In Northampton, the traditional home of the shoemaking industry in the UK, on-site, hands-on training has proven to be of more value to local businesses than external apprenticeship schemes and courses.
“It’s desperately important for us to find a space for training,” says Euan Denholm, Head of Brand at Edward Green. “But we’ve found it’s best not to have that more structured, part college-based route.” Edward Green has spearheaded its own training programme, inspired by Julie Smart, the company’s Closing Manager, who previously taught at Northampton College. Taking eight staff at a time over 12 Fridays, she walks them through the process of making their own pair of shoes from start to finish. Needless to say, the end results are exceptional. They are being taught by the best in the business after all. The course also gives them a better appreciation of everybody’s role within the business, while learning to multiskill so they can do several of the tasks to the level that Edward Green demands.
From the initial design, via clicking (the precise cutting of the leather patterns) and closing (where the leather pieces are sewed together) to lasting (shape forming) and finishing, every stage requires an outstanding level of expertise. And it’s clear that the programme is instilling not just skills but enthusiasm and confidence in the staff. “We’ve got one lady, Carleen [Holmes] – wow, she just flew through everything,” says Julie. “And because she’s a machinist, she found that in the lasting room, the motion of her hands is the same. So she’s transferred her skills. And that’s lovely to see.”
Carleen herself reveals that her previous employer sent her on the Northampton College shoemaking course – where Julie taught her before. “I’ve been making shoes for 27 years,” she says. “But in the past nine months working here, I’ve learnt more jobs than I had in all those years. I think it’s really opened the door now for more general roles to be swapped over. And why not? Everybody’s capable of doing different things, so long as you’re taught properly.”
It has also proven effective at breaking down the traditional gender barriers that still tend to exist in the industry, as Stephen Wright, Quality Manager, attests. “If we’re short on individual staff for whatever reason, Julie might say, ‘Oh we’ve got a lady here who’s always keen to learn, do you want her to come in and help out?’ And the answer’s always yes! So we can multiskill across the factory, which is great.”
There is also a healthy influx of staff – often slightly older, with existing making skills from their first careers – such as Marcus Buckland, who works in Top Drawer [“which is basically training to do everything”], who trained as a picture framer, or his friend Dan Battison, a Slipper Operative, who had been in a band with Marcus and retrained from his job as an architectural model maker. Or, less likely perhaps, Lyndsey Robinson, who was previously a fraud analyst for Lloyds. “I was looking through jobs and this particular advert said: ‘Trainee shoemaker, must have neat handwriting’, and I thought, I’ve got nice handwriting, I’ll give it a shot. I didn’t know anything about shoes, it was totally alien to me.” Now, every finished pair of Edward Green shoes bears her exquisite writing – the final stamp of quality.
The same sense of pride pervades the building at Edward Green – as summarised by Technical Manager & Product Developer Carlos Iaconianni. “There’s a sense of achieving something here. We are makers. We put our hands and minds and hearts into the product.”
> Photography by Sam Walton
