The UK business unit of TNT Express has been an accredited Investor In
People since 1994 and are ambassadors for the standard. This is
where the initial drive for international accreditation came from for
the rest of the business. Although this was a UK standard we
could see obvious benefits for our business worldwide, not least of
which were those offered by a company audit given by an external body.
This would give TNT Express an impartial and constructive view of
itself, which for improvement purposes, could only be an advantage.
We believed accreditation would be a way to bring consistency and
professionalism through best practice to our People Management
practices across the business, bring coherence to the results of our
People Surveys and set a basis for implementing plans for continuous
improvement.
We have a diverse group of countries within the TNT
Express organisation, some large, some small, some well developed and
some emerging, so to become the first company to be globally recognised
we began our initial accreditation campaign with a sample of these
countries. We achieved recognition as an organisation in 2000.
This soon became recognised as being so beneficial that all countries
wanted to gain accreditation in their own right and strived to prepare
themselves for assessment as soon as possible. Thus, the end of 2005
will see all 53 of our countries accredited.
Investors in People recognition is of such importance to TNT Express
that maintaining the accreditation has now become one of our Key
Performance Indicators. We have taken the option to review at 18-month
intervals to ensure that the IiP standard is embedded in the culture of
the company. In addition to external assessments on the standard we
also conduct our own internal assessments on Recruitment &
Selection and Leadership models.
We have found that our countries are eager to maintain their IiP
accreditation and are proud of the efforts that go in to
it. Many of our Country HR Managers are asked to speak at
business functions on the benefits of being an Investor in People and
our approach to global recognition.
Meeting the standard clearly demonstrates that we recognise individual
and team achievements, develop people to achieve their full potential
and provide job satisfaction together with rewarding internal career
opportunities.
A comment made by Roger Rix, the lead assessor, before he retired “It
was very rewarding to talk to people in places as far apart
geographically and culturally as Delhi, Santiago and Arnhem and to
perceive a unity of management commitment to people. There is a
sense of pride and enthusiasm everywhere and a commitment to service
excellence at all levels” shows the success of our Global approach.
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