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Acorn clinches Investors in People hat-trick
Wales’ leading recruitment and training company Acorn, is celebrating its Investors in People (IIP) hat-trick after auditors said the level of positive responses among staff was “extremely high compared to most organisations assessed.”
The Newport-based business operates a branch network throughout Wales, the South West, North West and Scotland, and is set to see turnover more than double in the next three years to £100m per annum.
After first being awarded IIP status in the year 2000, it successfully retained the award in 2003. Acorn recently successfully completed the process once again, this time to the new, more rigorous standard of the 2006 re-assessment.
“This is a great achievement for us,” says Managing Director Matt Southall. “As a leading recruitment and training organisation, and being in the ‘business of people’, it is hugely important that we strive to achieve standards such as IIP; there aren’t many businesses in our sector that have managed to do so.
“The award is a credit to all Acorn staff; after all it is our people that determine Acorn’s culture, and it is their professionalism and approach that determines the success or otherwise of our business. “
Developed in 1990 by a partnership of leading businesses and national organisations, the IIP standard helps organisations to improve performance and realise objectives through the management and development of their people.
The IIP audit stated, “Acorn is quite clearly a successful organisation that recognises the importance of a skilled, motivated and effectively managed workforce. It has developed a culture that supports and encourages the development of its people, and one where people feel that they are treated as important parts of that organisation.
“It adopts a fairly informal style of management where people are encouraged to use their initiative, but one that is underpinned by sound practices in relation to aspects such as business planning and monitoring, communications and people development.
“The level of positive responses to questions to staff about the organisation and its management was extremely high compared to most organisations assessed.”
Acorn reported a turnover of almost £40m in 2004/05 and earlier this year entered into a long-term partnership with leading European recruitment company Synergie of France to increases sales to £100m within the next three years.
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