Croda
Accreditation of New Manager Development Programme
Initially formed in 1925, Croda International Plc is a global chemicals company with its head office located in Goole, East Yorkshire. The company produces vital ingredients for many every day products such as personal care and health products. It has roughly 3,500 employees and operates in 35 countries.
The Challenge
Croda already placed a heavy emphasis on ongoing development of their employees. The organisation already had a significant number of training and development opportunities which were in place to support its management and leadership training requirements.
One of these development opportunities is the Croda New Manager Development Programme. This course helps support new managers in learning new skills and applying them to the workplace. The organisation wanted to find ways in which they could further enhance, and add value, to this provision.
The Solution
University of Derby Corporate (UDC) identified that the most appropriate way to strengthen this offer was to accredit the provision that was already in place. The assessment indicated that the most appropriate award for this course would be a University Diploma, giving successful delegates 60 credits at Higher Education Level 5.
The existing eight module programme was mapped into two HE Level 5 modules by a UDC Workforce Development Fellow, ensuring that the current assessment methods were balanced and relevant. Provision was also made for those who had already completed the programme to work towards the accredited qualification.
The Outcome
Croda has been able to demonstrate how robust this programme is through accreditation, raising its perceived value amongst its employees. The robust quality stamp demonstrates that the programme is of a high level and provides the organisation with a programme which can be benchmarked.
They've since received a National Training Award from UK Skills, demonstrating the organisations commitment to training and development, and UDC's ability to strengthen training provision through accreditation.
Nigel Fenwick, Group Training Advisor of Croda says "the partnership with the University of Derby Corporate is extremely strong. UDC understand the needs of our business, and the need to value what we had already designed but the additional requirement for adding value to it by making it into a University qualification. The process to do this was robust, but supportive. The uptake has been tremendous, we have a waiting list of managers who want to undertake the qualification, and the results have been very encouraging.
We value highly our association - to the extent that we will be allocating space to the University in our refurbished offices. UDC continue to work with Croda on this programme but are also in discussions about widening the partnership for accreditation to include new programmes which may result as managers need to show how they are working with the new management competencies."
