As it reaches its tenth anniversary this year, Investors in People (IIP) UK has apppointed six new members to its board.

Samantha Gemmell, MD of media production company Creative Media Matrix Ltd, Geoff Hall, LSC Director of Learning Programmes, Garry Hawkes, Chair, NTO National Council, Amin Rajan, Chief Executive, CREATE, Ed Sweeney, Generay Secretary, UNIFI and Sue Thomas, Director of communications agency Redwood have all been appointed to three year terms on the board since the end of last year.

Since the Investors in People standard was launched in 1990 changes have been made to the way the accreditation is assessed, but four main principles remain to which organisations must sign up: A commitment to develop all employees to achieve business goals and targets; undertaking regular reviews of training and development needs in the context of the business; taking relevant action to meet training and development needs throughout people's employement, and evaluating the outcomes of training and development for individuals and the organisation as a basis for continuous improvement.

Currently 23.99% of the UK workforce work in organisations which have achieved the standard. The editor of the Investors in People magazine comments that "in essence, the standard has survived and flourished because of its intrinsic common sense, relevance and quality...anyone who knew what made a succesful business or organisation responded to the power of what the Standard has to offer."

Recently IIP announced that Siemens Environmental Systems Ltd, a Dorset-based electronic engineering firm, had become the 20,000th organisation to achieve IIP.

More information can be found at the IIP website at www.iipuk.co.uk