Celebrating success at the Chemical Industry Awards 2012

“Despite all the justified concerns over the economy, earlier this year, the UK produced record exports by volume and leading that achievement was the chemical sector – making your companies who’s exports have doubled in a decade, the nation’s number one manufacturing exporter”.

Amongst the many awards of the night Cogent and the National Skills Academy for Process Industries sponsored the Gold Standards Skills Award. This award recognises the employer who has done the most to contribute to the acquisition of skills by the company’s workforce through working towards the Cogent Gold Standard.

And the award goes to…

SABIC UK Petrochemicals

SABIC have developed “Activity Based Learning”, a competence based learning system. This involved a complete analysis of all competences needed for every single role within the business; achieved via consultation with a large percentage of workforce, in each particular role, and their line management. 

SABIC also invest heavily in training and have initiated a new Management Development Program to allow technicians to bridge the gap to management positions, and have developed an online learning training system which helps provide a blended learning approach recognising not everyone learns in the same way.

SABIC’s Learning and Development Manager Kathryn Harper, who received the award on the company’s behalf, congratulated her colleagues who put so much effort into establishing the Gold Standard, describing the award as “a great honour” for all at SABIC.

Cogent CEO, Joanna Woolf commenting on the Gold Standard Skills Award said: “We’re delighted to see this important award go to SABIC UK Petrochemicals. The company’s comprehensive training and development programs are benchmarked to the highest standards and importantly provide robust competency-based career pathways for employees.  This Award is well-deserved, reflecting a highly innovative learning approach at SABIC.”

Special Awards

Another winner on the night was George Ritchie, SVP Regional HR for Sembcorp Industries who was recognised for lifetime of work in promoting apprenticeships particularly to the leadership and direction he gave to the widely regarded Tees Valley Apprenticeship Programme (TVAP), run by the National Skills Academy for Process Industries and responsible for creating and safeguarding more than 300 apprenticeships over the past two years.

Mr Ritchie commented “One thing that never ceases to inspire me is the skills and talents of the young people we have in this industry and the region – people grasping the nettle and taking advantage of the many opportunities that are out there. These are the people who will be driving our business growth in the coming years and from those I have seen I think our future is in safe hands. But we need many more employers to give the young people more opportunities and engage more with apprenticeships than they are doing today”

NSAPI CEO, Philip Jones commented “The Academy is delighted to see George Ritchie and the TVAP programme honoured at these awards.  The huge success of TVAP has been down to the dedication and passion of all the team involved and it is great to see this recognised by the CIA. ”

About Cogent 

Cogent is the Sector Skills Council for the science-based Industries. It operates in the three main industry areas of:

•Life Sciences

•Process Manufacturing 

•Nuclear

These industries employ around 900,000 people in high value jobs and indirectly support around three times as many. Cogent works with the employer base to raise ambition on skills and deliver value adding programmes and solutions that meet employers’ needs.

The world-leading science-based industries in the Cogent footprint have a turnover of £200bn – greater than all government spend on health and education. The industries rely on a constant supply of high level skills, especially in science and engineering, to ensure innovation and growth in life sciences, energy and advanced process technology.

About National Skills Academy for Process Industries

The National Skills Academy for Process Industries is an employer-led centre of excellence launched to address skills and training needs throughout the biotechnology, chemical, composites, downstream petroleum, polymer and pharmaceutical sectors.

The Academy aims to create a highly skilled workforce capable of competing on a global stage as well as promoting the Process Industries as a progressive and exciting career choice. Its main aim is to encourage employers to engage in frontline staff training so that their current workforce can achieve accredited qualifications to an industry-wide Gold Standard.