A North Wales construction merchant is building confidence and career prospects for its staff through a learning initiative.

Huws Gray has teamed up with Grŵp Llandrillo Menai's Multiply department to provide a variety of free courses at its Llangefni headquarters.

The initiative aims to improve the career prospects of Huws Gray employees by enhancing their skills in mathematics, spreadsheets, and coding.

The Multiply project, led by Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, offers a wide range of free maths courses across Gwynedd, Môn, Conwy, and Denbighshire.

It works with organisations to boost the numeracy confidence of staff, clients, and community members.

Since February, Huws Gray has been offering its employees courses in GCSE maths, coding, and a Microsoft Excel masterclass.

Dafydd Hughes, head of central operations at Huws Gray, said: "As a company, we’re keen to provide all our colleagues with an opportunity to develop their career and fulfil their potential.

"We’re fortunate in North Wales, we have several links with colleges, other businesses, and universities in the area."

He added: "Our colleagues have thoroughly enjoyed the sessions with the incredibly helpful tutors and have developed new skills and newfound confidence."

Multiply designs and delivers free numeracy courses tailored to the needs of an organisation, its workforce, and the people it supports.

These courses cover a wide range of topics, including handling money in the workplace, numeracy skills for employment and promotion, maths for teaching assistants, running your own business, and numbers behind health and fitness.

Multiply tutor David Gosling running a Microsoft Excel Masterclass at Huws Gray’s head office  (Image: Grŵp Llandrillo Menai)

Kerry Barclay-Smith, a Multiply tutor, said: "As Huws Gray is in the building industry, we've been looking at it in connection with construction and the fact that this is something they're doing in their everyday life.

"We’re also looking at ways we can simplify the process so that they can get the results they need far quicker."

She added: "The big advantage that we have here is, this is a small group.

"I can get around to each of them, and I can make sure I'm differentiating for what they need."

Ms Barclay-Smith also highlighted the impact of the project on individual learners.

She said: "Having known one student here for just four weeks, she’s gone from having no GCSE to having me consider her to sit the higher GCSE paper, which is fantastic."

For more information, visit the Multiply section on Grŵp Llandrillo Menai's website.