Gary goes fast!

Gary has worked with Norfolk Industries since May this year, initially starting on a work placement with us. He wanted to change career and work in a sector that was less stressful and more rewarding.

Gary has been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome but manages this extremely well himself and is very aware of his strengths.

Since May, we have found Gary to be incredibly motivated, efficient and most importantly, employable. Norfolk Industries was looking for additional people to go onto our Bank Workers system to allow us to flex labour with the requirements of the business and Gary fitted this person specification perfectly!

After a successful recruitment process during September, Gary was issued a contract and started his paid employment with us, keen to prove himself every day. During October, Gary broke our previous record of packing product from our automated line by generating 10 pallets of product in one day which was amazing, and then in December he took this another step further and produced a whopping 12 pallets of product in one day (that’s 3,000 bags of product in boxes and 600 boxes packed)!

At this time of the year this is the perfect way to help us fulfil our Christmas orders for our commercial customers and Gary’s incredible effort just proves that people with disabilities are often even more productive than those without.

Gary said “I always try to produce as much as possible and on this particular day everything fell into place. The machinery ran flawlessly, the raw material was good, and I had loads of product to work with. So, I decided to step up and managed to push through the 12 pallets. I felt worn out by the end of it, but was proud of my achievement, and I was happy. It’s important to me that I feel I’ve proven myself and done my best for the business.”

That’s loads of happy small pets warm and cosy in their clean beds over Christmas!