Salts Healthcare

Employer Award

2021

Employer Award

Salts Healthcare has created a number of career pathways to help production workers upskill to become fully qualified engineers through a combination of on and off the job learning. On top of this, the development of their Engineering Apprenticeship Programme has partly led them to be recognised among the top 100 apprenticeship employers in the UK.

Staff learning is a key part of the culture here at Salts, and plays a huge part in retention, business growth, and staff wellbeing.

Those enrolled on our upskilling programme attend college at least a day a week for a year, where they can choose from a range of engineering courses alongside maths and English skills development courses. Participants can then choose to progress onto advanced courses at the college to build up a career development programme.

Some of the staff even choose to combine this with an apprenticeship, and it’s common for people to progress through the various levels ranging between Level 2 (GCSE equivalent) and Level 7 (Master’s Degree equivalent).

At Salts, we have a genuine focus on staff wellbeing and are committed to equality and diversity. Our ratio of female to male apprentices is approximately 50% which is a great balance to have, further challenges were also recognised and overcome due to fact that many of our learners speak English as a second or even third language.

Even though lockdown and the fast pace of business growth has introduced new challenges and pressures, the positive impacts of our programme are clear as our training programmes continue to grow, and morale remains high.

Aleksejs Ksenofontovs, a learner on the programme, said: 

“Over my nine years at Salts I have continued to take on new opportunities to learn and gain new qualifications and advance through the company, supported by my engineering mentor. Salts Healthcare has given me an opportunity to develop myself and progress as an engineer. This has been life changing for me.”