Peter Elverding, the Chairman of DSM’s Managing Board of Directors, today presented the DSM People Award for 2003 to the management team of DSM Agro’s Manufacturing organization. The team received the award for the great care they displayed in designing and implementing an internal change process known as mACE.

The People Award consists of a bronze made by sculptor Jef Wishaupt together with a sum of money for spending on a staff development activity. This could involve organizing a lecture by an external speaker or sending a delegation to a seminar.

The management team was nominated by the chairman of the Works Council at DSM Agro, Martien van de Kuit, who was delighted with the news that his nominees had won the award:
“I reckon they deserved it, because DSM Agro has undergone tremendous change over the past few years thanks to mACE. There has been a tangible improvement in the atmosphere at work. I now find myself looking forward to getting in to work in the morning, whereas that definitely wasn’t the case in the old days. As I see it, the award proves that we’re on the right track.”

The jury, chaired by Jan Bolwerk, the chairman of the Central Works Council, was highly enthusiastic in its report about the way in which the management team had handled the project: “The mACE project involved the practical application of a number of DSM’s HR Principles. The result was an improvement in both the corporate culture and the working atmosphere at DSM Agro. Not only are the management team the rightful winners of the People Award, they also stand as an example of how you can use limited resources to achieve tremendous progress from a difficult starting position.”

DSM People Award
The aim of the annual People Award is to highlight examples of best practice in the field of human resource management (HRM) at DSM and to encourage others to follow the example set by their colleagues. As Peter Elverding said when he presented the award: “The People Award shows just how seriously we take our corporate values. They’re not just paper tigers. ‘Respect for people’, for example, is a vital principle that guides the way in which we behave, as the People Award demonstrates.”

This year’s People Award is the second edition, the award having first been presented last year. Although only DSM sites in the Netherlands are currently eligible for nomination, there are plans for extending the award to the rest of the DSM group, particularly as the same HR principles apply to all the group’s operations, wherever in the world these may happen to be. Under the selection procedure, groups of staff or entire departments are free to nominate either themselves or other people for the award. A jury then assesses the nominations to see whether they meet a set of predefined criteria.

DSM has formulated 14 fundamental human resource principles, which guide its conduct in staff-related matters. The People Award is presented to a group of staff who have demonstrated an outstanding ability to apply these principles in practice.