Due to the relocation to Europe of the operations base of Glunz & Jensen, a large manufacturing company based in Thetford, Crystal Clear Training have been involved in a major retraining programme for the workforce. 

The programme has been fully supported by the Glunz & Jensen management who have allowed courses to be run on site, in work hours.  A wide range of courses have been run at the company premises and have been attended by staff from many different departments. 

The Glunz & Jensen agenda has been designed with two objectives in mind;

• To help as many people as possible with the daunting task of finding alternative employment.

• Retraining individuals for specific new careers. 

The programme started with two groups of employees attending our “Going for a Job” course.  This course helped delegates to understand how to prepare for each interview, what to expect and how to make a good first impression when going for an interview.  The course was very well received, as many of the delegates were already in the process of applying for new jobs, and found the course motivational and constructive. 

The second course in our programme was “Frontline Customer Care”.  The objective of this session was to update the skills of employees who were already in a role where customer service was essential, or to prepare employees for a new career in a customer focused environment. During this course we highlighted the importance of active listening skills, and how to deal with difficult people and situations.  We discussed why customer care is so important for today’s businesses, and  consequences that poor customer care can have on profit and customer loyalty.

The third workshop concentrated on “Communication Skills”, with delegates attending from both the office and the shop floor.  In this workshop we considered a number of communication methods, and discussed barriers that prevent effective communication. We discussed writing business letters and looked at e-mail etiquette in today’s business environment.  We highlighted some effective listening techniques, and how to use paraphrasing, summarising and questioning to facilitate better understanding. It was interesting that almost everyone found the section on body language the most interesting aspect of the course, and we discussed how this could be misleading with international communication.