Banks Group celebrates 25 years of IIP accreditation

 Dan Matthews, group learning and development manager at the Banks Group, with IIP assessor Graeme Mills

County Durham-based property, housebuilding and mining firm the Banks Group is celebrating 25 years of excellence in people management after reaching its silver anniversary of its first Investors In People accreditation.

The family-owned firm has held an IIP accreditation since 2001, achieving the silver standard in 2018 before going on to become one of just a handful of North East businesses to attain the gold level accreditation in 2024.

The accreditation period has covered the Banks Group’s evolution from being predominantly a surface mining business into operating successfully in the renewable energy, plant management, contract mining and, most recently, housebuilding sectors.

And as the company also celebrates its 50th anniversary, it has reaffirmed its commitment to investing in learning, development, leadership resources and managing and rewarding performance.

The Investors In People accreditation process measures businesses’ performance across nine core competencies - leadership, living the values and behaviours, empowering people, managing and rewarding performance, structuring work, building capability, delivering improvement, creating sustainable success and leading and inspiring people.

As part of the process, IIP assessors have regularly visited Banks' Meadowfield headquarters and other premises to interview a range of randomly-chosen members of staff who represented a cross-section of ages, length of service, roles and seniority.

Anonymous online surveys covering every aspect of the business's performance across the IIP assessment areas were also undertaken right across the business.

Investors In People assessor Graeme Mills says: “Investors In People is all about recognising and encouraging high performance, what goes into achieving these standards and what businesses and management teams can do to sustain them over the long-term.

“The companies that achieve the highest IIP accreditations are the ones that authentically live their values, shaping their decisions and behaviours around the standards they set and seeing the positive impact of these choices permeating right through their operations.

“The Banks Group has a rare combination of being a family business with a long heritage that is also quick to respond to new commercial opportunities and to adapt to what it needs to do to equip its team with the additional skills and resources required to take advantage of them.”

Feedback from the IIP assessors in 2024 noted the company’s “strategic thinking in the development of people development and management practice,” its “leadership’s ambition to improve and seek different ways of working,” and the feeling that “people are generally enthused and excited about the future.”

Nick Hobdey, group HR director at the Banks Group, adds: “The long-term investment we’ve made in training and HR resources demonstrates the emphasis that our senior team places on this aspect of the business, with the IIP accreditations we’ve gained over the last 25 years showing the clear impact that this approach has on our day-to-day operations.

“The Investors In People process has a direct impact on the way in which our business operations have been managed and enhanced over a quarter of a century, with a range of enhancements to the ways in which we monitor and reward high performance resulting from preparations for and conversations during the assessment process.

“In what is already a landmark year for the business, we’re very pleased to have reached this additional milestone and are very much focused on retaining and building on our Gold accreditation when our next formal IIP assessment takes place in 2027.”

Dan Matthews, group learning and development manager at the Banks Group, says: “The most important asset of any business is always its people, and having a forum through which colleagues can provide direct, honest feedback on the company’s current activities and future plans is absolutely invaluable for all of us.

“The insight that the IIP assessment process provides is an essential part of attracting, developing and retaining high calibre staff, and helps to ensures they’re equipped with the skills they to reach their goals and are properly rewarded when they do so.”