Snell Packaging & Safety Ltd (employee)

The client

Snell Packaging & Safety Ltd is the leading distributor of packaging supplies and safety products in New Zealand. Snell distributes over 15,000 products and employs around 100 staff. 60% of its workforce are of Pacific Island origin and have English as a second language. Snell introduced workplace literacy training to help improve the English language, communication and numeracy skills of its employees.

 

Joyce Saulala 

Joyce Saulala is Air Traffic Controller in the warehouse and speaks Tongan as her first language. Joyce didn't feel confident in her English language skills which limited her ability to make herself understood and to communicate with colleagues and customers. Training helped Joyce:

• communicate more effectively with colleagues
• feel confident to speak up in meetings
• talk to customers and handle customer enquiries more without getting stressed
• help her son with his maths. 

 

Mesu Tupou, Picker 

Mesu Tupou is Tongan and has been with Snell for almost five years. In his Tongan community he is a senior church elder who co-ordinates the church choir. Mesu's limited English speaking skills have restricted his participation in work meetings and communicating with non-Tongan speakers. After the training Mesu: 

• completed his NZQA unit standard and made a presentation in English about his work.
• could read the pick list easily and became one of  the company's best pickers
• could help children with their homework. 

 

Wesley Delana, Picker

Wesley needed help to remind him about the maths skills he had forgotten and how to work out amounts and percentages.  Wesley's numeracy training helped him: 

• pick products much more accurately and faster
• understand the Snell statistics and graphs on the notice board
• calculate how many items are in a packet and how many packets are in a box. 

The communication training also gave him the confidence to speak up in meetings and to question anything he didn't understand.