OAL News
10 reasons to work at OAL
We’re always looking for passionate, talented individuals to join our fast-paced innovative company! When searching for a new role, you may ask yourself why would I want to work for them? To help you answer that question, we’ve asked our team and come up with 10 reasons to work at OAL!
We’re always looking for passionate, talented individuals to join our fast-paced innovative company! When searching for a new role, you may ask yourself why would I want to work for them? To help you answer that question, we’ve asked our team and come up with 10 reasons to work at OAL:
1) Diverse customers
“OAL has an incredibly diverse customer base. The opportunities to drive the food industry forward are fantastic. And because we work with customers all over the world, there are great opportunities to travel.”
2) Endless oppportunity
“You get a chance to develop new skills in many engineering disciplines. ”
3) Cutting-edge technology
“It is great to always be working with new technologies that nobody else has access to.”
4) Share great experiences
“Each day provides incredible opportunities to work with both colleagues and customers who are the best in their field.”
5) Management that care
“The MD is so motivated, it’s very contagious. It’s great to work with like-minded people.”
6) Challenging
“In my role, I get to face and solve new challenges every day.”
7) Food is life
“Knowing that we’re helping to improve the way we make food is incredibly rewarding.”
8) Flexible
“OAL has always been understanding and accommodating of my own circumstances and the hours that I can realistically work. They aren’t stuck in the old 9 to 5 age and had adopted working from home policies before COVID-19 made it the norm! ”
9) Teamwork
“At OAL, I get to interact with a very varied friendly group of colleagues. I learn something new from them every day.”
10) Valued
“The business makes me feel welcomed and valued and my manager is always on hand to advise and help.”
So, want to join the team? Visit our careers page to see our latest vacancies. If you’re not sure where you’d fit, feel free to send us your CV and let us know why you want to work with us: jobs@oalgroup.com
Equipment giveaway at OAL
Following our extensive digital transformation project that took place at the height of lockdown 1.0, we had quite a bit of equipment and furniture that were no longer in use. This presented us with a fantastic opportunity to give something back to help local businesses and families during this ongoing period of uncertainty.
Following our extensive digital transformation project that took place at the height of lockdown 1.0, we had quite a bit of equipment and furniture that were no longer in use thanks to our new pods and drive to go fully paperless. This presented us with a fantastic opportunity to give something back to help local businesses and families during this ongoing period of uncertainty.
As so many families are trying to cope with the challenges of homeschooling without the proper equipment, we were delighted to be able to donate 14 reconditioned laptops to a number of good causes, including Marshfields Secondary School in Dogsthorpe and the Stilton COVID-19 support network to help children access educational resources to support their learning during the pandemic. We really hope that this will help pupils stay connected with their peers and teachers and make the most of the new online teaching that has become the norm.
With interest from far and wide, we were also able to give away 28 desks, 30 sets of drawers, 11 cabinets and numerous whiteboards to support local businesses and give both home workers and students learning from home the tools to make this new reality just that little bit easier.
It was a great team effort from OAL, with everyone working together to help to arrange for these items to be collected safely. We’re delighted to play a small part in doing something positive in what has been a difficult period for everyone and we’ll continue to look for more ways to support our local community throughout 2021.
OAL featured on ITV News Anglia
OAL appeared on the local news on 20 November 2020, discussing the benefits that a new university in Peterborough will bring to our business and the region.
OAL appeared on the local news on 20 November 2020, discussing the benefits that a new university in Peterborough will bring to our business and the region and demonstrating our robotic weighing system!
On Friday 20 November 2020, Harry Norman was featured in a news report from ITV News Anglia focusing on the new Anglia Ruskin University ARU Peterborough campus. Harry shared his views on the great new pipeline of talent that the university will bring to the city and hopefully to our business as we continue to grow and offer our innovations to manufacturers around the world. You can also take a peek at our APRIL Robotics Ingredient Handling system in operation in the video!
ARU Peterborough will provide a practical solution to the problem of low employment and skill levels across Peterborough, helping to increase employability and skills and retain talent in the region while also bringing additional opportunity and prosperity to the area. The university has been created to address a higher education ‘cold spot’ which has been identified, as well as widening participation by attracting a diverse student population from non-traditional backgrounds to improve social mobility and to redress the skills gaps within businesses and industries across Peterborough and the rest of the region.
The new university in Peterborough is set to open its doors to 2,000 students in 2022 with plans to offer courses for up to 12,500 students by 2030. Working with employers like us to develop and deliver the curriculum, which will be led by student and employer demand, the University will offer courses in engineering and technology skills. Courses will be delivered through a mixture of on campus lessons, in-work training, and apprenticeships, with distance learning and outreach programmes to improve accessibility and attract more talent. We’re looking forward to working with the University and students to offer further opportunities in our thriving city!
If you’re interested in our technology or want to hear more about opportunities with OAL, contact us today!
OAL takes part in Social Mobility Pledge
OAL has recently taken part in a new social mobility report with our partner, the University of Lincoln, and led by Rt Hon Justine Greening MP, who pioneered the Social Mobility Pledge. Discover the findings and read the report, including OAL’s role and our case study.
OAL has recently contributed to a new social mobility report produced by our partner, the University of Lincoln, and led by Rt Hon Justine Greening MP, who pioneered the Social Mobility Pledge.
Justine Greening with the University of Lincoln report
The new report outlines the impact of the partnership between the University of Lincoln, food industry employers and local schools in the Holbeach area in supporting social mobility and describes how this ecosystem of opportunity has helped to transform the options open to local children over the past decade.
The Social Mobility Pledge was set up by Justine Greening, then Secretary of State for Education, in 2018 to work alongside businesses and universities to tackle regional disparities and ensure there are opportunities for all. As Greening states in her foreword to the report, the University of Lincoln “has truly stepped into that wider role of a ‘levelling up university’, addressing issues that are relevant to its region’s problems and, through its own investment and effort, creating opportunities that link in with the expertise of the local area.”
The University of Lincoln sponsors the Lincolnshire Educational Trust, an academy trust of local primary, secondary and special educational needs schools based in Holbeach and surrounding villages in South Holland, as well as running a major education, training, and industrial R&D facility in Holbeach – the National Centre for Food Manufacturing (NCFM). The centre serves the skills and innovation needs of the UK's £110bn food and drinks sector, connecting local schools with a global industry and creating a new pipeline of talent for the sector. This is where OAL’s apprentices study and where we house our Steam Infusion & APRIL Robotics test centre.
OAL is a University of Lincoln project partner, offering a path into the workplace from the University and achieving great results for both the individuals and our company, as can be seen in our case study in the report. Samantha Norman, Director at OAL, took part in a round table discussion with Justine Greening, members of the University of Lincoln and other employer partners at the virtual launch event on 3 November 2020.
“We were delighted to take part in this report tackling such an important issue. It’s great to see the success of apprenticeships and how they can help people to overcome the ‘opportunity deficit’, both in terms of learning at the University and the support and development on offer as part of the team at OAL. We look forward to working with the University of Lincoln to support more young people in the future. ”
We’re committed to supporting the next generation getting into the world of work and developing the skills they need to thrive, whatever their background. The University has worked with the community and employers like OAL to raise aspirations and attainment, enhance educational opportunities, support businesses and create pathways for local people into highly-skilled employment and we’re very proud to partner with them.
OAL digitises its operations
In mid-2020, as the UK remained in lockdown due to COVID-19, we were awarded a grant to digitise our operations. As a result of the steps taken, we’re now working smarter, working faster and being more productive, helping the business to accelerate significantly.
In mid-2020, as the UK remained in lockdown due to COVID-19, we were awarded a grant to digitise our operations. As a result of the steps taken, we’re now working smarter, faster and more productively, helping the business to accelerate significantly. James Palmer, Mayor of Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, visited us to see how we got on!
Banishing paper to the recycling
Harry and the team were able to digitise the business thanks to the COVID-19 Capital Grants Scheme from the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority. With a grant of around £48,000, OAL was able to make the most of the quieter period at the height of the lockdown to take steps to streamline operations and take advantage of new technologies. This meant an end to old systems generating what amounted to around 14 square metres of paperwork and non-integrated software which made it difficult for our teams to work collaboratively.
“This grant has been extraordinarily important for the future of our business. People are now doing in two hours what it might have take them all day to do before. We’re estimating productivity gains of about 20% within our business.”
State-of-the-art pods
The digitisation comes with 14 new, fully-equipped pods for staff to work in. Building work for the new pods and the setting up of the new equipment has been very cost-effective, using local contractors, prefabricated panels, Amazon Alexa hubs and Microsoft Teams software, for example, to slash the cost of a typical refit and overhaul. This meant we actually achieved double the number of pods than what was originally envisioned with the grant money.
Each pod is self-sufficient with its own ventilation, lights and screens allowing one person to work in a quiet, productive environment, where they can collaborate with colleagues and customers easily through video calls and shared documents, allowing for a more interactive way of working.
The pods also allow people to work in two-metre spaces, adhering to the latest public health guidelines, as beforehand the original open plan office environment provided too many distractions and meetings were not always productive.
“Adversity does create opportunity and COVID-19 has given us time to reflect. We had too much paperwork and our systems held back our potential to work more effectively as a team. The more we have rolled out this technology, the more we wished we had done it sooner.”
We received a ringing endorsement from Mayor Palmer, who was amazed by how much we achieved with the grant and commented that we had created “the most innovative, paperless 21st century office” and “the future of offices”. The Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority were exceptionally helpful throughout the application process, offering practical information and even making themselves available at weekends to help support us at what was a difficult time across the world. The transformation that we made wouldn’t have been possible without the grant so a big thank you to Mayor Palmer and the rest of the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority team!