As a licensed Investors in People (IIP) practitioner, Health & Wellbeing Advisor and trainer, I support leaders and organisations to consider best practices. 

I am also an: ICF ACC accredited coach, Fellow of the CMI, CIPD qualified practitioner and Mental Health and Wellbeing Instructor.

Here’s how I started working with Investors in People and how I’ve helped businesses make work better for their people using the IIP framework.

It all started in 1993…

I first started working with the Investors in People standard as an advisor in 1993 whilst working for Manchester TEC as a Business Advisor.

The standard was still brand new then, and my role was to encourage businesses to commit to it and help them achieve accreditation. 

Huge benefits for small businesses

I recall the many benefits for the small businesses I supported. As a result of my work with my clients, I won Business Adviser of the year there, too, a clear highlight for me at the time.  

I established skillslocal over six years ago. After working in several national and senior-level roles, I wanted to use my many years of experience to support small businesses more profitable and productive.  

Joe Meakin, Director of Operations at EMS Industries, commented:

“Tracy Duggan has worked alongside EMS Industries as our IIP practitioner since 2016. She has assisted and nurtured our business and its employees to achieve the IIP Silver standard and is constantly coaching our business on our journey to the Gold standard.  

Tracy is hard working articulate, and her enthusiasm as a practitioner comes through in everything that she does. 

Tracy’s positive attitude makes Tracy a pleasure to work with. Her positive attitude is passed to anyone she works with and is one of the reasons why all of the staff at EMS enjoy working with her.”

Hard work and rigorous training allow her to help so many people

I was acutely aware of the revision of the standard taking place and was keen to see how I could get involved. I recall the robust and professional interview and training processes I had to undergo before I was able to become a licensed Practitioner.

It took a while to build my client portfolio, but this covers every sector from engineering, education, and charities. I worked with organisations from 5 to over 1000 employees with many family-run and owned.

Jacquie Swinn, HR Manager, Caunton Engineering Ltd said:

“Tracy has supported our business in our application to retain the IIP standard and, in doing so, provided us with the utmost professional yet friendly support. 

Her knowledge and understanding of the standard are excellent, and she worked with us to assess our current situation and quickly identified areas for improvement. 

She supported us in setting our goals for the future, providing guidance, suggestions and ideas on achieving these. 

What I found charming about her is her ability to work with employees of all levels whilst giving them the confidence to provide their feedback and views.”

I love how versatile the framework is, and no matter what size of business, they can benefit by adopting the principles in the framework. 

For me, IIP provides a solid platform to support businesses that want to improve their people practices and overall business performance. 

An inclusive, connected process

I remember back in the early days how it was often the sole domain of the personnel team. Now the whole organisation is included starting with the senior leadership team.  

The online survey makes the standard inclusive and provides all employees with a voice. The organisation’s ambition is at the heart of the process, ensuring that every assessment is wholly bespoke for each business.

Since the pandemic and Brexit, it’s getting harder to recruit and retain talent, and it’s now more important than ever to invest in your people. I love that the standard keeps evolving and that we are introducing new products such as We Invest in Wellbeing. We invest in Apprentices, which continue to support businesses to support their people whilst encouraging best practices.  

Find out how we help businesses by viewing our success stories.