Morning Data is delighted to announce that on the 6th August we successfully passed the Investors in People inspection.

There are three key areas of the standard we had to meet:-

• Developing strategies to improve the performance of the organisation
  • A strategy for improving the performance of the organisation is clearly defined and understood.
  • Learning and development is planned to achieve the organisation's objectives.
  • Strategies for managing people are designed to promote equality of opportunity in the development of the organisation's people.
  • The capabilities managers need to lead, manage and develop people effectively are clearly defined and understood.
• Taking action to improve the performance of the organisation
  • Managers are effective in leading, managing and developing people.
  • People's contribution to the organisation is recognised and valued.
  • People are encouraged to take ownership and responsibility by being involved in decision making.
  • People learn and develop effectively.
• Evaluating the impact on the performance of the organisation
  • Investment in people improves the performance of the organisation.
  • Improvements are continually made to the way people are managed and developed.

I was delighted that my team were so proactive and threw themselves into the inspection which concentrated on confidential interviews on how they perceived their roles and the roles of their managers. It looks at how the company functions as a group and how the organisation values the skills of its employees and proactively moves to develop these.

For Morning Data we recognised we had a very highly skilled team, and our mission started on concentrating on the group and how to improve productivity by changing working patterns and interpersonal skills. This in part was done by looking at the people we had and what would get those individuals working more effectively. The overwhelming discovery I made personally was that there is no right way to do this and that if you recognise the individuality of your staff the cohesion of your team is often far closer within your reach.

I would like to thank Jonathan Saunders our Business Development Consultant for patience, understanding and fantastic advice, Neil and Joanna our inspectors from IIP for a smooth inspection, helpful comments and constructive well thought suggestions, and my team at Morning Data without whom I guess we would have noone to invest in!