Investing in its people

PiGs sponsor Emplas has achieved Investors in People (IIP) status across its entire Group in the UK.

This status means Emplas, Padiham Glass, Acorn Aluminium and T&K Home Improvements join only a handful of building products manufacturers and home improvement companies to hold the high-profile accreditation.

The award represents a significant achievement and recognition of the investment that Emplas is making in its teams but also infrastructure and service offer.

Alison Markham, Group HR Director, said the successful assessment was all the more significant because it had been achieved right across the Group – and on its very first attempt.

She explained: “As part of the assessment there are nine indicators and three themes or categories in each. You only need to miss one of those 27 themes and you fail the assessment, so the Group approach increased the stakes significantly.

“There’s nowhere to hide in a sense, everything and everyone is reviewed from the directors to individual employees and that highlights things that as an organisation you do really well, and any development areas.“

“To achieve IIP is a recognition of how much progress has been made over the last two to three years, and the commitment that has been made to our people strategy. We’ve grown significantly but still retain a very strong service-led culture.”

The work to achieve IIP accreditation which started in June 2023, was based on a confidential organisational-wide survey; leadership presentations; interviews with 50 employees chosen at random; and documentary evidence from the central HR team against nine separate indicators.

These included leading and inspiring people; living organisational values and behaviours; empowering and involving people; managing performance; recognising and rewarding high performance; structuring work and building capability; delivering continuous improvement; and creating sustainable success.

In their report, issued in February, Assessors highlighted Emplas’ commitment to be an ‘employer of choice’, as noteworthy, alongside consistent year-on-year growth.

They also commended its lead in digital transformation, including EVA, the Emplas Virtual Assistant and customer portal. This recently saw it introduce real-time delivery tracking, two-hour delivery slots and 20-minute push notifications ahead of arrival.

The assessment also highlighted Emplas’ extensive accreditations, underlying organisational stability and commitment to invest and to continuous improvement, which it said contributed to a ‘collective optimism across the group for the company’s future and the commitment of its people to continued success’.

Ryan Johnson, Emplas Group Managing Director, added: “We want to be a leader, not only in terms of the industries we work within directly, but to benchmark ourselves against the very best manufacturing businesses in the UK.

“We’re making exceptional progress, but we recognise that we have room for growth.

“IIP is a fantastic achievement but also supports us in identifying those areas to build on to drive cultural growth and ultimately a world-class level of manufacture and service to our customers.”

www.emplas.co.uk