Skills Award

About the award

This Award is to recognise the employer that has undertaken the most to contribute to the acquisition of skills by the company’s workforce through working towards the Cogent Gold Standard.

During a restructure and challenging economic time, Lanxess did not lose sight of, not just, the need to ensure that their continuing employees were highly trained, but also those departing were fully equipped from a skills point of view to continue working in the chemical science sector.

Established in 1958, the LANXESS Chemical Ltd (LCL) operation at Widnes produces intermediates for flavours and fragrances used in a range of products from personal and consumer care products to agrochemicals. Since its acquisition by LANXESS in 2021, the site has faced domestic and global challenges which have hit the whole chemicals sector hard and has had to make a number of difficult business decisions to remain competitive. These have included organisational restructuring, headcount reduction, and product portfolio diversification due to a reduction in demand and profitability. As an Upper-Tier COMAH site, compliance is always at the forefront of site activities, and expanding workforce competency has been a strategic driver of the site which has provided positive, tangible benefits during this period of uncertainty.

 The Widnes site embarked on a competency and flexibility programme in 2019 to absorb over 500 years of operating experience through predicted retirements. This programme, ‘The Emerald Academy’, focused on the operations area, and was recognised as best in class, resulting in the site winning the 2021 CIA Skills Award.

 Three years on, the site has not rested on its laurels but expanded the programme across all site departments through a now-embedded site-wide Competency Management System. Due to its Upper Tier COMAH status, the programme adopted was the Cogent/HSE system based around the management of process safety which provided a structured framework. When completing the initial assessment of the 15 Principles within the 5 Phases, it was no surprise that there was a clear distinction between operations, scoring very highly, and the rest of the site which highlighted plenty of improvement opportunities.

 Sponsored by the Site Director, development of the CMS was identified as a site priority requiring buy-in from the whole site which was managed through focused department and personal objectives. A member of the site management team was appointed as the project leader to emphasise its importance.

 The development of the Competency Management System (CMS) to incorporate all site functions and long-term contractors on site shows ongoing commitment to workforce development that brings numerous business benefits and supports legislative compliance.

 Using the 15 Principles framework, ensured that the key elements of a robust and appropriate CMS could be incorporated into all job roles and activities on site. Unlike an Apprenticeship or process/maintenance technician position where training programmes and use of skills is frequently tracked and assessed, skills and knowledge for professional/graduate roles are implied by qualifications and experience during recruitment. Very often these roles are not subject to the same checks and balances and so updating skills and competencies and mapping them to match changing legislation can be overlooked. To capture this, skills mapping involved aligning the expected roles and responsibilities outlined in job descriptions to LANXESS directives and policies, to UK legislative expectations and against professional role descriptors for chartered bodies such as IChemE, RSC, and CMI. Apprentice standards were also a valuable source of reference.

 Once the skills maps had been developed, job holders met with the CMS project leader to conduct a Training Needs Analysis to identify training gaps, development opportunities and occasionally, urgent training for a legislative compliance gap. The focus of the Widnes CMS is on maintaining competence and compliance to sector-required skills & standards, internal changes in roles and responsibilities, challenges of the knowledge economy, and the demands of regulation within the industry.

 Ongoing workforce development is embedded into the Widnes site culture and is a core strategic driver built on a sustainable established Competency Management System (CMS), delivering business objectives and providing employee development opportunities.