Celebrating professional development

At this year’s Chemistry Means Business, we celebrated the most recent organisations to successfully have their training and development accredited by us. Dr Jonelle Harvey, Professional Standards Specialist explains what this means.

Thames Water and Novartis (Grimsby) join the list of accredited organisations, which so far includes AstraZeneca, BP, DSTL, Eli Lilly (Ireland), and Sellafield. The Novartis Grimsby site, situated in North East Lincolnshire, was successfully approved for accreditation by our Admissions Committee at their meeting in May.

Dr Scott Gibson from Novartis was part of their accreditation team. He explains how accreditation provides real benefit to the company.

"Our industry is highly regulated", he says, "so having an independent external accreditor of our training programme helps to show the auditors and the Health and Safety Executive that our chemists have been trained and are performing to the required standards."

Becoming chartered as part of your day job

Accreditation of company training and development means that Novartis employees will be able to achieve Chartered Chemist (CChem) in the course of their day-to-day role, by providing a framework for demonstrating that they meet the requirements for chartered status.

This has many advantages for the organisation compared to promoting individual applications. For example it streamlines the overall process, reducing the administrative burden on the organisation. It also gives the organisation autonomy of the process so that they can plan the development of their own staff.

To achieve accreditation, the organisation must put together a submission document that outlines how their training and development meets our professional standards. This is then peer-reviewed during an assessment visit by an assessor from within the broader chemical sciences, appointed by us.

Taking careers seriously

Nick Lammin, Site Training and Learning Head, and part of the accreditation team for the Novartis scheme, says of the assessment visit: "It was great for all our intended participants to take part in the assessment day because it showed them that we take their careers seriously."

"It is attractive for new recruits, to be able to tell them at the interview stage that we will be able to support them through an accredited training course," concludes Scott. "Having that seal of approval, that rubber stamp, is mutually beneficial from both a chemists’ perspective and from a business perspective."

Further information

Our accreditation is

• peer-reviewed so you can be assured of professional practice standards
• flexible (suitable for a range of development practices including graduate schemes in all chemical science disciplines)
• customisable to fit your current practices and confidentiality requirements

We can accredit existing professional development procedures and practices for our frame work of professional awards and membership such as Chartered Chemist. We can work with your organisation’s current practices such as performance reviews, appraisal mechanisms and competency targets, or you can also use our framework to enhance recognition in your organisation.

If you would like to find out more about our company accreditation schemes, and how you can get involved, please contact us.