If you were to look up the creator of the saying “no day is ever the same here”, you will find that they were a Plasma employee.  2017 has been another great year of innovation and progress.  At Plasma we are always thinking about the things we will do next, so grab a nice winter warming drink of your choice (mulled cider for me) and take some time out to think of all that we have achieved.

There is lots written about all the clever things we are doing for our customers and our sector, so let’s chat about all the amazing things we have done as a team.  We have welcomed over 70 exceptionally talented contractors and permanent team members.  The South West is full of some very big, impressive companies but we continue to attract the best.  I know it’s not our coffee, so it must be the very interesting work we do for our customers and the opportunities we offer.  More than 20% of us enjoyed a promotion, a role change and/or took on some additional responsibilities.  It is great to see the number of people progressing through the technical career ladder into Lead, Senior and Associate Fellow roles.

Despite our growth, we maintained our commitment to our training and development.  We increased our Graduate and Apprenticeship intake and the number of people on our Management Development, Operational Excellence and Early Careers Programmes.   We invested in personalised line management development programmes, Kepler Tragoes Analytical Problem Solving and more.  Congratulations to all of you studying externally, from Bachelors to Masters Degrees.  Graduation (and the graduation party) is now in your sights.  Thanks to everyone who attended numerous external courses at Universities and Conferences and brought their learning back into Plasma.  We started our Partners in Leadership Accountability Builder Training with our leadership teams around our business, based on the Oz Principle of getting results through individual and organisational accountability.

One of our highlights was our Early Careers Programme participants who undertook three month secondments to other OI sites, including our business’s in California.  They made such an impact we nearly had to kidnap them back.  It has been a privilege to support post and pre doctoral students through sponsorship and time in our business.

We always want to learn more about other sectors and continued our programme of getting out to other best practice organisations in Operations and Health and Safety.  Our Innovation Development team have also been out sourcing the most up to date thinking and bringing back new processes and techniques to embed innovation, from Coffee House meetings to creating innovation spaces around our site.

Our local community and environment has been a big focus for us this year. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in all of our Go Green initiatives, especially Louise and Rita, from planting and wildlife protection to sustainable Travel.  A very big thank you to all of you who have devoted time to careers fairs, local school visits and providing work experience to promote STEM subjects.

There is so much more we have done but you have probably finished your winter warmer drink now and it’s time you reached for that chocolate.  Just one more won’t hurt.  Big Christmas wishes to you and your family!

P:S latest newsflash, I have seen Santa’s List.  All Plasma staff have made the Good List.

Author: Charmyn Hall, HR Director