A kilogram or a gram? Workplace literacy is worth its weight at Rotaform Plastics

Rotaform Plastics lives and dies by the way its people manufacture and work, says its Chief Executive David Brumby.

A solid investment

David Brumby won’t give a second thought to talking about why workplace literacy programmes are a solid investment for his company.

It didn’t take much to win David over.

Realising there was a problem

Shortly after the Auckland plastics manufacturer introduced a literacy programme they realised that a lot of their team didn’t understand the difference between a kilo and a gram.

“These were the same guys who weighed out all our raw materials by hand. The value of a year’s raw material is enormous—so getting even a tiny percentage wrong makes an enormous difference.”

Rotaform Plastics has very demanding customers who want to deal in a professional way with a reliable company.

That’s meant new planning systems, improved quality control and a focus on areas such as health and safety.

“We need good communication and planning—and literacy skills are a vital part of that,’ says David.

Increased skills and morale

Since introducing a literacy programme there’s been a sharp rise in employee skills, confidence and morale.

“The staff’s ability and willingness to communicate effectively is critical to our growth. Their motivation and pride in what they do is fundamental, but also vital are their contributions and feedback in staff meetings and to supervisors.”

Real results

Procedures and processes are properly documented, leading to better quality and efficiency and the ability to tackle more sophisticated products.

“We definitely have fewer problems in terms of rejects and late deliveries. Reject rates have fallen by more than 50 per cent, and at least half of that is due to improved staff skills, including literacy skills.”

“Without an improvement in our staff’s literacy skills, we wouldn’t have been able to produce more sophisticated high-value products such as spa pools.”

Working on the business not problems

David says that just a couple of years ago he spent all his time dealing with problems.

“Now I can work on the business.”

And that’s thanks in part to improved morale, pride and communication in the workplace, which has meant fewer problems.

Rotaform’s story was provided by Workbase—The New Zealand Centre for Workforce Literacy Development.