3 March 2008
Charity's daily meetings make for winning strategy
Christians Against Poverty tops Sunday Times 2008 list.
Yesterday saw the announcement of the results of the 5th “Best Small Companies to Work For” competition, run by the Sunday Times newspaper.
A charity has won the contest for the 2nd successive year, with Christians Against Poverty being voted into the top slot.
The newspaper says, “This year’s competition was our biggest yet, with 513 companies battling it out for a place in the elite top 100, the definitive guide to workplace excellence among small businesses.”
“In every one of the 66 statements of our questionnaire, small companies (of fewer than 250 employees) score better than their larger counterparts” says Timesonline.
What makes for high scores?
Companies were judged on a number of factors, but a few stand-out reasons why they made it into the top 10 this year are listed below:
- 1st place: Christians against Poverty (debt-counselling charity) – inspirational leadership. Work practice – every day staff meet to discuss company news.
- 2nd place: Nicoll Curtin (recruitment consultancy) – job security. Work practice – managers can give “duvet days” (an extra day off) as an ad hoc reward.
- 3rd place: Cobalt recruitment (recruitment consultancy) – great work-home balance. Example work practice – the 2 directors “hot desk” with staff and are always around to offer help.
- 4th place: P3, (a social inclusion charity) – employee wellbeing. Example work practice – new starters attend a 4-day induction.
- 5th place: Softcat (IT reseller) – strong teamwork. Example work practice – opportunity to raise issues at Monday morning meetings.
- 6th place: Activa Healthcare (compression products) – inspirational leadership. Example work practice – following an exceptional performance year, staff received a 13th month pay bonus.
- 7th place: Jenrick Recruitment Group (recruitment consultancy) – employee wellbeing. Company encourages teamwork.
- 8th place: Taylor Made Computer Solutions (IT support services) – senior managers live the values. Example work practice – directors personally mentor staff members as part of the “buddy” system.
- 9th place: Meteorite Marketing (marketing agency) – strong sense of family where “atmosphere” scores highly. Example work practice – unusual nights out including “sock monkey” pub contests for the most creative puppet.
- 10th place: Foreign Currency Direct (currency brokers) – lack of stress. Example work practice – teamwork gives everyone a buzz.
Results for bigger companies will be available in the 100 Best Companies to Work For magazine, to be published with The Sunday Times on 9 March.
Have your say
Small companies are scoring better than large companies and, judging from the results, “face time” seems to be a key contributing factor to high employee satisfaction.
No one is saying, “I love our intranet” or “my virtual team give me a buzz”. So, just how do you create a small company atmosphere in a big company?
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