Murray Bridge-based Big River Pork recently used Business SA’s onsite training services, which saved workers travelling more than 90 minutes in each direction to attend courses in Adelaide.

Big River Pork is a leading regional employer in South Australia with more than 300 workers. Safety is a major factor in its business model and reducing the cost of workplace accidents is a major contributor to its bottom line.  When big River Pork looked for a training provider to conduct its on-site HSR training, it chose Business SA.

Human Resources manager Natasha Pawlowsky said it was highly beneficial to have Business SA’s facilitators come to Murray Bridge to train workers on-site, particularly those who worked shifts.

“Business SA was flexible and accommodating in organising our on-site training,” Natasha said. 

“The training material and course content was relevant and the course was structured and easy to follow.

“That Business SA was able to come to our site and undertake training with such a small group was important, there are a lot of companies that won’t come onsite because of the location and because of small groups.

Natasha praised the course facilitator, Leonie Mueller, saying she was “knowledgeable and informative”.

“Leonie told a lot of good stories which were relatable to our industry. Often you get people from an office environment who come and talk to people at a meat processing plant and it’s not relevant. But this was really relevant to our people and they really appreciated it and related to it.

“Leonie was able to converse with different personnel from different levels across the business and provided excellent feedback for future improvements. We have greatly appreciated the level of training provided by Business SA.”

With very few training providers in Murray Bridge, Natasha said Big River Pork had been restricted in the past with which providers it could use.

“It would help to have more providers, such as Business SA, come to Murray Bridge because we’re very restricted in regards to courses,” she said. “For some courses, such as management skills, we have to send people to Adelaide. It’s very beneficial having facilitators come to Murray Bridge because we can train our staff here.”

Natasha said Big River Pork would most likely use Adelaide-based training providers who were prepared to come to Murray Bridge in future, such as Business SA, but it could be cost-dependent. Coming to Murray Bridge was a large cost-saving as well, given they saved on accommodation and travel times.

“Our guys are used to getting up extremely early, and for them to be at a city course from nine to five throws them out,” she said. “Business SA offered us flexible times, but we ended up going with 9 to 4, with an earlier briefing at 8.”

If you have a training enquiry contact Cindy Jackway on (08) 8300 0247 or email [email protected]