Great Workplaces
The European Commission and a number of Newspapers have introduced competitions, in the UK, in Europe and the USA, to discover the 'best companies to work for'.
European Commission
In the context of promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility, the European Commission has taken the initiative to identify three outstanding workplace award winners in the fields of lifelong learning, gender equality and promoting diversity. The fourth annual list of 100 Best Workplaces in Europe was announced by Great Place to Work® Institute Europe on 17 May 2006 at an Award Event in Berlin. The list was published in the Financial Times on 18 May 2006. All 100 workplaces are recognized for their effort to create a high-quality working environment..
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Financial Times - "Why do we conduct a best workplace contest?"
By honouring great workplaces in the UK and throughout Europe the European Commission hopes to draw public attention to progressive workplaces throughout Europe.
The overall objective for the initiative is to raise workplace standards in the UK and throughout the rest of Europe. In order to do so, the Commission wishes to promote a healthy competition among European workplaces. As well as possibly competing for market share and profits, organisations compete to be known as the best places to work.
moreArticle by Richard Caseby, Managing Editor, The Sunday Times, 7 March 2004
The Sunday Times - "Sharing secret of a happy workforce"
The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For awards 2004 provide the most revealing guide to the firms where staff go to work with a spring in their step. The companies described in the pages of this guide hold the secret of a happy working life - one that is rich in challenge and encouragement.
For this, our fourth list of top companies, we used our proven research process which has been specially designed for the British labour market. We captured the detailed opinions of 58,000 employees across 228 participating companies. The resulting database is the gold standard in mass human resources research in Britain. For the first time it includes a special section devoted to the 50 top best SMEs to work for.
It is a credit to the faith of all those chief executives who took part that they allowed their staff to express themselves so freely to a third party, especially when there are so many competitive pressures. The best companies really do trust those who work for them.
Some of the issues to watch for in future are how best to offer staff a range of flexible benefits and how to implement family-friendly policies without alienating those without children. Middle-manager stress remains a persistent complaint and peaks in any organisation demanding a 60-hour week.
More and more companies are realising the benefits of an award that arises from the opinions of their own staff. What better way to attract the most talented recruits than to be a best company to work for? Once a company joins our top 100, it can use our distinctive logo in advertising and promotions. There are plenty of other firms out there eligible to join. To find out how, see page 62.
There is little room for complacency even in the best companies. On average 16% of staff would leave tomorrow if offered a job elsewhere. There is much that the best 100 can learn from each other and relay to others and later this year there will be a conference where the latest ideas on best practice can be exchanged.
I thank Best Companies Ltd for its diligent research and the Department of Trade and Industry and Learning and Skills Council for their sponsorship of this project and their wholehearted support of its aims.
More - The Sunday Times 2006
Fortune Magazine - "How We Pick the 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR"
By Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz
The most important factor in selecting companies for this list is what employees themselves have to say about their workplaces. Some 46,526 randomly selected employees from 304 candidate companies filled out an employee-opinion survey (the Great Place to Work Trust Index, an instrument created by the Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco). Nearly half of them also gave us written comments about their workplaces. Each candidate company also filled out a questionnaire detailing its people policies, practices, and philosophies. We evaluated each company on both the employee surveys and the company questionnaires, with the employees' opinions accounting for two-thirds of the total score.
From the Jan. 12, 2004 Issue
Using HAPPY@WORK® will provide considerable new insights into performance blocking issues which cause resentment and which need to be changed to provide staff with satisfying jobs.
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