​I’ve posted many times about Carrington West’s Investors in People platinum accreditation but I realised I’ve never really spoken about what that actually means for Carrington West, our colleagues, and what it could mean for you!

For those that don’t know, IIP are an organisation with a mission to make work better, through providing frameworks and an international standard for people management processes. The framework has 9 indicators that focus on improving, leading, and supporting employees in the workplace. This aligns very closely with the Carrington West “why” of being better in every way, every day. By working closely with IIP we can ensure our people management processes are first class.

So, what does the platinum status mean for everyone at Carrington West?

During our recent assessment, we were awarded full marks across all 9 indicators and a platinum status, which puts Carrington West in the top 2% of all IIP accredited organisations, and ranked as 7th best company across all UK companies, and all industries.

OK, so maybe it sounds like we are gloating, but the accreditation provides a framework to work to and is like a rubber stamp to say yes, we are doing everything in the best possible way. It validates our people management activities, it helps us achieve our vision of being the best possible employer. We are all immensely proud of this milestone and it is a true testament to the people first approach we take at Carrington West.

What does it mean for someone coming into the company? 

If you join Carrington West, or indeed any IIP accredited organisation you can be confident that you are in safe hands. At Carrington West, your career and wellbeing will be at the forefront of our business strategy, and you will be given everything you need to be successful, from world-class training, to highly effective processes, second to none support and a lively, friendly and welcoming culture.

As part of your onboarding, you will be enrolled on to our training programmes before you join giving you access to our learning & development hub, where you’ll find hundreds of hours of video training content. Alongside this you will have classroom based training sessions, at desk coaching, support from your manager, team leader and other members of your team and you’ll also be assigned a coach as part of our company coaching programme. We work with external training providers to create workshops and seminars, and we enrol all employees (consultants) on the REC level 3 certificate in recruitment practice. We understand everyone learns in different ways, which is why we deliver our training through a blend of methods, to ensure we are taking in to account all learning styles.

We have a culture of continuous improvement here; we are always seeking ways in which we can improve and be better. For that to work, we need colleagues to be passionate about their development and to have a true growth mindset. It’s been a large factor in our impressive growth and success over the past 10 years, and will continue to be in to the future.  

It doesn’t stop here.

IIP accreditation is not the end game. Like our continual learning ethos, keeping our accreditation requires ongoing input and improvement. Our relationship and our work with the IIP is the lynchpin of our people policies. Although we will take a moment to celebrate our success as a team, we will continue to look at ways to innovate and lead the way in improving people management in the recruitment sector.