Justin Tomlinson MP visited Talent Express, a live warehouse on Marshgate Industrial Estate that provides forklift truck driver training to those on the Work Programme.
As Talent Express provide paid storage facilities (predominantly for packaging), the students gain their qualifications in a real warehouse, with shift patterns and actual customers, giving them invaluable experience of the workplace that puts them in an excellent position when looking for work following the completion of their training.
Talent Express has also teamed up with major local employer, South Marston DC Ltd (Honda), who are looking for forklift drivers but struggle to find staff. Honda offer the forklift students a work placement for 2 weeks during their time at Talent Express and many of them get offered full time roles at Honda afterwards. By working with employers, Talent Express can near guarantee work at the end of the training, giving their students a tangible goal to work towards.
Those that Talent Express work with are over 18s who are on the Work Programme because they are long-term unemployed. As well as forklift training, Talent Express also offers training in the admin side of warehouse work and has a number of single mothers who have long struggled to find work currently training in these skills.
Justin Tomlinson MP said “I was extremely impressed by the work of Talent Express. They do not just train people, giving them the qualifications before passing them back to the Job Centre. They go the extra mile to help find their students employment.
“With as many as 30 vacancies for forklift drivers in Swindon currently and no-one to fill them, Talent Express is key. The partnership with Honda is inspired as it is not only giving students work, but career prospects. Honda almost always recruits from within and the Head of the Swindon Plant started his career on the shop floor.
“This partnership makes all the difference. These are people who have been looking for work for years, who are demoralised and have low self-esteem. Talent Express take them from this to employed with a major company with a real career path in front of them in as little as 9 weeks and also help them budget the transition from benefits to wages. I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that Talent Express transforms lives. Indeed, one student remarked to me ‘they have found something in us we never even knew’. I think this speaks for itself.”