A north east specialist plastics manufacturer is the first company of its type in the region to gain national recognition from the sector skills organisation, Cogent.
Stanley based Sone Products Ltd (SONE), suppliers of innovative application and dispensing solutions, has recently announced it has achieved Cogent’s Gold Standard and is only the second company in the region to receive this prestigious recognition. Other leading organisations who hold the Gold Standard include paint and coatings company Akzo Nobel, chemical company BASF, British Sugar and Fuji Film.
Government funded Cogent is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, nuclear, life sciences, petroleum and polymer industries. Its aim is to help employers in these science-using industries to address their workforce development needs and thereby improve their competitiveness.
Constantly working to ensure its staff are of the highest calibre and possess the right set of industry skills to compete in a global market, SONE is reaping the rewards of this hard work with its latest accolade.
SONE set out on the Gold Standard journey by benchmarking the current skills set held within its manufacturing team against that of Cogent’s Gold Standard by reviewing a range of factors such as training plans, job specifications and skills matrices. This exercise is undertaken to identify any skills gaps that might be in place from which a development plan can be drawn up. In SONE’s case the exercise served to confirm that the Company either met or exceeded the standard.
Speaking about this latest success and recognition for its workforce, SONE’s commercial manager, Trevor Siddoway said: “This is great news for the company and its workforce. When undertaking the benchmark exercise, I was confident that we were already ahead of the game when it came to training and developing our people, however, to receive a resounding thumbs up and get the Gold Standard at the first attempt is marvellous.
“As we continue to operate in a global market, recognition of this type sets SONE apart from its competitors and reinforces the message that when working with us you are guaranteed the industry’s best will be at your disposal.”
When awarding the Gold Standard, Cogent’s polymer lead manager, Daniel Freckingham, told SONE, “It’s really great to see such genuine commitment to both skills and to the employees at SONE and hugely interesting for me to see how many core competences are being covered with your structured internal programme.”
Gold Standard recognition brings benefits to both employers and employees. For employers, amongst other things, it is an industry skill benchmark for world-class performance and assurance that a company’s investment in skills hits all the right targets. For the employees, it ensures that their skills are accredited to world-class standards and provides them with the ability to transfer these skills across the polymer/plastics sector.
In further recognition of the investment it makes in its workforce, SONE has held Investors in People Accreditation since 1994 and is a former winner of EEF’s Future Manufacturing Skills Award.
