YORK-based training advisors have clinched a deal with the UK's leading office supplies company.

The partnership between Zodiac Training Ltd and Guilbert UK - part of the France-based PPR Group - has led to a new customer training package being piloted at Guilbert's Leeds site.

The link was forged by Sandra Carter, manager for Zodiac at its Askham Bryan centre, and Guilbert's head of training and development, Michael Shutie.

The on-the-job training programme at NVQ levels two and three could be extended to all Guilbert's UK sites, which employ 2,200 people.

Michael said: "This scheme will have a real impact in terms of how we operate within this most important base of any company - its customers."

Zodiac Training has more than 90

staff working from seven centres,

including the one at Askham

Bryan which was established in 1999 and covers the whole of North Yorkshire and Leeds.

Askham Bryan-based staff member Dorothy Woolf is responsible for delivering the Guilbert training. She has over 20 years training experience in the customer service environment.

Sandra said: "We work closely with Training and Enterprise Councils such as North Yorkshire TEC and Leeds TEC to deliver National Traineeships and Modern Apprenticeships to staff at local businesses. We also match school leavers

with appropriate employment opportunities.

"In the York area we are currently working with over 40 companies, ranging

from the Royal Bank of Scotland, Thomas Cook, Superdrug, Specsavers and Tiny Computers to a number of businesses within the Designer Outlet centre.

"We are going from strength to strength and are now recruiting additional

staff."

PICTURE: Guilbert training candidate Joanne Owen (left), with Zodiac trainer Dorothy Woolf and Michael Shutie, head of training and development at Guilbert