To commemorate its 25th anniversary, the Mercabarna Training Area held an interesting conference on “How to Motivate Company Staff” on 21 November. Some forty businesspeople and human-resources managers from Mercabarna firms attended the event, where the training courses to be offered in 2013 were also presented.
Conference speaker Montse Ventosa, chair and director respectively of the internationally renowned motivational organisations the Truthmark Foundation and Sticky Culture, affirmed that many companies don’t put enough effort into keeping their staff motivated because they fail to realise the impact it can have on business results. However she said, a motivated workforce “is more productive and can help boost your corporate brand”. Motivating factors she mentioned included communication, providing workers with challenges and creating a corporate culture, in other words, making employees feel part of a larger project.

Experiences exchange with other Spanish wholesale markets 
Also to celebrate 25 years of operation, the Training Area held a meeting at Mercabarna on 23 November with other Spanish wholesale markets that have a training service as well. The meeting was attended by training managers from Mercabilbao, Mercagranada, Mercamadrid, Mercapalma and Mercalaspalmas.
The goal behind this pioneering initiative was for the different training services to share experiences and find ways to work together to further improve the range of courses and services they offer food companies.

Mercabarna, 25 years training food professionals
A quarter of a century has passed since the first training course, focused on butcher skills, was held at Mercabarna in what is today the Training Area, a centre that specialises in developing the talent of food industry workers and which has seen more than 36,000 students attend the nearly 110,000 hours of classes it has run.
Area manager Maite Palat says that, these days, the Area wants to work more closely with businesses to adjust its course offer to their particular requirements. She also encouraged companies to use the training resources open to them. Ms Palat said that this year Mercabarna companies have used only 55% of the credit available for training their employees.