When it comes to looking after and involving staff in running a successful business, Torquay’s Riviera International Conference Centre  is one of the best in the country and that’s official.

For after 40 hours of interviews with 31 employees, including Board directors, the Centre has been accredited with the highest recognition possible by the national standards organisation  Investor in People.

The Centre has become one of only 74 organisations in the country to gain IIP’s new ‘Profile’ status and a 33 page report on the judging and assessment showed it was 20 per cent ahead of the average score.

It’s an award which has delighted managing director Barry Cole and his team at the Centre which was recently named a finalist in the Business Excellence Awards by the British Hospitality Association.
Barry said: “The report we received was one of the most thorough and informative support documents we have had. While we are reassured by the results, we have used the report to identify areas in which we can make further improvements, all of which will deliver to our bottom line.”
HR and training manager Claire Newberry said: “We are very pleased with our results. The Profile experience has been extremely powerful for us and is already having a positive impact in helping us to drive the business forward.”

The Centre originally achieved Investor In People status in 1999 and went on to achieve its stretched module in ‘Leadership & Management’. It then started to look for a new opportunity that would further stretch its potential and that focus came in the form of the new Profile assessment recently introduced as part of the IIP standard.

Barry explained: “The Profile standard assesses the way in which companies lead their people and the extent to which they involve their team members. Management teams must do all they can to keep their teams informed and involved. The external assessment delivers an impartial view of how companies manage this and their business generally.”
Assessors from IIP conducted over 40 hours of interviews with the 31 employees before producing the comprehensive report.

Barry added: “The profile status is still comparatively new and, at the time of achieving it, we were one of only 74 companies throughout the country who had taken up this challenging level of accreditation. We can feel extremely proud of the outcome and our achievement.”

IIP’s director of development, Carolyn Smith, travelled down from London to present the Profile award to Claire Newberry who worked as the project co-ordinator and her HR and training administrator Valerie Yeo.