LAUNDRY operation at a South Somerset factory is playing a key role in the company’s drive to become an industry beacon for standards and best practice.

The Paragon Family of Companies, which has five factories including one in Yeovil, has enrolled more than half of its 500-strong workforce onto vocational commercial laundry courses.

Workers are studying Laundry Operations NVQ Level Two at Bridgwater College which, upon completion, will provide the successful employees with the equivalent of five A-C GCSEs.

The NVQ is specifically designed for individuals who are process, plant or machine operatives and work in a dry cleaning establishment, commercial laundry, care home, hospital and hotel industries.

Staff from the production team right through to management have undertaken the NVQ course which takes about six months to complete.

Paragon’s managing director, Robert Stevens, said there was a link between staff development and commercial strength and profitability.

“Not least in times of economic fragility, maintaining best practice and creating new ways to improve service, price and operations is essential,” he said.

“At Paragon we are doing just this, focusing on a range of industry-shaping initiatives, from the introduction of eco-friendly wash technology, pursuit of new international markets and – critically - deployment of the very best industry-specific training and development for our people.”

Paragon started as a small family business back in 1918 and has since flourished with a growing legion of Paragon people spread across the UK – with laundries located at Cheltenham, Kington, Nottingham, Ross and Yeovil – where the business is now one of the UK’s largest independent commercial laundry companies, providing services to both the hospitality and industrial markets.