In 2003 Kalyani’s life was turned upside down when her husband Kamalesh died suddenly of a heart attack while employed at Muirhead Vactric Components Ltd in South London. Kalyani was working part-time & she knew she’d need to provide for her family.

Just 23 years old when she came to the UK from India Kalyani married, had two children and then worked as a skilled electrical assembler for various companies.
Armed with this experience and these skills, she persuaded Muirhead to let her take on her husband’s job. This meant she could work full time to support her family.

Kalyani spent the next three years with Muirhead, but when the company was forced to implement a radical job-shedding programme in 2006, she was made redundant that September.

Devastated by this second disaster, Kalyani felt she’d let everyone down. Desperately keen to support her children, she had to find another job that would allow her to use the skills she had acquired.

Muirhead decided to call on us to help them with the redundancies as we run the London Development Agency’s Manufacturing Competencies Retention Programme [MCRP].

Sylvie Ciacciarelli, one of our redundancy and recruitment specialists worked intensively with Kalyani to find her alternative employment as quickly as possible. Sylvie helped Kalyani develop her CV; search for suitable job vacancies and most significantly, encourage Kalyani to rebuild her shattered confidence.

We quickly identified a good position with Centronic Limited [Croydon] designers & manufacturers of high performance, radiation detector and sensor systems.

With a worldwide customer base and diverse range of applications for their products in industrial control, non-invasive medical examination, marine propulsion and satellite navigation, it looked as though Kalyani would offer Centronic the right mix of skills and experience.

Following a successful interview with Centronic, she was offered a position as an electronic assembler and started working full-time again just two short weeks after being made redundant.

"I have always enjoyed the camaraderie of working in manufacturing," said Kalyani, "and I can feel that same sense of team spirit at Centronic."

"Kalyani's skills and experience have helped her to settle into her new job very quickly", commented Gina Bromley, Centronic's HR Manager. "I am sure that she will make a valuable contribution to Centronic's performance in the years ahead. And I am especially pleased we have been able to play our part in helping Kalyani to rebuild her life".