Just like money in the bank

But, as a training centre it had the opposite problem from many firms starting from scratch - too many areas to look at rather than not enough information to go on.

The company went to GDA for advice. The GDA-appointed adviser went through the portfolio with the company and highlighted the most important areas for examination and improvement, rather than attempting a company-wide sweep of all areas.

''We ended up with something which was more focused,'' said Jack Brown at the training centre, one of the first organisations in Scotland to receive IIP status. ''We had key examples which were more user-friendly than those we had come up with by ourselves.''

The framework provided a long-term, ongoing model which laid out some of the standards the centre now uses in daily practice.

It was the perfect complement to the centre's ethos of lifelong learning. Established to provide more than simple training courses, the Clydesdale Bank's Training Centre was designed to put in place more learning opportunities for the people who wanted them.

''We wanted to move toward a learning culture, and have people take responsibility for their own development,'' said Brown. ''The IIP process gave us indicators to use in a systematic way to help facilitate that. We really made some fundamental changes to the ways in which we make learning available.''

From simple face-to-face and classroom-style training sessions, the centre introduced other, more open methods of learning, including paper-based distance learning which people can undertake in their own time and at their own pace.

There are about 80 distance learning courses available from the centre in everything from customer service to management, and they are more accessible than time-consuming tuition-based courses.

Results were seen even before the IIP process was complete. ''It was a source of pride - and a confidence builder,'' said Brown. ''With a job for life gone the issue of employability is important - to staff it means a company which is willing to invest in their development is keeping their skills up-to-date. It also means they are being developed in line with national standards of best practice.

''From an outside perspective, potential employees see us as a provider of high-quality learning, as an organisation which creates more opportunities for growth. The issue of whether their skills will continue to be updated is a big one for potential employees, so achieving IIP status was important to us based on our reputation as a developer of staff.

''Our customers expect us to pay attention to the development of our employees. It is what they pay attention to: customer service and levels of professionalism. These are the outcomes of IIP.''

The centre also discovered that going through the process of gaining IIP created opportunities for networking with others in the same position. It provided a chance to discuss best practice and find a way through difficulties by consulting with others.

Organisations working with the Training Centre now find it useful to observe its standards as an IIP employer and use them as a frame of reference for their own operations. In this way, Jack Brown believes, the process has directly contributed to the spread of best practice in Scotland's businesses as a whole.

''I would recommend IIP to any company,'' he said. ''I believe some companies are still hesitating, thinking it will create too much work. There is a fair amount of work involved, but where a company is seriously committed to training and development that should not be an obstacle.

''We found a lot of the concepts paralleled our existing systems, that we were simply formalising those systems.

''Looking at the competitive marketplace, the key to survival and success is the ability to keep up to date, to stay with developments and initiate change as it is needed. All the issues are covered - department, workforce, skills, customer service - so IIP should really be the model from which companies want to build.''