Investing in people, with military precision

The company, which is developing a radically new technique for monitoring the performance of all forms of rotating drive machinery, employs 25 people, many of them young engineers and technologists. Most join straight from school, college or university, and Sensor Technology bucks the expected trend by retaining almost all of them for extended periods.

Our technology is unique and this informs our personnel policies at a fundamental level, says Nick Hopkins, Commercial Director, something we perhaps had not appreciated until we undertook the Investors in People programme.

Our technical people, for instance have to be equally comfortable with aspects of software, electronics, electrical and mechanical engineering. There are some good multi-disciplinary degree courses available now, but we still find that there is also a lot of nurturing on the job to build their general confidence and their ability to see technical issues from all angles—including commercial.

An example of this is Mark Ingham, who first started working with Sensor Technology during his school holidays in the 1980s. He later joined the company full time and worked his way up through the manufacturing side until he was Technical Manager. Three years ago he took a giant sideways step and became Sales Manager.

It was quite a change to be travelling the world and dealing with customers, he recalls. But the technical knowledge I had built up served me well when the chips were down on a difficult job.

Another aspect of training for Sensor Technology's frontline staff is to develop a broad knowledge of many different industrial sectors. This is because their sensor is used in such a wide spread of industries.

Hopkins observes that when you are working with ground breaking technology, people need to have an almost missionary zeal to go out and spread the word. Creating this enthusiasm in new people is relatively easy, but it is much harder to maintain it through the ups and downs of complex and demanding projects. So we have regular group meetings, obstinately to debrief one another about technical issues, but in fact far more importantly to celebrate our successes and reinvigorate each other.

Before joining Sensor Technology Hopkins was an officer, engineer and helicopter pilot in the Army. His next HR project is relocation of some of the staff to new premises. Sensor Technology is currently based in a converted watermill, a location deliberately chosen as it creates an atmosphere conducive to the fundamental research that was required when the technology was in its infancy. But with commercial and manufacturing activities now ramping up as the customer base grows, it has decided to move these activities to separate premises.

Everything comes down to people, nothing is technocratic. Whether you are planning operations for Special Forces or getting terribly technical to satisfy a demanding customer, you are always dealing with people. A major part of my job here is to gel the company into an elite team.