Marley Eternit invests in merchant training facilities

Marley Eternit has unveiled its new look training centre, following a complete refurbishment of facilities and new course content.

The significant investment has resulted in new training rooms and a more usable practice area. The improvements mean more merchants can benefit from practical training to improve their knowledge of roofing and facades products, fixings and regulations, helping them maximise business opportunities available across these ranges.

More than 500 delegates benefit from free Marley Eternit training courses every year. There are three different courses available for merchants to attend, which run regularly each year between February and December, covering roofing product knowledge, dry fix systems and roof tile estimating. Various training courses covering facades are also offered.

The roofing product knowledge course has been updated to include the new fixings requirements from the revised BS 5534 standard, as well as new products launched in the last year, such as the SoloFix one piece clip and nail and Canterbury handmade clay tiles.

Katie Prestidge, the supplier’s Trade Marketing Manager, explains: “We’re committed to supporting merchants in maximising the business opportunities available to them. One way we do this is through the training we offer and many of our merchant customers see our training centre as a valuable free resource. Smaller independent merchants often use our roofing product knowledge course as part of their formal induction processes.

“The investment in the practical training area means we can provide more hands-on experience of the products, which is particularly useful when people are new to the industry.”

Marley Eternit has also set aside more dates to go into stockists to deliver the training in branch, which can be more suitable if there are multiple employees that need to be trained and the merchant can’t afford for them to be off site for a whole day. Training is also delivered at Marley Eternit’s factory in Beenham and West Scotland College, Paisley.

Katie continues: “In a rapidly changing industry, with new product innovations and regulatory changes, such as the new BS 5534 fixings standard, our training courses can help merchants keep up to date with the latest developments, so they can offer the best advice to customers and add value to sales. We will also be providing more follow up support for delegates after the training sessions by sending them regular updates on new products and regulation changes.”

For the rest of the year, the following training courses and dates are available at Marley Eternit’s dedicated training centre in Burton-on-Trent:

Roofing Product Knowledge