books." A Aaron Davis is Mainstream's NVO specialist
Major contract
Graham Knowles, director of staff supplies, says "the jewel in the crown" of the recruitment division is a contract for a major supermarket chain. Mainstream has the honour of being the sole personnel provider for this customer's Kent operation. We fill 236 shifts a week on this contract; large fleets use our drivers, too,and many smaller operators."
Davis believes the joint training/agency set-up benefits customers because it makes for a straightforward one-stop shop, a centralised provider that can offer both services.
He is head of NVQ matters."We started NVQs in November 2005, and they're my particular passion," he says."Since then, we've had 200 completed NVQ learners, all of them funded by the Learning Skills Council."
Truck drivers and forklifts operatives do not have to be NVO trained. But if they are, says Davis, they have two strings to their bows:practical driving abilities, backed up by that extra layer of proven, written NVQ reports."'They assess competence, and identify any areas that need lobe sharpened up. It kick-starts the learning process."
• Contact: 01795 4181100; www.recruitandtrain.com