BUILDING firm Tew Brothers, based at Woolston in Southampton, has done what few others in the highly competitive but skill-starved trade have done - retain staff!

Shaun Tew, pictured, head of the 50-strong family-run firm, took up the Investor in People programme in a successful bid to hang on to valued, expert employees.

Now he is reaping the rewards by bucking the notorious industry trend of high staff turnovers - only one person has left in the past year. Shaun said: "We knew we had a team of highly motivated and skilled individuals and we were keen to ensure that we kept this team in place in order to meet our customers' requirements.

"We decided to introduce training plans for each employee, focusing on needs-based training."

Since becoming involved with Investor in People, more than half of the Tew Brothers staff have either achieved, or are working towards, formal industry qualifications.

Susan Sharpe of business Link Wessex, an impartial advice organisation which helped the Tew Brothers on the programme, said: "Rather than just concentrating on the day-to-day operations of the business, Tew Brothers has identified that motivating, retaining and training existing staff with a long-term human resources strategy underpinned by Investor in People is a sure-fire method of maintaining a competitive advantage and holding on to existing business."