CULTURE

How Poeton people deliver our competitive advantage

In high-stakes engineering, the margin for error is rarely generous. Materials are pushed harder, tolerances are tighter, and components are expected to deliver more for longer – often in harsh environments that expose the smallest weaknesses. In that context, when component failure isn’t an option, getting the surface treatment right is essential.

Great performance doesn’t come from process alone. Repeatable outcomes that our customers can rely on depend on judgement, discipline, and the ability to make good decisions quickly when complexity shows up. In other words, they depend on people.

We always say that Poeton is a people business that does surface treatments. It’s not meant as a slogan. It’s a reminder that the quality, speed and consistency customers experience with Poeton are the result of a working environment designed to build skills and capability, encourage ownership, and empower teams to improve how things are done.

Building capability through apprenticeships

Skills are the foundation of outstanding surface treatment performance. And in such a specialist field, those skills are developed over time – through practice, training, and the transfer of knowledge from people who have proven experience.

That’s why apprenticeships are a significant part of Poeton’s long-term capability plan. The business has built strong relationships with local colleges and has long treated apprenticeships as a core route to talent recruitment.

Importantly, apprentices are found across the business, including office-based roles such as business administration and sales – because outstanding performance relies on the full ecosystem working well, not just one part of it.

One of the most compelling indicators that our approach works is simply the number of our senior leaders who began their career this way. The Operations Director started as an apprentice around 25 years ago and the same is true of many of our production and general managers. When people can see the opportunity for progression is real, it changes how they invest in their own development, supporting a culture where knowledge and know-how is retained and passed on.

Training as a system, not an event

Apprenticeships build the base, but ongoing training keeps pushing standards up. Poeton’s approach is to treat training as a continuous system rather than a one-off initiative, with a target of putting 50% of our workforce through training each year.

We’re the biggest customer for training courses from the Institute of Materials Finishing (IMF), an independent body that supports training and professional development within the sector – and its training courses take multiple forms. Formal qualifications build theory and deep process understanding through structured learning, coursework and exams. And they also support practical, on-site training that teaches a deeper understanding of the processes and chemistry we employ.

Leadership development is treated with similar seriousness. We run courses on Lean and Six Sigma and a number of the management team have undertaken MBA-level learning. Again, this isn’t about badges. It’s about strengthening decision-making, building better operational leadership, and creating a culture that improves and develops thoughtfully.

Learning from the outside, in

One of the reasons Poeton continues to evolve is that it actively encourages an external perspective through mentoring.

External mentors are available to anyone who wants one – not as a formal programme, but as a practical support mechanism. We believe that independent mentors at any level, from apprentices to Managing Director level, can help people think differently and create an open space where individuals aren’t guarded in the way they sometimes are when speaking to internal peers.

The effect is subtle but important, keeping the organisation open-minded, and supporting a culture where self-improvement is normal.

Progression, retention and internal mobility

Ask most businesses why people leave, and pay is often their first assumption. In reality, opportunity and appreciation play a huge role – particularly when skilled people don’t feel they can progress or broaden their experience.

Poeton’s approach is to prioritise promotion from within wherever possible as the default. And we encourage internal mobility across departments. People have moved from customer service into accounting, from the shop floor into quality management, and from customer service into sales roles.

This matters because it means people have the opportunity to build a career if they want it, rather than just doing a job. But it also matters because it preserves capability – long service and internal progression help retain the kind of hard-won knowledge that’s envied by many of our competitors.

Cross-training builds resilience

In high-stakes industries, demand doesn’t always arrive evenly. Priorities change, production can become overloaded in specific areas, and customer needs can be urgent.

Cross-training is one of the practical ways Poeton builds resilience into the business. When teams understand more than one part of the operation, it becomes easier to shift capacity without compromising standards. It supports continuity when a team is stretched, reduces bottlenecks and builds a shared understanding of what ‘good’ looks like across the business.

Profit share as a performance lever

Poeton introduced a profit-sharing scheme during COVID. Intentionally simple, a percentage of profits is shared equally across employees, so the amount received by an apprentice is the same as that received by the Operations Director.

It’s notable because when everyone benefits equally from the company doing well, improvements become a collective initiative. It encourages people to care about the drivers of profitability – even simple things like taking responsibility for switching off lights and equipment.

Take rework for example. At Poeton there’s a shared understanding that it consumes time, impacts capacity and costs the business money. A culture that actively aims to reduce rework is a culture committed to doing things right first time.

And it’s helped to promote a ‘one team’ mindset that binds all Poeton sites. If success is shared, helping another site deal with an issue isn’t seen as ‘somebody else’s problem’. What matters becomes collective performance across the business.

A culture built on putting values into action

Poeton reinforces its culture through a combination of regular communication and recognition that connects everyday behaviours to shared values – and the bottom line.

Formal monthly updates cover HR updates, quality, and financial performance – including transparency about where the profit share ‘bucket’ stands. These are supported by less formal regular weekly email updates, so teams are kept in the loop about activities across all three sites.

And the Poeton People Awards are designed to encourage teams to live and breathe the company’s values of honesty, accountability, motivation and commitment. Employees are encouraged to nominate those displaying behaviours that reflect these values – and a small voucher is awarded in recognition every month, with the Employee of the Year receiving a bigger award.

The approach means that company values are followed in real decision-making. In a recent example, a customer placed an order that was too high. We didn’t just process the order – we flagged it, explained it and helped them rectify it to save them money. That kind of consistently honest behaviour builds trust in a way no marketing slogans ever can.

Empowering people to make decisions

Poeton works based on an inverted organisational pyramid – with leaders at the bottom, teams above. The principle is straightforward – managers exist to support the teams doing the work, not to direct every action. Teams and business units are responsible and accountable for their own improvements, and leadership’s role is to enable those improvements to happen.

It’s an approach that means ideas often come from the people doing the work – initiatives are considered and tested, not dismissed. And when they work, the business really benefits.

When Poeton moved to a four-day week on the shop floor, the proposal came from the team itself – the idea being that they work the same number of hours, but spread them over four longer days, taking Friday off.

The results were practical and measurable. Output increased. Utility costs reduced because the factory wasn’t running on Fridays. Flexibility improved because Friday could still be used for overtime when needed, without disrupting weekends. And morale lifted because every week felt like a bank holiday.

A culture designed for success

At Poeton, we believe we’ve built a culture that delivers competitive advantage. At heart, we’re a family business, and our employees are a big part of that family – we believe in looking after them.

But none of this is ‘culture for culture’s sake’. It’s also recognition that in the high-stakes world of surface treatment engineering, commercial success depends on a team of high-performing, highly skilled people who are motivated and empowered to make decisions.

A sustainable apprenticeship pipeline, structured training, mentoring, internal progression, cross-training, profit share, empowerment, accountability and ongoing reinforcement of desired behaviours all help us earn the trust of our customers – and deliver surface treatments that perform exactly as intended, time after time.