Tánaiste Presents Excellence Through People Awards

Mary Harney, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment today (Tuesday, 1st September 1998) presented the Excellence Through People Awards to 5 organisations at a ceremony in the Stakis Hotel, Dublin.

Speaking at the awards ceremony the Tánaiste said "Today's awards go to a mix of overseas and indigenous organisations which represent both the private and public sectors. A division of FÁS's own services is included for the first time in the awards. Their inclusion demonstrates that, just as companies operating on a commercial basis need to invest in training, it is equally important for the public sector to do so in order to improve the efficiency and quality of the services they deliver to the public."

Excellence Through People is designed to reward and encourage high training standards. It has an important role to play in improving a company's competitiveness by encouraging the development of the company's skills base. This protects existing jobs and helps to create new ones. The Excellence Through People scheme is quite unique in that it focuses on the 'people aspects' of the organisation.

"The Programme for Government acknowledges that competitiveness is underpinned by investment in the skills and knowledge of the workforce. "By recognising and developing the potential of its human resources, Ireland can sustain its strong economic performance and achieve a competitive advantage in global markets. Individual companies, by developing the skills of their workforce, can help to ensure the competitiveness of Irish industry into the twenty-first century. Both indigenous companies and subsidiaries of overseas companies operating out of Ireland need to continuously upgrade and diversify their employees' skills base if they are to compete effectively in global markets," the Tánaiste said.

The 5 organisations which received the award are the ESB Customer Services, Southern Region; Ulster Bank Commercial Services; Tractech; Hewlett Packard (Manufacturing) and FÁS Placement Services, South-West Region. The organisations vary in size from 40 to l,200 workers and, in total, employ 3,000 people. This brings to over l5,000 the number of people employed in the 39 organisations which have been awarded the Excellence Through People Certification since it was introduced by FÁS in 1995.

"It is worth highlighting that the investment which these organisations are making in training and development is substantially higher than the national average. I want to acknowledge their commitment to staff training and development and I have no doubt that they will reap the benefits of their investment over the coming years," the Tánaiste concluded.