ATS Euromaster awarded top human resources honours

Fast fitter ATS Euromaster has been given HR Magazine’s “Best HR Team – Private Sector” and “Most Effective Use of Internal Communication” awards, recognising a year in which human resources strategy was used to help the company through the difficulties of the recession. The company entered 2008 with severe economic problems and had to close approximately 80 of its smaller service centres. The department used employee forums, road shows, DVDs and training programmes in a three-year strategy designed to make the company communicate better internally and provide a better service for customers. The Awards, run by HR Magazine, were presented to Group HR director Irene Stark and Jane Linnell, Group Internal Communications Manager, in front of more than 500 guests, most of them senior HR professionals from top UK companies.

ATS-E beat finalists The Savoy Hotel (London), McDonalds, Mercedes-Benz UK and Centrica to Best HR Team – Private Sector; and won the Most Effective Use of Internal Communications Award ahead of finalists Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Punch Taverns and RS Components.

“In 2009, we gave HR and internal communications a challenge many would regard as Mission Impossible,” said Ian Stuart, Group managing director. “They’ve certainly done a good job and I am delighted their own professional peers from across the UK saw things the same way.”
 
Stark added: “Nearly 3,000 ATS Euromaster employees in our 370 locations responded positively and energetically to a strategy which was designed to improve our retail offer and position us as the lead provider of tyre services to business fleets. It’s great for my team to win awards, but the results were down to every one of our colleagues – they backed us to the hilt.”