Investors in People Gold a Landmark Achievement for FFT in Wake of Pandemic

23 June 2022

Faithorn Farrell Timms has recently been re-accredited with Investors in People Gold, a level achieved by only 17% of organisations reviewed under the standard.

Investors in People (IIP) is something that FFT has always considered as a means to improving our business, giving us the opportunity to understand how best to develop and support our staff. We value the benchmarks it sets, helping us stay focused on meeting and exceeding the best standards in our industry, and generally.

One of our longest standing core values has always been to invest in our people, so that our clients have access to the widest possible range of expertise and the best levels of service.

The feedback from the IIP assessment is priceless, giving us a clear picture of team morale and engagement, showing us where we’re doing well, and highlighting opportunities for development. It’s the standard we use to make sure we’re doing all we can to fulfil our staff and clients’ needs.

How we’ve improved

Our recent assessment showed many areas of improvement since our last review in 2019. Given the challenges of the pandemic over the past two years, and the inherent difficulties in keeping staff engaged whilst working remotely during lockdown, it is rewarding to know we are going in the right direction in building a culture that puts our people at the heart of all we do, so that we can relay the benefits of a motivated and dedicated workforce to our clients.

IIP Gold is scored across four levels: Developed, Established, Advanced and High Performing. There are a total of nine indicators across which we are scored, each with three themes, making 27 themes in total.

In 2019, we ranked Developed and Established for 27 out of 27 of the themes, and we matched that for 2022. But improvements came in the shape of ranking Advanced for 24 of the 27 themes, up from 23 in 2019. Even better, this time around, we scored High Performing for four of the themes, where we hadn’t achieved anything in that category previously. Those themes were creating transparency and trust, empowering people and making decisions, and enabling collaborative working, all marking rises in engagement levels, which could be considered quite an achievement given the pressures of the pandemic.

We were pleased to learn that people felt motivated to give their best as a result of the positive working environment we strive to create, and that our exemplary record of client retention demonstrated our culture of high performance and excellent service delivery.

Overall – above average results

Our overall IIP benchmark score of 755, whilst down 25 points since 2019 which we’ve been informed is typical of this post-pandemic period, significantly beats the average benchmark score of 727 for all IIP assessed companies, and of 726 for those in our sector. So, we are delighted to know we’re an above average IIP Gold organisation.

Leading our journey towards IIP accreditation, senior associate Kevan Allaway has been thrilled with the results of the assessment, whilst recognising there is always going to be work to do if we’re to keep on growing and improving.

He says: “As well as the precious feedback that’s come from our people during this process, we’ve been given some highly valuable continuous improvement ideas by the Investors in People assessment team, which we are committed to pursuing.

“From the very foundation of the practice, the senior partners have been very clear about making FFT the best place to work, whilst delivering exceptional work and meeting our clients’ needs. Our values were always the same and for years they were never written down, however, the behaviours and expectations have never changed and as we can see they are well reflected in the IIP results.”