A COMPANY whose plastic bags are being used by soldiers in the Gulf for their food rations has been praised for its people skills.

Automated Packaging Systems (APS), in Malvern, makes plastic bags ranging in size "from teabags to pillowcases".

The company, which employs 100 people, has supplied thousands of bags for composite rations for troops.

"All the military composite rations go into one of our bags," said Paul Hayden, marketing and commercial manager with APS, which also makes the machinery to fill the bags.

"A lady from the Ministry of Defence came to see us on a Friday and said she needed the bags by Monday but couldn't tell us why! It was all top secret. We had to pull out all the stops and turn them around really quickly."

As well as contributing to the war effort, the company, which is the European head office of American-owned APS, has been chosen as a beacon for its good people management.

The Department of Trade and Industry has selected it as one of 10 UK companies exemplifying good people skills.

Nigel Griffiths, Minister for Small Business, has visited the firm, on the Enigma Business Park, and praised its training and development policies.

"Mr Griffiths specifically wanted to see us because we're one of the DTI case studies," said Mr Hayden.

"Basically, we were given £20,000 from the DTI's Challenge Fund, in 2001, to fund a consultancy project to look at what we could do to make employees' working lives better.

"But they said to us 'we can't actually tell you what to do because you're doing it already'.

"It did really confirm for us that we were doing the right things. A lot of things we were doing, the employees just didn't know about - we never talked about them when we advertised for staff.

"I guess we take it for granted - we forget other people don't actually do these things."

One example of worker-friendly policies implemented by the company is that no one works on weekends.

"We work shifts - we're a manufacturer - but not on weekends at all," said Mr Hayden.

He said Mr Griffiths had spoken to staff at all levels in the company during his visit.

"APS obviously feel investment in people is money well spent," Mr Griffiths said afterwards. "At the end of the day, it's people who make the difference in business."