UPL is committed to developing employee knowledge and skills

As part of UPL’s ongoing commitment to employee training and development 10 members of the New Product Development Team and 7 members of the QC/QA team recently attended a fragrance training workshop to help individuals understand a little more about the complex makeup of fragrances and how to identify certain ‘notes’, as fragrance is such a key part of the products we develop and manufacture. This proved a very useful refresher course for those individuals who have worked with fragrances for a number of years as well as a very useful training tool for our newer employees.

The first half of the session was a presentation on different types of fragrances and the key elements which are used to create these fragrances, whilst the second half involved smelling lots of different fragrances and individual fragrance ingredients to gain an appreciation of the different types of aromas used to create a fragrance.

The participants were then challenged to work with the available ingredients to create their own new fragrance which was then put before a panel of judges.

 

UPL successfully achieves 2 years without a Lost Time Accident

UPL have now successfully reached 2 Years (730 days) since the last Lost Time Accident, which is a fantastic achievement.

Lost time accidents are defined as those that have been serious enough for a member of staff not to be in work for 7 days or more following the accident (until recently this was a much harder measure of 3 days away from work).

The 2 year achievement is testament to everyone who has contributed to making UPL one of the safest factories in the North West.

In the past week we have also celebrated our best ever First Aid figure where we beat our previous best of 79 days since a First Aid incident.

This reinforces UPL’s ongoing commitment to workplace safety.

UPL Celebrates Internal Success

A company’s success is dependant upon the quality of the people who work there, and that is very true in the case of UPL. We are extremely proud of our committed and hardworking team.

We would like to congratulate the following on their recent academic achievements:

Jane Peters has successfully gained a Masters in Law from UCLAN

Robbie McCann has gained a merit in his HNC in Chemistry

 

And the following people are currently undertaking part time studies alongside their normal jobs:

Michelle Watt – CIPD Level 5 in Human Resources

Jack Hough – BSc degree at St Helens College

Robbie McCann – Level 3 NVQ Certificate in Management

Anthony Rawcliffe – Award in First Line Management

UPL believes everyone can Make A Difference, so employees are encouraged to come up with suggestions for ways to improve the business. Any ideas that are implemented are rewarded and this quarter there were 5 ‘Winners’ who came up with suggestions that have made a difference at UPL. The winners were: Linda Jansson, Matt Clayton, Steve Crawford, Jack Hough and Chris Brown. Congratulations to you all.

We also have a number of new starters at UPL and would like to welcome them to the team: Ann Berry joins our reception team and Christina Cookson joins the purchasing team. Adrian Bemke is successfully moving from the production team into the manufacturing department and Emma Terry has taken over the admin department.

We are particularly pleased to welcome Samuel Shaftoe on his work placement at UPL. Samuel will be working in the production department to gain valuable work experience as he is still a pupil at Pear Tree School. Pear Tree School plays an active role in developing extended services for children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities throughout Lancashire and they are the only Special School in Lancashire to also be a Children’s Centre.For many years UPL has been actively involved in providing both financial and practical support to the school. We are involved in events that take place in the school and we also provide valuable external work experience for many of the pupils as they reach adulthood. Both UPL and Pear Tree are proud of the close partnership that has evolved over the years between the two bodies.

Alongside our new starters we also have some established and valued employees who are nearing retirement ; Richard Hodgson in our manufacturing team joined us in January 1997 and retires at the end of September, and Linda Jansson started in the admin dept in May 1998 and retires at the end of the year. We would like to thank them for their hard work and wish them well for the future.

New European Business Opportunities with UPL

UPL is working alongside a European Brand Management Company to help its customers to benefit from new distribution opportunities within the wider European market.

UPL has played a key role in establishing an initial marketing trial for two brands that they currently produce for the UK market. The initial trial will take place in France and will see their products being sold nationally in a number of major French retailers including LeClerc, Carrefour and Monoprix.

If you are interested in finding out more about whether this opportunity could be of benefit to your brands please contact Keith Voyle, Associate Director Customer Service at UPL for further details : Tel 01772 685777.