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Security manufacturing

Industry Spotlight – Morgan GRP: ‘No one can afford to pay lip service to staff training’…

800 450 Jack Wynn

Security manufacturing is a growth industry and, by nature, is one that continues to develop. As the nature of threats continues to change, security offerings and products are developed and refined to meet these threats. 

And with newer markets becoming more dominant – such as the renewable and nuclear sectors – output changes need to meet these increased demands. The opportunities for career progression are manifold; and savvy employers will do all they can to support their most valuable staff members, maintaining updated and relevant skill sets.

No one can afford to pay lip service to staff training and progression. In the world of security, the reputation and the success of companies like Morgan GRP stands and falls on the calibre of its colleagues.

Our turnover is approaching £21 million and it bucked the trend during the most recent period of recession in the UK, continuing to grow turnover year-on-year; making a direct investment in the workforce every year has spurred us on achieve this growth.

We do this in a number of ways. Each year, we take on two electrical and fabrication apprentices who are given one-on-one mentoring, and progress is charted using a series of prescribed benchmarks.

Because our field is highly regulated, it is vital for us to ensure our certifications are up to date, and this is an ongoing process we attend to on a rolling basis, including for our welding, fabrication and construction teams.

This year, Morgan GRP is going through one of the most important chapters since its inception, with a renewed drive to push the company towards greater productivity. In addition, we are currently investing £1 million in a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system as part of a wholesale expansion and revisioning drive, resulting in the largest training programme we have ever undertaken.

The system integrates all applications across the group; managing the business and to automate many back-office functions relating to IT, services and HR. A wholesale readjustment of the business brings challenges for staff as well as opportunities for advancement.

The phasing in of the new ERP system has seen a steering group of directors and managers making a commitment to immersion and training sessions three times a week, familiarising themselves with its processes. These will then be shared across the whole group. 

Moving into the next stage of the firm’s life took some bold thinking and our determination to reshape our way of working and has seen us take on key new recruits, some of whom specialise in change management itself. Many of our directors, including our group managing director, Martyn Ingram, began his career on the shop floor here; therefore, the management style we uphold is open and collaborative.  

We don’t issue edicts; this isn’t a healthy way of developing staff or helping them achieve their best performance. Within the Morgan GRP family we have a number of employees who started out on our apprenticeship scheme, and have stayed with us until retirement.

This is something that gives us great personal satisfaction, but, in some ways, it makes it even more important that we attend to training and personal development very carefully.

It is perhaps easier to stagnate if you have been with a company for many years. But it is also easier to ‘take people with you’ if colleagues feel they have a personal investment in the future of a company and if you have strong interpersonal bonds as a workforce. We are fortunate enough to have that and it is something we foster and value.

 

Find out more about Morgan GRP here