Chepstow Plant International, a privately-owned mineral and aggregates contractor for the UK mineral products sector, has won a national award for its staff training and development initiative, known as 'Project Fusion'.
The company, which was founded in 1995, was announced as the winner in the Standards & Professionalism category at this year’s IQ Excellence Awards, and Project Fusion was deemed the ‘Best Personal Development Project’.
Launched by the Institute of Quarrying, the IQ Excellence Awards are a celebration of the achievements and success of individuals and teams across the mineral products sector. For Chepstow, this award win is a strong indicator to both its customers and competitors that the company is aspiring to maintain its pole position in when it comes to addressing the industry’s skills and knowledge gap. Through this project, the company is striving to build itself a stronger future through the implementation of this high-quality employee engagement and development programme.
When it was established in 2017, the primary objective for ‘Project Fusion’ was to engage and empower Chepstow’s teams from across the UK and also to help its members of staff reach their full potential. The name ‘Fusion’ derives itself from the company’s desire to fuse the training and upskilling with what is considered as the needs and requirements for the industry that the company operators in.
There were three key phases to ‘Project Fusion’. The first phase focused on understanding staff competency within the business and then introducing bespoke training plans to address the learning requirements that had been identified, while the second phase concentrated on the continued delivery of training and staff assessment programmes to build the team’s skills and knowledge.
During the third and final phase of the programme, Chepstow ensured that employees were operating and being developed at the recognised industry standards. The company also launched new communications platforms that could provide a method of delivery for efficient training and assessment materials and drive down site costs too.
Commenting on the award win, John Corcoran, managing director at Chepstow Plant International, said: “We’re incredibly proud of Project Fusion at Chepstow, and this award is testament to the hard work and effort the team have put into growing our training and competency schemes over the last three years. We’re committed to ensuring that our workforce positively continues the journey of development in our industry, and we’ll continue in our mission to create an aspirational work environment where every member of staff is well-equipped in knowledge and feels both challenged and fulfilled to work for us.
“As a business, we can now provide solutions for plant licensing, vocational qualifications, bespoke accredited courses, best practice training and the mandatory core competency courses required for safe operations. The result is we can continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible within a very challenging climate.
“We will continue to work hard to ensure we have the best staff for the job, and we’ll also use our leadership position to continue contributing to relevant industry council groups, working committees, institute events and the Quarries National Joint Advisory Committee (QNJAC).”
Sarah Fry, head of membership and marketing, IQ, said: “We would like to congratulate the team at Chepstow Plant International on this well-deserved award. As a three-phase approach to addressing the industry-wide skills and knowledge shortage, Project Fusion is a structured and well-planned investment that will help Chepstow to both strengthen its team and deliver work more efficiently every day.
“The IQ Excellence Awards aim to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of people and teams across the industry, and we truly believe that the hard work Chepstow has undertaken to combat a key issue we’ve been facing, and will continue to face, as an industry is definitely an achievement to celebrate.”
