UK: The business mantra of up-skilling staff during a recession is evident this autumn with 61 trainees having signed up for five separate SCA Timber Supply customer training courses.

The courses comprise a mixed group of builders merchants and SCA staff at the company’s Stoke-on-Trent headquarters, and four dedicated courses for staff at Buildbase, E H Smith Builders Merchants, Harlow Brothers, and LBS Builders Merchants.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development’s 2011 Learning & Talent Development Survey found that companies are reducing training budgets yet focussing on developing ‘high value individuals’. SCA’s customers seem convinced that by creating their own ‘high value individuals’ through training will benefit their bottom line.

SCA Timber Supply’s courses will conclude with a visit to Sweden for successful graduates in March/April 2012 to visit SCA’s FSC-certified forests and sawmills, in company with the winners of SCA’s sponsored Career Development Awards.