Akzonobel's New Flagship Paint Factory Receives Gold Investors In People Status

Earlier this year, AkzoNobel received its very first assessment against the Investors in People Standard and we are delighted to announce that our new state-of-the-art facility in Ashington has been awarded Gold level status.

Designed to help businesses improve performance through its most valuable asset, its people, IIP is all about developing strategies that increase employee engagement, improve management effectiveness and drive continuous improvements. The IIP assessment is a lengthy process which was carried out by an independent assessor who visited our flagship site in Ashington a number of times in order to complete an initial context analysis and production of an assessment plan, an online assessment which was administered to AkzoNobel staff to complete, individual and group interviews, a thorough review of supporting documentation, a site tour and observation of our ways of working.

The team at AkzoNobel were delighted to receive praise from the assessor on our high-performance management style, our core principles and work culture, desire for continuous improvement and high levels of employee engagement. Jeff Hope, head of manufacturing unit at AkzoNobel Ashington, said: “Although from the outset, our ambition was to achieve Platinum status, the highest level of accreditation the IIP offers, we were delighted to receive our Gold level IIP status. “The only factor which prevented us from achieving Platinum status was our lack of operational data. One of the IIP’s key criteria for achieving Platinum status is to have three consecutive years’ worth of data to corroborate your assessment which naturally, as a brand-new site, AkzoNobel Ashington doesn’t have yet. “Our plan going forward is to be reassessed again in 18 months’ time once we have our three years’ worth of data and hopefully by that point, we will have done enough to achieve Platinum status. “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate each and every member of the AkzoNobel Ashington team for helping to make this possible!”