Brightstar has just achieved its Investors in People (IIP) Gold standard, one of only 1,047 companies in the country to hold it.

It achieved its accreditation for the first time at the end of October, reaching Bronze level.

In order to achieve an IIP Gold accreditation, a company needs to achieve 165 indicators. Brightstar achieved 173 out of 195 available, with the assessor saying that they could have achieved even more had more criteria been measured.

Brightstar went through a two-day assessment with an IIP assessor who spent the time interviewing staff and examining all of the company’s practices.

Allan Churchman, the Brightstar IIP assessor, said: “In more than 20 years of working with IIP I have never had such a positive approach from all levels of an organisation. I could not believe the passion that people had. Everyone there is pulling together and there is a real family atmosphere.

“It is not only the staff however; Brightstar has a very special leadership team. They have a culture of endorsing and developing people. Everyone is encouraged and has the opportunity to be involved in decision making at all levels.

“In addition, everyone has the opportunity to reach their full potential; I didn’t truly know what that meant until I went to Brightstar. They manage to pull potential even from people who didn’t know that they had it. A truly outstanding company.”

Clare Jupp (pictured), director of people development, added: “Achieving the IIP Gold standard is a huge endorsement of everything that we believe in at Brightstar and everything that we work to achieve. Our fundamental ethos is to develop our staff creating a fun place to work for people who are passionate about what they do. This training and development starts as soon as someone joins us and runs right to the top of the business: we are all teachers and learners.

“We believe that this continuous development enables us to provide higher levels of engagement and service both to the brokers who place business with us and everyone else who deals with us.

“I am incredibly proud of everyone in Brightstar for all of the hard work they put in, both to achieve this award and the level of commitment that each member of our team displays every day.”