22 August 2023
IPP is celebrating a double milestone at its UK operation as two team members mark their 10th anniversary with the pallet pooler.
Those clocking up 10 years with the company are senior account manager Gemma Steed and asset manager Jason Aspden, who both joined IPP in 2013.
Jason joined IPP as a transport planner, before being promoted to a role as a vendor managing pallets (VMP) for one of IPP’s biggest customers.
In 2022, Jason was made full-time collaboration manager, continuing in his VMP senior role while also working on new business leads.
He said: “One thing I noticed early on in my career at IPP was that it felt like a family. No matter what was happening at work, I have always felt I have everyone’s support.”
Gemma has also been a core part of the IPP team since 2013, when she started as a commercial advisor.
Since then, she has worked her way up the career ladder and is now a senior account manager, working with five of IPP’s biggest 10 customers.
Gemma worked with IPP’s commercial director Shelley Pierre to spearhead the account management team and helping to develop a new department for IPP.
The team member milestones come in the same year IPP has been awarded the World-class Workplace label, following the results of its Employee Engagement survey.
The label was awarded after IPP outperformed the regional benchmarks identified by employee listening partner, Effectory, and is only given to organisations whose employees rate them above average for engagement.
IPP’s achievement is in stark contrast to the picture across the logistics industry as a whole.
The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK has predicted 54 per cent of logistics companies will see “severe” skills and worker shortages by 2024, and that 27 per cent of industry employees say they would leave a business due to poor company culture.
IPP commercial director Shelley Pierre said the anniversaries underline IPP’s commitment to staff retention and progression at a difficult time for the logistics industry.
Shelley said: “Our ‘Powered by People’ model enables us to invest in our team, helping them to realise their full potential and upskill in areas they are interested in or enthusiastic about. Gemma and Jason are the perfect examples of where hard work and ambition can take you.”
Part of the Dutch family-owned Faber Group, IPP shares in the success of a recent independent study, which shows the company is exceeding internal and external benchmarks as an “excellent employer.”
Learn more about careers at IPP and view our current vacancies.