International development agency Christian Aid has been awarded the prestigious Investors in People standard in the UK and Ireland.

Christian Aid decided to work towards the standard as a way of validating the strength of the organisation’s performance and to provide a business framework for improving the delivery of its challenging corporate strategy, Turning Hope into Action.

Investors in People is the UK’s leading people management business improvement standard delivering improved performance to almost seven million employees across 35,000 organisations. It comprises of 10 standards which focus on strategic planning and management systems, implementation of corporate aims and objectives, and evaluation of performance.

Christian Aid worked towards achieving the standard by introducing changes to its working practices including a greater focus on its business objectives, better planning and evaluation, and staff performance management indicators adapted from a model of people management by Franklin Covey, linking individual tasks to corporate aims.

Jimmy Naudi, head of global learning and development at Christian Aid said : "We are extremely pleased to be named an Investor in People and feel that for a large multi-disciplinary organisation it is a great achievement.

"The journey has allowed us to become more professional, focused and effective, proving a charity can be just as well run as any large corporation.

"This award is for all our staff, as we could not have achieved it without them, and we expect it to prove a useful tool for future performance – in particular in a restricted income environment."

The Investors in People awarding panel said: "We are particularly impressed with the stronger alignment between the organisation’s goals and objectives and those of teams and individuals. We see a strong commitment to people learning and development as well as flexible approaches to learning and development."