Ranking #1

About Rackspace Technology

www.rackspace.com

Rackspace Technology exists to empower the world’s inspiring missions. This purpose guides everything we do — for our customers, our employees (whom we call Rackers), and for our communities.

Rooted in this purpose, we are a customer first, cloud first organization – this means that our entire company from our product and support teams, to our sales, marketing, and corporate services teams like HR and Finance are focused on enabling great multicloud business outcomes for our customers.

From a culture standpoint, we are guided by our employee value proposition (which echoes our purpose statement) and our five core values. We strive to create a company in which all Rackers feel like valued members or a winning team on an inspiring mission. We know that when our employees are satisfied and cared for, they’ll look after our customers accordingly. This EVP is our north star and guides our internal behaviors as well as the development of policies and programs throughout the organization.

Strongest element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… Our core values — Excellence, Customer-driven, Expertise, Agility, and Compassion — guide Racker behavioral expectations across the organization and are key to helping us live out our purpose. They’re not just words on banners in our halls or coffee mugs on our desks. They come to life through the Racker Experience on a daily basis. Expertise, positioned strategically at the center of our core values list, reminds us that we must be a learning organization in an ever-evolving industry like technology services. To deliver the future for our customers, we have to have our finger on the pulse of where the future is going.

Strongest element: Inclusion

From the submission… We have also launched programs like Speed Networking to allow Rackers an opportunity to create quick connections from all around the world via a fun, non-agenda activity that we run every other month. As part of our wellbeing challenges, we launched a global Racker Cookbook, enabling Rackers from around the world to share a piece of their culture, deepening employee connections and increasing employee affinity — from one dinner table to the next.

By creating a culture where our Rackers feel as though they belong, they are more willing to show up and provide the customer support we pride ourselves on. Not only are we committed to the visible diversity of our Rackers, but we are also striving to create an environment that encourages diversity of thought.

The success of these programs is reflected in scores of our most recent employee engagement survey, in which Rackers reported with 89% favorability (7% higher than the IT benchmark) that they are comfortable voicing their ideas and opinions, even if they are different from others.

Ranking #2

About Reward Gateway

www.rewardgateway.com

Improving employee engagement to build better, stronger and more resilient organisations. 

Reward Gateway is culture- and client-driven. Since 2006, we’ve been right by the side of the world’s most innovative HR people, giving them the tools and products they need to engage their people and drive company success. 

We empower more than 8 million employees to connect, appreciate and support one another to make the world a better place to work. Our unified employee engagement hub provides the best of recognition, reward, wellbeing, surveys, benefits and discounts that support talent acquisition, retention and values-driven growth.

Strongest Element: Experience

From the submission… As our value ‘We are human’ says, we all have a career and a personal life to juggle, which can be complex and challenging at times. We’ve created an inclusive and supportive environment that recognizes employees’ lives in full, and the competing priorities employees deal with. One way we do this is through flexible working. Starting with a simple golden rule, we ask all employees to “Never miss an important life or work event.”

We took flexible working a step further by introducing RG Workmodes- an activity-based model supporting flexible, hybrid work. RG Work Modes were created for our employees by our employees. We listened to their needs and adjusted our strategies as we heard their feedback. Each Work Mode describes the key activities that make us productive, collaborative, and engaged. Work Modes align with our eight values and inform us how to use our workspace most effectively, whether at home or in the office.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… Traditionally, internal communications are Leadership led. It focused on telling the employees, and much of the content is led by “This is what we think you need to know!”. At RG, boom! is our social, digital workspace, and it changes the dynamic of communication. Technology enables us to empower all voices to Speak Up. It’s a global community where we communicate and collaborate to work smarter, innovate, and grow faster.

Two-way communication means we can focus on listening and lead our communication strategy with “What do you not know that we can support and help you with?” In doing so, we bridge the knowledge gaps. We empower employees and enable collective progress. Listening is as valuable as talking. We actively demonstrate and encourage employees to live our Speak Up value by providing a platform where all employees have a voice, are visible and feel valued.

Ranking #3

About The Phoenix Group

www.thephoenixgroup.com

Our purpose: helping people secure a life of possibilities.

We are proud to be the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business.

Our broad range of pensions and savings products means we can support people across all stages of the savings life cycle. We provide the right guidance at the right time to ensure our customers feel safe on their journey to and through retirement. 

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… In mid-2021, we developed what we believe to be one of the UK’s largest corporate employee forums. The forum – PCRF (Phoenix Colleague Representation Forum) – is an entirely independent and autonomous forum made up of colleague representatives from each of our functions. Its purpose is to give colleagues a voice and input into issues/matters affecting them – from ways of working and remuneration, to wellbeing and DEI.

The forum acts as a formal channel (with formal partnership agreement) between our senior leadership and colleagues across the organisation, ensuring our people are continually consulted, and their views are fed into our people and business strategy.

61 PCRF reps across 30 business areas enable direct, honest and open conversations and more frequent feedback through a variety of channels, including PCRF surveys (1,400+ responses in 2022), local drop-in sessions, team meetings and email.

Local reps and the central PCRF team then share this feedback with company leadership and the Board to help shape the business (with developments/updates shared with colleagues via newsletters/meetings/annual reports).

Ranking #4

About PagerDuty

www.pagerduty.com

As the world becomes more unpredictable, the complexity of digital operations and the velocity with which companies conduct business continues to accelerate. Crises are inevitable, and organizations that rely on traditional workflows will fall behind in an era of unstructured, urgent work. The companies poised to win are the ones that empower their teams with more time and efficiency to innovate for the future and PagerDuty is the platform that will power the future of work.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… A critical component of our connection to each other and our communities are the Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at PagerDuty. ERGs are self-organized, employee-run, company-funded communities focused on advancing a sense of inclusion and belonging at PagerDuty. Currently, we have six ERGs: Array (Black and Latinx), Illuminate (Asian and Pacific Islander), PageAble (visible and invisible disabilities), RainbowDuty (LGBTQIA+), PatriotDuty (military and veterans), and SisterDuty (women, non-binary, agendar, and genderqueer). Areas of focus differ by ERG and could include any of the following pillars: career development and professional networking, community building and support, allyship education, and partnerships with recruiting and social impact.

PagerDuty.org and the ID&E team collaborate with our ERGs and Community Responders to activate and inspire employees through a continuous cadence of opportunities throughout the year. In 2022, Dutonians supported 412 causes and over 90% of Dutonians participated in our social impact programs.

Ranking #5

About Concentrix

www.concentrix.com

We’re Concentrix, a leading global provider of customer experience (CX) solutions and technology. We reimagine everything CX to improve business performance for some of the world’s best brands, and the ones that are changing the world as we know it. Every day, we Design, Build and Run CX for over 130 Fortune Global 500 and 125 new economy clients. Whether it’s a specific solution or the whole end-to-end journey, we’ve got it covered. We’re the strategic thinkers who design brand-defining experiences. The tech geeks who build smarter solutions. And the operational experts who run it all and make it work seamlessly. Across 40 countries and 6 continents, we provide services across key industry verticals: technology & consumer electronics; retail, travel & ecommerce; banking, financial services & insurance; healthcare; communications & media; automotive; and energy & public sector. Location: Virtually Everywhere.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… Our Be Seen, Be Heard, Be You program allows staff to voluntarily share aspects of their identity. To date, over 60,000 staff have self-identified.

We provide safe spaces for people to connect and grow through the Staff Resource Groups (SRG) network, and our EMEA Brave Rooms where staff come together to talk about different diversity topics. We also sponsor Pride (LGBTQIA+), Ability (Persons with Disabilities) and Network of Women Networks. The SRGs hosted 15+ events in 2022 and celebrated days of significance like Black History Month and International Women’s Day.

Through “fireside chats” and panel discussions, we gather staff globally, educate them, and welcome conversations on various DEI topics.

In 2022, we hosted EMPOWER, our first DEIB event in EMEA attended by 500+ staff, this was a series of virtual sessions on a range of DEIB topics designed to help staff unleash their full potential and grow their careers at Concentrix.

We offer DEI training for all “people managers” to help them better understand identity, bias, microaggressions, and how their unique attributes can shape an inclusive environment at Concentrix. To date, over 6,100 managers completed this training, which is offered in 10 languages. We also maintain Prism, a 5-month virtual diversity leadership journey to help diverse, senior-level staff be ready to move into higher-level job assignments. To date, 39 underrepresented staff completed the program and 41 are currently enrolled. Out of the first cohort, 8 were promoted in 2022.

Ranking #6

About British Society for Rheumatology

www.rheumatology.org.uk

British Society for Rheumatology is the leading UK specialist medical society for rheumatology and musculoskeletal care professionals. We support our members to deliver the best care at all stages of the care pathway, improving the lives of children and adults with rheumatic and musculoskeletal disease. We bring together expertise from across the rheumatology profession, harnessing a wide variety of experience and skills to ensure we support our members to the very best of our combined ability.

Strongest Element: Wellbeing 

From the submission… From a support aspect, we looked at each of our policies from a wellbeing lens and increased our annual leave to 30 days holiday plus bank holidays, free access to a clinical psychologist, internal wellbeing networks and MHFA, and developed a holistic wellbeing strategy which covers the areas of mental/ physical/ financial/ social/ digital and psychological safety. We’re just completing a reorganisation of our office spaces and have changed all our desks to ergonomic sit-stand desks to help with physical wellbeing, as well as providing more natural light and plants to make the space as easy to work in as possible. 

We’ve been more proactive than just proving great benefits and a good work environment. We know that our staff are committed to our community and our members, so burnout and working extra hours is a risk for BSR. We’ve addressed this in our annual planning cycle by ensuring that teams do not plan to work at more than 80% capacity. That gives them the chance to take on new projects if they want to, but more importantly allows for people to take holiday, be ill, and not feel like they are overwhelmed by the workload. 

To support this, we provided training on how to capacity plan for our senior managers, and we have quarterly catch-ups with them as a leadership team to check that if new projects have come in, that prioritisation has happened and some other work is paused or delayed. This has been incredibly successful, with the amount of staff telling us that they feel they can manage their workload going from 68% in May 2022 to 85% in December 2022, and 96% saying they can maintain a good work-life balance. In addition, wellbeing is a key part of our performance management process, both as a standard agenda item in 1:1 catch-ups, but also as separate standalone conversations whenever an individual needs them. And finally, we have started a 4.5 day working week trial from January-June 2023, with one aim being to improve our employee wellbeing further.

Ranking #7

About Latro Kimya Dış Ticaret A.Ş.

www.latro.com.tr/en

Latro is an “ecosystem”, consisting of teams with a high level of autonomy, guided by our purpose and customer-first mentality. In this ecosystem, where there’s no boss, no manager nor hierarchy, each individual is defined as an “explorer” who is eager to unleash their potential. Each “explorer” in the ecosystem aligns with commitment and collective management principles.

Our Purpose is to create new possibilities with unique chemical solutions. Our purpose and values are the key driving force behind the continuous improvement of our products, processes, and solutions. Guided by our collaborative spirit and system-oriented principles, we nurture the experimental spirit at the heart of chemistry and never hesitate to explore new ways to offer unconventional solutions. 

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… No boss, no hierarchy, and no managers exist in the workplace; this is a work ecosystem that believes in the power of people-oriented and autonomous management. Haluk, the founder of Latro says:

‘’In our model, rather than executives, we have autonomous teams guided by our “values”, empowered by our “principles’, and focusing on our “purpose”. As part of a radical transparency policy, all company data is visible to every member in this ecosystem, and teams make their all decisions by using this transparent data as well as shared wisdom. Due to this, they make their own free choices. The great space of freedom offers is the game changer for this system. This freedom not only impresses entrepreneurs; but also individuals who desire to make a difference in their life. This model triggers creativity and an elevated sense of responsibility within the company. This structure strongly emphasises creativity, and innovation, which are indispensable elements in the new world, and the most powerful element of its culture.

While this non-bureaucratic space of freedom allows individuals to enjoy self-discovery, and realise themselves freely. The collective management and decision-making mechanism improves the confidence in co-experiencing as a team. This management model removes all obstacles to an individual’s self-expression, inherently extending support in personal development.” 

Explorers believe in teams’ creativity and decision-making power. In Latro, you can see a lot of explorers who are in the role of natural leaders in the ecosystem, as there are no titles and no assigned seniority. They are naturally occurring in the ecosystem, and no one is selecting them. Explorers are more committed to their own responsibility with a sense of self-management and passionately work to create new possibilities.

Ranking #8

About Travelport

www.travelport.com

We are on a mission to simplify the complex industry we have known and loved for decades. Where others add features, we invent new solutions. Where others are beholden to certain partners, we are unconflicted. While others wait for the future to happen, we race towards it.

By focusing all our energy and expertise on connecting buyers and sellers of travel through a single, independent marketplace, we’re reinventing a better future for our industry.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… We issue a monthly people manager pack with key information that managers need to be aware of to ensure excellent management of their teams (such as performance reviews, team changes, and upcoming training). We run quarterly “leadership live” sessions which provide a platform to ask questions and feedback of our CPO. Our Leadership Coalition (around 100 of our senior colleagues) also have monthly calls to not only hear from our CEO and the SLT, but to share information and form business connections across lines of the business.

One recent example of employee ideation was a competition to support innovative team ideas for charitable fundraising. This elicited some fantastic ideas for fundraising including bike rides through the desert and a rowing competition on the Thames.

Our 2023 Internal Comms plan is steered by data analytics from our comms channels so that we can answer questions such as – where do we need to improve engagement rates? Where do we see the most click-throughs in our weekly newsletter? We prioritise messages so that they have space to land with our colleagues: Level 1 – of critical strategic importance, Level 2 – need to know, Level 3 – good to know. The Internal Comms plan is there to achieve the following: drive confidence, support acceleration, amplify colleague voice, and nurture our culture. Such data-driven feedback loops are paramount to our agility and continuous improvement for our people, and in our most recent employee survey, 95% feel that Travelport does a great job of keeping them informed about company matters!

Ranking #9

About Diligent

www.diligent.com

As the leader in modern governance, Diligent offers software solutions across governance, risk, compliance (GRC), audit and ESG to over 25,000 organizations globally. 

Our company mission is clear; we empower transformational leaders with the technology, insights and confidence to drive greater impact and accountability through a modern view of governance. We enable organizations to improve their bottom line, keep pace with stakeholder expectations and create a lasting, positive impact on the world. Guided by our company values, our teams realize the importance of our work and place customers at the center of everything we do.

Our people embody our mission every day. We are agents of positive change, helping to create a world where every leader is empowered to build successful, equitable and sustainable organizations.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… Established Change Agents group which includes a diverse, cross-functional group of high-performing colleagues from across Diligent whose mission is to connect, contribute and generate ideas that further our organisation. Leadership seeks the group’s feedback ahead of important company-wide announcements.

We conduct weekly pulse surveys via the 15Five platform which gives our team members opportunities to share their successes and challenges during the week. The written feedback goes to their manager for review and discussion during their next one-to-one meeting. Also, we ask our people to complete an Organisational Health Index (OHI) survey annually to help us identify our strengths, review our progress and give us a clear picture of the health of our business across multiple areas.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… With over 2,000 employees in 30 countries, Diligent embraces its responsibility to enhance diversity, equity, inclusion and intersectionality (DEI&I) throughout all levels of the organisation. We established a DEI&I employee task force to progress our global plan of creating an environment to help employees feel they have a forum for their ideas to be heard. The primary role of the Diligent taskforce is to connect DEI&I engagements to a broader business-driven, results-oriented strategy. The task force was made up of employees from across the business, with a shared mission to foster an environment that attracts the best talent, values diversity of life experiences and perspectives, and encourages innovation.

Global Day of Service: In 2021, we launched our Diligent Global Day of Service initiative which encourages all employees to give back to their communities by volunteering with a charity, a non-profit, or a community group in lieu of a working day. Our teams across the world have had a tremendous – and growing – impact on the communities in which we live and work including community clean ups, blood donations and volunteering at various charitable organisations. Last year, our global team racked up over 800 hours of community volunteering on the day.

Ranking #10

About Liz Male Consulting (LMC)

www.lizmale.co.uk

LMC is a specialist PR and communications consultancy focused on the transformation of construction, property and the built environment. We provide strategic PR, digital marketing and communications expertise to purpose-led organisations who want to make positive change in the industry and for the end users of the places and buildings around us. 

Our purpose is to use our skills and expertise as communicators to help our clients achieve their purpose. This includes being a catalyst for change in areas such as digitalisation, health, safety and quality, diversity and inclusion, sustainability and meeting the challenge of Net Zero. 

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… Annual employee survey, the most recent of which shows: 100% response rate, with everyone saying that they understood LMC’s aims and ambitions better than before and that they are much clearer on the sense of purpose for the agency. Suggestions were gathered for future away days so that we can continue to address key topics that people want to discuss. Ideas from this time included how we can improve some of our key processes to work more efficiently.

All candidates interviewing for roles at LMC spend a day with us, to meet the team and to answer their questions too. Recruitment decisions are made collaboratively. Recently, a couple of colleagues raised concerns about a candidate following his assessment day, and this led us to ask more questions, dig a little deeper and clarify whether the candidate’s core values were genuinely in line with ours. It turned out that we had missed some important insights – without this collaborative approach, we might have made a poor recruitment decision.

Ranking #11

About Innovecs

www.innovecs.com

Companies come in many forms: big, small, profit-oriented, and those focusing on social change. And we are Innovecs, a global digital tech transformation company putting people first. “Why build a company if I can build a community instead,” the founder and CEO of Innovecs, Alex Lutskiy, thought over a decade ago.

That thought has morphed into a company operating across nine countries with 850 employees worldwide. Innovecs’ digital solutions leverage innovative technologies and trends to transform and grow businesses.

Still, the company is defined not only by its achievements in innovative tech projects but also by the human-to-human approach, a specific organizational culture focused on the talent thriving and community-based ecosystem.

Strongest Element: Leadership 

From the submission… Among the reflections of our focus on continuous development is creating the specific corporate DNA – a competencies framework to follow. It was initiated and inspired by our CEO and Founder, together with the leadership team. Using a grassroots approach, we engaged employees to take part in interviews and surveys which helped us define these eight core competencies.

To boost inspirational leadership within DNA framework communication, we have nominated and appointed ambassadors for each competency. They are formal and informal leaders who carry our values and their embodiment at Innovecs via videos, interviews, articles, blog posts, office posters, inspirational quotes, and social media mentions.

At Innovecs, people don’t just come, code and go. Everyone seeks to create something valuable and meaningful. We are convinced that engineering leadership boosts global digital transformation. That’s how InnoHub was born – an Engineering Leadership Platform, primarily aimed at empowering collaborative growth and building a community of engineering leaders.

Thus, to ensure the exchange of experience and professional growth Innovecs is fostering an engineering leadership culture to help every innovecser fulfil their ambitions, milestone goals and amplify their strong points. Within this initiative, we explore and fuel the talents of each teammate.

Ranking #12

About Swift

www.swift.com

SWIFT is transforming cross-border payments, making them faster and more transparent than ever before. We are the way the world moves value — every instant of every day, in almost every country. Over 11,000 banks in more than 200 countries trust us 24/7 and 365 days a year. No other organisation can address the scale, precision, pace and trust that this demands. And we do it with fewer than 4,000 people worldwide.

Our role in the industry means we touch almost every aspect of the financial world. Our employees are bright, customer-focused and intellectually curious people working in a collaborative, friendly, open and inclusive environment. With unparalleled exposure to knowledge, expertise and technologies, they’re able to take on different career paths and work in teams, departments and disciplines in countries around the world.

Strongest Element: Experience 

From the submission… We encourage our employees to take control of their own career development. They are able to explore different career paths and trajectories and work with different disciplines, take on new responsibilities, use and learn new skills and get exposure to agile working practices. We offer ‘trading places’ which allows employees to be seconded to another team for a period, allowing them the experience of a job outside of their comfort zone, and provides internal mobility, both within their country and across different regions.

All staff have access to our learning portal, SWIFTSmart, which has over 5,000 e-learnings covering business, technology, and creative skills – and LinkedIn Learning to enhance the number of learning opportunities. Our Global Mentorship Programme is open to all employees and allows those with different experience, background and skills to connect, coach and mentor our workforce. SWIFT won the 2021 LinkedIn Talent Award for Best Culture of Learning (1000+ employees). We also have internal training programmes for employees to level up on their skills such as DevOps.

Ranking #13

About Bite Latvija

www.bite.lv

BITE Latvija provides mobile communication services for private and business customers in Latvia. It offers voice, SMS, mobile Internet, data transfer, international calling and roaming, and mobile email services, as well as provides prepaid cards.

At BITE Latvija we believe that smart solutions can make people’s lives better. Our challenge is to make them so simple that they become a part of your everyday life. We also work with people to create working conditions that make them feel equal and part of the company, no matter how high in the company hierarchy the employee is. Our company values and vision were created by our employees – thinking about who we are and how we act daily. As a result, we organically live according to these values: Caring for People; Teamwork; Creativity; Passion to Achieve Goals; and Excellence in Everything.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… We have a wonderful tradition for the Christmas period, when all employees can write paper letters (only paper ones are accepted) to Christmas Santa, who is CEO of Bite, with their wishes. Every year over 200 letters are received from colleagues who believe in miracles. Santa reads these letters, and the most touching or life impacting wishes are fulfilled – for example, one year 7 laser vision correction surgeries were performed for colleagues who wished for a life without glasses – the emotions of joy of these colleagues cannot be described. 

At Bite we think that each manager is responsible for the company’s success, thus we invest in their development and growth. We develop not only functional managerial but also leadership skills. For this, we have a “Leaders Club” program, which involves coaching and mentoring lectures.

We also plan succession very seriously, so each team leader has a successor, someone whom the manager sees as a potential future leader. For these Successors, there is a separate training program, which teaches them core competences every manager needs as well as leadership skills, so that by the time they step in as a manager, they are ready to work with the team. We introduced this program because 85% of all Bite managers have grown up in the company.

Ranking #13

About Cielo

www.cielotalent.com

Cielo is the world’s leading talent acquisition partner. We deliver a better talent experience for everyone through Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Executive Search, Contingent Workforce Solutions and Consulting services. With our fresh approach – we design and build comprehensive, proven solutions inspired by technology to find and keep the unique talent that elevates our clients above the competition.

That is why at Cielo, we believe everyone should have the opportunity to show and share their skillsets and be part of the organisation’s constant evolution and success, which ultimately allows us all to imagine better. With our recent brand refresh, we took the time to reflect upon what helps us craft our vision – our people are central to our culture which is why our company values are, PEOPLE (Partnering, Empowering, Original, Purposeful, Learning and Energising). 

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… To align our employees’ passion to our organisational goals, our Global Talent Development team launched the Learning Map Experience, a Cielo-led Strategy activation process, delivered virtually to bring our long-term strategy to life with lively discussion, gamification, and group activities. The sessions were hosted as 3-hour slots as an engaging and interactive space to align our people with Cielo’s vision and purpose. We designed the Learning Map Experience to promote dialogue and understanding among participants, experiencing two maps: ‘Soaring to New Heights’ and ‘Growing Together.’ When employees know how our business works, including the marketplace, financial challenges, and strategy for winning, we can each better understand the powerful impact of our own actions and accept changes as part of the company’s growth. The more our people learn about the business, the easier it is to see their role in its success!

Prior to the global rollout of the experience, our people leaders were provided with the specialized training and resources needed to support, cascade, and build energy around our new strategy. With 3,500 employees around the world, our Training Support team successfully hosted over 400 sessions across a 3-week period!

Ranking #13

About TaskUs

www.taskus.com

TaskUs is a global organization that provides next-generation customer experience and outsourced digital services to fast-growing technology companies. Our mission is to deliver innovative solutions that enable disruptive brands to reach new heights. But to do that, we start with our people. We believe that happy employees result in happy customers, and all our measures are directed towards that belief. Specifically, we have established a workplace culture built on core values of excellence, continuous learning, teamwork, passion, diligence, and thinking outside the box, among others, to empower our employees so they, too, can bring about innovation benefiting their colleagues, the company as a whole, and our clients.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… At TaskUs, communication is key in our approach to leadership. Like our founders, we strive to practise Radical Candor–a style of communication that cares deeply while also directly challenging the other. We believe that honest and constructive feedback is key to our growth and continuous self-improvement. This is the reason why we have regular meetings with supervisors, town hall meetings, and quarterly surveys to get feedback and suggestions from our people on how to become better as an organization and improve our culture and business processes.

Additionally, we launched a platform called Connect15 where employees from anywhere can have a 15-minute conversation with a leader, from managers to the C-level and president, on any topic, whether work-related or otherwise. These intimate interactions provide an avenue for our leadership to inspire others and also gain a deeper understanding of who employees are, as well as help cement the company’s people-first priority that transcends geographies, rank, and tenure.

For those who want to share a ridiculously good idea on how we can improve our business processes, we have an IdeasUs portal where they can submit their concepts that other people can vote on. Winning ideas are implemented, and the contributor is recognized and even gets incentives.

Ranking #16

About Form3

www.form3.tech

Form3 started back in August 2016 with a team of 4: the founding members. These banking and technology leaders had a single purpose – to transform outdated, complex and costly payments infrastructure to a modern, cloud-native, real-time Payments-as-a-Service. Since then, we have made enormous steps in opening up access to payment schemes for the global financial community, enabling them to scale and optimise their business operations through advanced payment technology.

We are on a mission to redefine what a truly instant payment experience means. We provide Banks and regulated FinTech’s across the globe an end-to-end managed payments service that delivers complete payment processing, clearing and settlement to the universe of payment schemes through a single API. We proudly partner with some of the most exciting and disruptive banks and Fintech’s globally and are expecting that things will continue to get more exciting in 2023.

We’re now over 500 employees globally. As we continue to grow, we take pride in being a growing multicultural company: with 85 nationalities represented, spanned over 30 different locations, and speaking 74 languages!

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… In Q4 2022, we implemented ‘Spill’. ‘Spill’ is an all-in-one mental health support tool for employees/managers to utilise remotely for their mental health and well-being, however they choose (via Slack, phone or video, and in multiple languages) – we want everyone to feel comfortable seeking the help they need, be it for themselves, their colleagues or their families. This also allows our employees to speak with qualified therapists in a way that gives them the flexibility to seek support how it’s most comfortable for them. Not only does this approach provide quick and easy access, but it also prevents the delays that often come with traditional Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) where employees often have to wait for a referral to receive counselling support. We also believe that good line management is crucial to supporting employee mental health.

In Q3 2022, we launched a training module ‘A Manager’s Guide to Mental Health’ which was put together to provide guidance to managers on reducing stigma by openly discussing mental health, identifying symptoms and behaviours associated with poor mental health and implementing steps to benefit the overall wellbeing of teams’.

Ranking #16

About BBC Studios

www.bbcstudios.com

BBC Studios is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. A global content company with bold British creativity at its heart, we combine the strengths of the UK’s most-commissioned production company with a world class distributor. We create and distribute content for the BBC and other broadcasters including Strictly Come Dancing, Frozen Planet 2, Happy Valley 3, JoJo and Gran Gran, Ghosts, Trying, Doctor Who and royal and ceremonial events.

Strongest Element: Culture

From the submission… It’s making great content for our audiences that gets us out of bed in the morning. From Frozen Planet II to Bluey to covering the death of a Monarch, our unique purpose is underpinned by the BBC’s mission, which is to act in the public interest, serving our audiences by providing impartial, high-quality and distinctive content and services which inform, educate and entertain.

This mission permeates all of the work we do, and we believe no other business can match us in terms of the level of pride and commitment their employees have. Our staff tell us the best thing about working here. An overwhelming 90% of staff agree they are ‘proud to work at BBC Studios’. Not a single business division in BBC Studios scores lower than 88% on this question. As one staff member put it: “This is an energised, well-resourced company with purpose at heart. It runs through the BBC like a stick of rock and makes it an inspiring place to work.”

Ranking #16

About Aldi

www.aldi.co.uk

Founded by the Albrecht family, the first Aldi store opened in 1913, with the core philosophy to provide quality food at low prices. The first UK store opened in 1990 in Birmingham, and today we have grown to over 990 stores, 11 Regional Distribution Centres (RDCs), and over 41,000 colleagues in the UK.

With 37 new stores opened in 2022 and an ambitious long-term target of 1,200 stores, it’s fair to say we couldn’t accomplish this without the talented workforce we have. Our purpose is our people, which is why we have created a positive, inclusive and friendly working environment to ensure our colleagues thrive inside and outside of work. By nurturing and developing our existing colleagues and attracting aspiring, hard-working talent we are continuing our mission to provide quality food at low prices, at a time when people need it most.

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… The wellbeing of our colleagues is paramount, and as an employer this is a critical focus area. For the last three years, we have hosted a wellbeing campaign to showcase all the amazing support available to our people and in 2022 we launched a new social wellbeing area.

This area hosts support and resources on a range of topics including mental, physical, financial, social and nutritional. It also includes toolkits for leaders to help support colleagues when they experience baby loss. In addition to this support we have also introduced up to one week of paid leave should a colleague experience a miscarriage pre-24 weeks. For colleagues experiencing domestic abuse who are not eligible for Legal Aid, we now provide financial support up to £2,000 and access to legal professionals for Protective Injunction orders.

We further developed our mental health focus by creating a bespoke full day “Supporting Mental Wellness” course, co-produced with our partners RetailTRUST to help Leaders better understand mental wellbeing and support colleagues who may be experiencing difficulties. In 2022,155 courses took place with 781 colleagues attending across the business. All current leaders have attended, and new leaders attend as part of their introductory training. Furthermore, all colleagues attended an “Introduction to Mental Health” e-learning module developed with Mental Health UK.

We launched a Digital GP Service to all colleagues, providing them with 24/7 healthcare completely free of charge – since launch over 5,000 colleagues have signed up and 1,300 consultations have taken place.

Ranking #19

About AddSecure

www.addsecure.com

Being purpose-driven with culture as a core part of the business strategy is key for AddSecure. Throughout all of our business areas; Alarms, Transport and Surveillance, we contribute to a safer life for people. We secure critical data and information, and by doing so we make people safe. The purpose is a part of the vision, the business model and the daily operations.

Addsecure’s M&A strategy means that we continue to add entities to the group. We ensure that ‘one company, one culture’ remains the core of this strategy and it’s something that we spend a lot of time and resources on in order to achieve.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… How to build a culture that makes room for new teams?

You build on openness and curiosity a culture where it’s fun to meet and collaborate with new people. You assess the individuals and teams that enter, you talk and manifest what you believe in. You train your leaders and share your ideas constantly. You introduce rituals, share stories and share your vision. You build a modern tribe where people join to “be a part of something”.

The combination of shared purpose, local business with high levels of self leadership and an open and curious attitude results in a place where employees and leaders flourish.

Strongest Element: Leadership 

From the submission… Leaders who are authentic and driven by values provide a foundation for their teams to perform to their full potential. Authentic leaders have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and align their actions with their values. This creates an environment of trust and respect, creating an atmosphere of open communication, collaboration, and innovation. Authentic and value-driven leaders create a culture of accountability and responsibility which helps the organization to remain focused on its goals and objectives.

The company invests a lot of time and resources on leadership. From leadership philosophy, to mandatory training, to leadership conferences and more – leaders are viewed as a key element in the people strategy.

Ranking #19

About Financial Services Compensation Scheme

www.fscs.org.uk

The FSCS helps people get back on track by protecting them when authorised financial services firms fail. Since our launch in 2001, we’ve come to the aid of millions of people and paid out billions in compensation.

We want our employees to feel a sense of purpose and to understand what they as individuals (alongside our organisation as a whole) do to provide the best possible support to our customers, whilst also contributing to wider society.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… We developed an approach that enables FSCS employees to not only understand their personal connection to our customers, strategy, and purpose… but feel excited about it too! We want to ensure that our people are continuously motivated to contribute to organisational success and can see the positive impact they make. We also want them to have an enhanced sense of well-being, and to feel nurtured in reaching their personal and professional goals.

However, it’s not just within our industry that we want to be a force for good. We are committed to acting as a Responsible Business in everything we do, and last year completed BITC’s Responsible Business Tracker for the first time. We offer various opportunities for employees to support worthy causes; giving back to the community by volunteering their time and skills or through charity fundraising, offering all employees two days a year (additional to annual leave) to volunteer. We have also signed the One Planet pledge, stating our commitment to reaching Net Zero within five years (2026).

Putting purpose, meaning and our customers at the heart of everything we do continues to have a positive impact on our work as an organisation, and on the employee experience. This is reflected in our latest people survey, with an average score of 89% for the question “I am inspired by the mission and purpose of our organisation.”

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… Our leadership and management teams are visible, approachable, and engaged. They play a vital role in championing our strategy and values. Beyond the weekly message from our CEO, we involve the rest of the Executive team in ‘guest blogs’ throughout the year – covering a variety of areas (e.g. Customer Experience), recognising the brilliant contributions of their teams, and also sharing personal experiences relating to topics including representation and mental health.

Members of our Senior Leadership Community (SLC) regularly attend our all staff People Briefings, sharing updates on our strategy and progress. They also work hard to ensure we celebrate our successes, with visibility across the scheme in regular customer-focused sessions, lunch and learns, and in-person events.

Our Non-Executive directors are also committed to inspiring colleagues. We launched our Board Spotlight series – informal sessions with different members of the board as they share their insights, along with their individual career and development journeys.

Ranking #21

About N-IX

www.n-ix.com

N-iX is a company that believes in making a difference. As an innovative tech firm, our purpose is to provide top-notch software engineering services to our clients while helping Ukraine prosper as a global innovation hub. Our mission is to not only deliver cutting-edge solutions but also to enhance the lives of those we serve.

At the heart of N-iX culture is a focus on our people. We believe in creating an environment that fosters creativity, initiative, and a spirit of entrepreneurship. We understand that our success is driven by the collective effort of our employees, and we strive to support their personal and professional growth. Our core values of openness, flexibility, entrepreneurship, and empathy shape the way we do business, and we actively encourage our team members to embody these values in their work.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… At N-iX, our leadership inspires its people to achieve success through a culture of openness, entrepreneurship, and a focus on giving back to the community. Our founders have always believed in nurturing a culture of open communication and entrepreneurship, where everyone can generate new ideas and have their voices heard. This approach has been instrumental in creating an environment where our team feels empowered to take ownership of their work and strive for success.

One of our core values at N-iX is openness, and we believe in creating an environment where communication is free and accepting. Our team members feel equal and free to speak and be heard, regardless of their position within the company. This approach has been critical in creating a sense of community within our organization, and it has helped us build an incredible team that is highly engaged and motivated.

Our leadership also focuses on giving back to the community. In 2015, our CEO, Andrew Pavliv, founded an educational grant for talented students to pursue higher education at the best universities in Ukraine. In 2019, N-iX as a company joined this initiative, and many of our teammates fund money for various educational and charitable programs, which the company doubles. This initiative inspires our people to give back to the community, join other educational programs, and participate in charity events.

Ranking #21

About Alice Public Relations

www.alicepr.com

At Alice, our purpose is to create change that makes Ireland – and the world – a better place. We do this by delivering ambitious communications campaigns for our clients.

Since our establishment, our work has contributed to transformational changes in Irish society. With the WorkEqual charity, for example, we successfully lobbied the Government to address workplace gender inequalities. The Gender Pay Gap Information Act, enacted in 2021, was the culmination of five years of campaigning activity organised by Alice on behalf of WorkEqual.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission…  At Alice, we have always encouraged open and effective two-way communication. As mentioned earlier, we have a line management structure, whereby all employees have a monthly check-in with their line managers. More formal meetings – involving line managers and our HR consultant – occur every four months, as part of our performance development framework.

More informally, employees are strongly encouraged to communicate feedback, ideas and queries on a day-to-day basis. This happens through the use of the work messaging platform Slack; weekly staff meetings; and informal phone calls, emails and workplace conversations.

We are completely transparent with our team about the financial status of the company. At our annual full team planning day, we share details of the turnover, expenditure and profits from the previous year and, collectively, we set KPIs for the coming year. At our weekly staff meetings, we openly discuss the rates we charge clients, and provide updates on whether we are meeting our targets for each year.

It is hugely important to us that we not only seek feedback but, crucially, that we act on it. The results of the 2022 survey were very positive overall. However, some negative issues emerged, including the fact that employees feel their workloads can regularly be too heavy. We presented the survey findings at a full team planning day in February 2023 and updated employees on the actions being taken to address their concerns. These include the recruitment of additional team members to fill identified gaps; the introduction of new software to streamline project management and internal processes; offering coaching to team members at all levels to help them better plan and manage their work; and a review of the company structure to assess the optimum shape for Alice at this stage of the business.

Ranking #23

About NHS Business Services Authority

www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk

Our 2022-25 strategy continues to set out our plans to be on the front foot to support the frontline as we fulfil our purpose of being a catalyst for better health and our vision of being the delivery partner of choice for the health and care system.

To be at its brilliant best, its most efficient and most effective, the frontline NHS needs the right support. We exist to provide that support. To meet these challenges, the NHS needs to be able to rely on stable systems and platforms. As the NHS organisation responsible for providing a range of at scale, national business services and platforms, we are ideally placed to help address these challenges.

Our strategy sets out how we aim to do this, with our people being one of our main strategic goals; enabling them to be their best by creating a fantastic colleague experience, providing ongoing development opportunities with an eye to future needs and being a great, inclusive place to work.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… Our Lived Experience networks are communities for those who identify as BAME, have a disability and/or neurodiverse, LGBTQ+ and women. Each network delivers support via meetings and awareness sessions. We’ve also focused on work advancing us as an anti-racist organisation with training provided to all colleagues on what it means to be anti-racist and being a good, effective ally.

Our Shadow Board initiative for senior leaders is ongoing. A seat is reserved for people who identify with the identities above, ensuring collaboration with our Leadership Team and Board.

Virtual Pride Cafes for colleagues take place bi-monthly for our LGBTQ+ colleagues and Allies and, during Black History Month, our BAME Network took over the boardroom and held an extremely well attended drop-in day where they shared stories and experiences, wore traditional dress, fed colleagues with traditional foods and played traditional music from their own individual cultures. In LGBT+ History Month our LGBTQ+ network hired out a small local cinema and invited colleagues to a screening of an LGBTQ+ focused film.

Our Disability and Neurodiversity Network have worked hard to provide awareness and education for colleagues to encourage having open conversations and feel safe to declare disabilities. They’ve raised awareness by sharing their experiences and helped to ensure NHSBSA is an accessible workplace, both practically and digitally. We are a Disability Confident Leader, the highest level achievable in this scheme.

Ranking #24

About Huler

www.huler.io

Huler offers a variety of solutions and services ranging from HulerHub, the world’s most engaging, fully personalised employee experience platform to bespoke software and digital learning content. All of which are designed to support organisations, and the people within them, grow. HulerHub, is a brand-new, much-needed product that’s revolutionising employee experience for businesses globally.

Huler’s purpose is to create intentional employee experiences that are personalised, relevant and, above all else, human. So, it matters to us that what we do externally, is reflected and championed internally. We believe that resilient, collaborative, and innovative workplace cultures are the result of happy, engaged employees and that’s why we always put our people first. It’s also why we provide support for our employees to work flexibly, progress and express themselves authentically in an inclusive, vibrant and diverse environment.

Strongest Element: Experience

From the submission…  Creating a great employee experience isn’t just what we preach at Huler, it’s embedded in our DNA.

Our employee experience embodies being people-first, starting from a prospective employee’s first touch point with us. We personalise many elements of our employee experience journey;

• Welcome videos from line managers ahead of their first day
• Moving from a formal probation confirmation letter, to individual personalised emails with a video from their line manager
• Personalised collections in HulerHub when returning to work from maternity or long-term sick
• Humanised ‘HR’ letters, ensuring no employee ever gets the same letter twice
• Huler branded welcome, birthday and celebration cards handwritten to each employee
• Company paid for gifts on special birthdays and occasions and gifts for partners when welcoming new family members.

We have revolutionised many elements of our employee experience from recruitment, pre-boarding and onboarding to wellbeing and DEI. Pre-boarding and onboarding has undergone a significant transformation moving from multiple content sources distributed across Teams, Email, SharePoint to all information curated in two collections accessible in just two clicks.

Ranking #24

About Liberty Seguros

www.libertyseguros.es

Liberty provides insurance products directly to customers and via brokers/intermediaries in Spain, Portugal, The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. We share one key overarching purpose: “to exist to help people enjoy the present and look confidently into the future”. And, we apply this purpose challenging the insurance industry and disrupting its existing technologies, while providing products and models that mean customers only pay for what they need.

After Liberty created WEM (Western European Markets), integrating the businesses of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Spain and Portugal, the company identified the importance of creating a common culture through a set of values that people could recognize and validate. One of them, “Put people first”, is the foundation of our culture.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission…  Putting people first is also the basis for our Employee Experience. Every employee feels that at Liberty the employee experience is everyone’s business, something we build together every day by listening and acting with genuine concern for people. It is a real commitment that is reflected in every decision we make. This is reflected in the proximity and accessibility of the Management Team ensuring spaces to talk to the teams periodically. This is reflected in our monthly eNPS survey with the focus on “talking, listening and acting” or our Ambassadors, colleagues who represent all teams working together to push Employee experience, for instance.

Regarding our culture, there is one thing in which Liberty has been a benchmark in terms of Experience: the creation of our employee Journey Map by identifying employees’ Moments of Truth. Based on these Moments, we have created a consolidated model to encompass, under a common umbrella, all the Moments that were most important to people. Moments are helping us to create unique experiences in order to Put People First and make decisions based on the aspects that people care more about.

Liberty’s important decisions are based on Putting People First too. One of the latest examples was the rollout of the ‘Liberty Digital Way’, a working model that offers staff the possibility to work from home permanently but with flexibility to go to the office 8 days a month if they so wish. A model created after hearing people’s interest through different channels. The model created by putting People First is a reality today and incorporates 99% of the European employees. A real example of our commitment to our values and the differentiating aspect of our culture.

Ranking #26

About Xalient

https://xalient.com/ 

Xalient’s purpose is “to challenge traditional players in the IT marketplace with an innovative service – helping enterprises use advanced technology to become more resilient, adaptable and responsive to change”.

Xalient has a strategy for ambitious growth. In 2015, Founder Sherry Vaswani set a firm foundation for a strong workplace culture, a culture of collaboration, innovation and creativity and built a people strategy that would enable all employees to fulfil their potential a part of a high-performing and flexible workforce. 4 core values, our DNA, shape everyday behaviours, and, together with being clear on our purpose, have been prime drivers of success. Every role description, progression path, individual and team awards, and our entire performance management system are fully aligned to these critical drivers:

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission…  What our employees say:

“Xalient is a multi-culture company with staff from all over the world, and I have seen how for example how they accommodate all important events like Eid, Diwali and Christmas.”

Our success depends on a diverse and inclusive workplace. CEO, Sherry Vaswani, is a committed champion for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. We feel her recognition as one of the UK’s most inspiring ethnic minority entrepreneurs and one of the global tech industry’s “Women to Watch” is a  testament to our dedication to providing a welcoming and inclusive workplace.

We have made significant efforts to foster diversity and inclusion within our company, recognising its huge value in driving innovation, so critical in the IT sector. We use two minority recruitment agencies and train all staff on diversity, inclusiveness, and bias. Our 31% ethnic workforce, 39-year average age and 27% female representation, almost twice the industry average, are evidence of our success.

We have made six commitments to DE&I: Respect, Creativity & Innovation, Strive for Excellence, Sense of Belonging, Health and Wellbeing, and Collaboration. These commitments reflect our values and serve as a guide for our actions and decisions. They are central to our firm-wide “C&I Program”. We believe that by fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace, we can create an innovative, productive environment, and provide our employees with a sense of belonging.

Evidence of an inclusive culture from Vibe are current scores of 8.4/10 for “Social Responsibility Commitment”; 8.2/10 for “Recognising Suggestions”; 8.2/10 for “Quality of Feedback”; 8.8/10 for “My relationship with Manager”.

Ranking #27

About BCW Global

www.bcw-global.com

BCW is the global communications agency built to move people. And that includes our people. Our employee value proposition is our promise to our employees and how we attract creative, courageous and curious talent; signal that BCW is a best place to work; and deliver the BCW employee experience in a consistent, engaging and memorable way.

At BCW, we passionately believe that having a healthy, balanced culture supports the growth of our business and the personal growth of every team member. This is why our Employee Value Proposition is: “we are designed to cultivate your growth and momentum”.

Strongest Element: Inclusion 

From the submission… For the last three years, we have run our award-winning 21-day DE&I (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programme, ‘Destination Inclusion’, a topic-driven global framework to encourage an inclusive, open, and collaborative culture. In the EMEA region, we held weekly live discussions on topics such as ‘Being an equity accomplice’ and ‘Inspiring equity in client work’. These webinars were backed up by micro-actions and on-demand learning content available on the BCW intranet. This has been the most successful employee activation in BCW’s history, resulting in a 90% ‘recommend’ response, as well as a self-reported shift in opinions or viewpoints among 85% of participants.

In Brussels, the team came together for 2022 Belgian Pride to show support for the LGBTI+ community and march for equality. Meanwhile in London, a group worked with WPP Unite to create the 50th anniversary campaign for Pride in London.

In the Middle East, we are committed to building a culture of inclusion and aim to increase mid and senior level diversity by 10% this year. Fifty percent of our team are women and the team includes 30 nationalities.

BCW is committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels safe and challenged to grow, as people and as professionals. In our most recent all-staff engagement survey, ‘Inclusion’ was a top scoring category with 87% of employees agreeing that ‘I can be my authentic self at work, without fear of discrimination’ and 85% of employees stating that their manager creates an inclusive work environment.

Ranking #27

About Maneuvre

www.maneuvre.co/home 

Maneuvre is a communications strategy firm for visionaries. Whether that’s a funky startup or established enterprise, first-time founder or experienced leader, our purpose is twofold: first, to ensure the world-changing work these visionaries do is properly recognised, and second, to free up their focus to do the work. We realised that many incredible companies, especially female-led startups, were losing the recognition game because they were heads-down, working on their vision instead of promoting themselves. That’s the mark of a truly dedicated human being, but it means they lose out on opportunities to scale compared to louder (if not less impressive) competitors. We come in as their promotional engine, advising and executing across all communications, marketing and growth areas.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… Our purpose permeates our culture in three ways: we understand time is a finite resource, so we work smart and balanced; we champion; and we lift up diverse humans and stories.

On working smart and balanced: Just as we wouldn’t tell a busy founder slash mom to find ten extra hours a week to do more promotional work, we don’t ask that of ourselves either. We focus on results, not hours worked or calls made or emails sent – there is no reward system for working late, too much, or burning out. The question is always, “How can we get this done realistically,” not, “How can we get this done at any cost.” We teach our teams to set boundaries and communicate hour restrictions carefully with our clients, building up their confidence in advising similarly busy people on what’s achievable and worth doing with their most valuable resource.

On championing. Most of our founders have been burned by “PR” or “marketing” advisors who asked them to brag about themselves to anyone who would listen. We advise them to champion their key buyer – whoever that is – and find ways to solve their problems without being asked. That’s the internal culture we build as well. We don’t focus on making Maneuvre look good. Instead, we champion our fellow team members through weekly celebration roundups, and externally we champion only our clients (not ourselves) for the results we helped them get.

Diverse humans and stories. We have a specific mandate to bring new stories and humans into the world of emerging tech. We do this for our clients by working with hardworking women and non-traditional founders of the field, but we also do this internally. We mentor and coach our team of seriously impressive young women on how to advise business owners and what the field of emerging tech like fintech, crypto, web3, AI, metaverse looks like so they can feel secure in their career growth. They are trained on how to do the work, present the work, and be advisors instead of just order takers.

Ranking #29

About Anthony Nolan

www.anthonynolan.org

We, here at Anthony Nolan, save the lives of people with blood cancer and blood disorders. Every day, we match incredible individuals willing to donate their blood stem cells or bone marrow to people with blood cancer and blood disorders who desperately need life saving transplants – an incredibly powerful purpose.

Together with our values (Passionate, Accountable, Innovative, Patient Focussed and Improving every day) this purpose of saving lives permeates the organisational culture in a multitude of ways.

To give some context, Anthony Nolan was founded in 1974 by Shirley Nolan who was wholeheartedly committed to finding her son Anthony a bone marrow donor. The determination and passion of Shirley has continued and grown and now our phenomenal teams work hard to give 3 people a day a second chance of life. We are a charity and we also contribute considerably to the science and research in the areas in which we operate.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… When we talk about inclusion at Antony Nolan we are considering not only our colleagues but our donors, volunteers and patients. Not everyone has the same access to the expert treatment, care and support they need throughout their transplant journey. We know this isn’t ok, so a critical pillar of our new five-year strategy will focus on ensuring equity of access for all our patients.

From an organisational perspective with our people, donors, volunteers and patients at the core we have created a new EDI arm to our strategy function and have appointed both a Head of EDI and an EDI Programme Officer to lead this agenda. This year (and last) all divisional annual plans include specific areas relating to EDI so it is intrinsic in everything we do and our new EDI team are collaborating closely with all divisions to ensure this is delivered.

We have also refreshed and relaunched our Diversity and Inclusion champions network and we, as a wider organisation, will work closely with this group to ensure all of our EDI initiatives land effectively.

Ranking #30

About Churchill Retirement PLC

www.churchillretirement.co.uk

The Churchill Retirement group of companies is a family-run, privately owned business employing over 700 Colleagues to help older people across the UK enjoy a happy, safe and independent lifestyle in their retirement.

We have a clear Mission to be the most successful housebuilder in the UK, and to provide enjoyable, safe and worry-free retirement living for our customers. Our overarching Vision is to be the retirement housebuilder of choice for an independent, secure and fulfilling lifestyle, and to be the market-leading retirement management company through customer and colleague satisfaction. These ambitions are emblazoned on the walls of our offices, and feature throughout our internal literature and communications.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… Our Company Values are Trust, Openness, Respect, Communication and Honesty – or “TORCH”. These Values reflect our ethos, defining how we want one another to be treated, and how we would want to treat others. They are integral to everything we do in the Company and our TORCH Ambassadors help to embed these values throughout every part of the business.

Our Quarterly peer-to-peer recognition scheme, Churchill Heroes, also helps to embed our TORCH Values. A Churchill Hero is for going the extra mile and demonstrating our TORCH Values in action, with up to 9 winners selected by the TORCH Ambassadors each quarter to receive a £250 experience gift voucher and be shortlisted for our Colleague of the Year Award, giving them a chance to win a further £500.

Our own registered charity, the Churchill Foundation, was created in 2015 and to date has raised nearly £2 million for a wide range of local and national charities in the areas where we operate.

Colleagues take an active part in fundraising for the Churchill Foundation throughout the year, and over 250 charities have benefited from the Foundation’s support. In 2022 we raised £60,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support through coffee morning events, cake sales and raffles across all our developments and offices.

A recent Colleague survey showed that 97% feel they can make a valuable contribution to this Company, and 90% of Colleagues are proud to work for Churchill.

Ranking #31

About Salutem Care and Education

www.salutemcareandeducation.co.uk

Formed in 2017, Salutem now has over 135 services across England and Wales. We are industry professionals in providing support and care to adults and children with complex needs and our mission is to create meaningful and fulfilled lives which we do by delivering personal care, support, and education.

We believe everyone should have the opportunity to live a healthy, active, and fulfilling life, regardless of their background or disability. We see the humanity in everyone, and it comes first in everything we do. Our culture is underpinned by our values which are Supportive, Ambitious, Loyal, Unique, Transparent, Engaging and Meaningful. Every member of the Salutem family strives to live by these values enabling us to not only provide meaningful lives for the people we support but also for one another. We often work in a challenging environment, so looking out for ourselves and one another is key to our success.

Strongest Element: Experience

From the submission… We call ourselves the “Salutem Family” and whilst it can come across as a bit of cliché it is exactly how people feel. We often describe ourselves as one big dysfunctional family at times, but we are a group of people all working towards the same outcomes for the individuals we support. No matter whether you are in a direct care role or more back office – we all feel connected to the wider organisation with Blink.

So how do we create that family feel? We operate like a family unit where everyone has an opinion and debate is encouraged. We set up clubs, group chats and activities to encourage communication internally. For example, we have a running/ walking club called the Salutem Striders in which members include everyone from support workers up to the CFO and CEO. We also have the Salutem book club, where we vote on what book to read and discuss it together. The book club is made up of everyone from support workers through to our Group People Director and our Quality Director, all stepping outside of their roles to have a chat and debate about the current book.

During the pandemic, when everything was shut, work became our outlet and sometimes it meant that you saw more of your work colleagues than you did your wider family. In this case, we were available to each other through Blink and managed to keep the special feeling of belonging and embed it in the organisation.

All our policies and benefits are thought about in the wider context of belonging and encouraging individuals to feel part of a team.

Ranking #32

About M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment

www.sportandentertainment.mcsaatchi.com

M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment is a passion marketing agency. We exist to make brands culturally relevant in people’s passions, creating meaningful impact for brands and society.

We deliver this by connecting brands to the things people love – in sport, entertainment, and culture.

As a business, our purpose is to place brands at the centre of people’s passions. So, our people, and their passions, are the lifeblood of our agency.

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… We believe that wellbeing is rooted in people being able to bring their whole selves to work, and feeling supported in their mental, physical, financial, and extended needs.

The heart of our commitment to wellbeing is embodied by our Together Network; an internal board supporting employees to prioritise their physical and mental health. This focuses on three pillars – raising awareness of wellbeing, providing support for those in need, and promoting positive health for all. We run events, training, talks and recreational sessions, ensuring everyone is aware of the support available to them.

The outcomes of this network include:

– Inclusive Bank Holidays: UK Bank Holidays fall short of reflecting the many religions and beliefs that are important to our increasingly diverse workforce, so we encourage colleagues to swap bank holidays to recognise religious, spiritual, faith or belief-based celebrations that matter to them. We believe this helps us foster an inclusive environment where our people’s spiritual wellbeing is recognised and where everyone feels they belong.

– Cost of Living Support: The cost of living is one of the most pressing issues for our people in Jan 2023. So, we have introduced free breakfast, lunch, and coffee for all people to support their daily expenses. We have also introduced a number of travel schemes, such as our ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme and ‘Season Travel Loan’ which support people with the financial expenses of travelling to the office. We are proud to have offered bonuses to every staff member every year since we founded and in 2022, we took 23% profit out of the business to pay a bonus to every employee.

– Care Provision: We offer all employees up to 10 days a year paid care support in the case of emergencies (e.g. nanny off sick, nursery shut, school closes, elderly parent needs adult care). Delivered in partnership with Bright Horizons, a national care provider, we run care provision to help our talent successfully navigate those times when life and work become harder to balance.

The results of our wellbeing strategy have seen a reduction in the number of days our people take as sick leave due to our increased working flexibility.

In 2022, we grew from 60 to 95 brilliant people and we’re proud of our low staff churn rate.

Ranking #33

About BAT

www.bat.com

BAT’s purpose is building A Better Tomorrow™ is aligned to the needs of the business, our customers and consumers, our employees and society. The cornerstone of this purpose is to focus on the health impact of our products by reducing the health impact of our business. This entails a commitment to providing adult consumers with a wide range of enjoyable and less risky products, continuing to be clear that combustible cigarettes pose serious health risks, and the only way to avoid these risks is to not start or to quit, encouraging those who otherwise continue to smoke, to switch completely to scientifically substantiated, reduced-risk alternatives and by tracking and sharing progress.

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… In BAT, we define wellbeing as a central strategy to ensure that employees are able to contribute their best while navigating the myriad challenges that impact how they live, work, and relate to others. Our approach to wellbeing is linked to mapping our workforce against personal priorities being searching for purpose and meaning, flexibility, reward & appreciation, social connection or stimulation through learning.

Our holistic wellbeing framework focuses on a few key wellbeing areas to drive overall employee psychological safety:

[…] Emotional – awareness & coping mechanism of everyday challenges. This is supported by the independent EAP support for employees and their families as well as the flexible work framework.

Intellectual – desire to learn & experience new concepts. Our #MyWorkMySpace framework provides for WFH arrangements, dedicated uninterrupted focus time, blocked learning hours and leave bridging provisions catering to extensive time off work and travel. We have significantly invested in our IDT infrastructure to allow for smooth virtual work irrespective of the type of work – a simple meeting or connecting hundreds of employees across the country, workshopping live or running team buildings. This takes the pressure off always being in the office, extensive travel across the Middle East and flex work and life more effectively and efficiently. This allows our parents to spend more time with their families vs travelling extensively.

Ranking #34

About Brightec

www.brightec.co.uk

Our purpose is to be a company that clients love working with and our employees love working for. It is broad and unspecific but has served us for many years as a compass to keep us aligned. This impacts every aspect of our company but specifically means we are selective about the work we take on, wanting our staff to feel invested in the projects they contribute to; we would rather turn away work than collaborate with a project, or company, which isn’t aligned with our values.

We create bespoke mobile apps for brands across multiple industries, including Waterstones and Virgin Red. We believe in working together, for each other. We place value on our personal connections which help us make better decisions, empathise with users, and create outstanding products. 

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… Our HappyTrack tool is key to us monitoring team wellbeing. We built this app in 2020 and it serves the purpose well of reiterating daily that we care about each other. Two of our engineers have taken on ownership of the app, showing that this care of the team comes from the people within it, not just from leadership. HappyTrack and Kudos* support our team AND ensure we have measurable data to indicate how we are doing collectively and show areas where support and/or improvement might be needed. HappyTrack scores have increased from 6.53 in June 2022 to an average of 6.8 in December, indicating the studio (July 2022) has achieved the objectives laid out by the team.

Ranking #35

About Etisalat Egypt by e&

www.etisalat.eg 

The Story of Etisalat Egypt began in May 2007 & achieved a Series of Successes Confirming Its Technological Leadership, It Was the First Company to Provide 3.5 Generation Services of High Quality and Took the Lead in Providing 4G Services, In Addition to Continuously Developing Its Network, Etisalat Egypt Provides Excellent International Services, and Its Customers Enjoy Competitive International Calling Rates to All Countries of the World. It also Provides High-Speed ADSL Home Internet Services and Fixed-Line Telephone Service, Becoming The First Integrated Digital Operator.

Etisalat also has a full framework for its Values & their respective behavior indicators. The 4 values are Agility, Leadership, Customer Centricity & Collaboration. The full framework has been communicated to all staff levels through different communication channels; where all our premises have been branded with the Vision, Mission & Values, different sessions have been conducted to all levels of the organizations to ensure their awareness of the Values & behavior indicators, leadership communication forums & special recognition programs where the management recognize employees who best demonstrate each of the Values

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… Our Wellbeing program (E-Well) consists of 3 pillars:

1. Well-Fit for physical wellbeing
2. Well-Balanced for emotional & mental wellbeing.
3. Well-Secured for financial wellbeing.

[…] 

Well-Balanced:

We introduced several programs to support employees emotionally.

1. Learning & Awareness sessions on Mental Well-Being in the form of short videos, supported by an interactive workbook where employees are encouraged to reflect on the program learnings and take it to practice in their real life.
2. Partnered with a psychotherapy platform (Shezlong) where employees have access to free one-to-one consultation sessions;
3. Partnered with Intellect Executive & brought a series of videos to help them improve their wellbeing.
4. Webinar sessions covering Stress Mgmt at workplace; How to raise a responsible child; Preventing Burnout & the difference between stress vs distress; Emotional eating; Managing stress & breathing exercises; Developing healthy sleeping habits.

Ranking #36

About Stanton House Limited

www.stantonhouse.com

Our Purpose has always been to create exceptional customer experiences. As a recruitment firm, this truly sets us apart from the competition. We operate in an industry not generally well regarded due to highly transactional business practices, particularly when it comes to supporting professionals looking to change jobs.

Stanton House is different. For us, customers are those seeking a new job, as well as the employers that hire them. We appreciate that moving jobs, or finding a job when out of work, is a life defining experience which can transform a person’s life for the better.

We expect our people to nurture all relationships by showing that they care and strive to be professionally memorable, at every opportunity. We believe that by consistently delivering on our Purpose, we will positively impact the reputation of the Recruitment Industry.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… We are proud that the affirmative action we’ve taken has increased ethnicity and gender representation. We recently promoted three females into leadership roles: CFO (Board position), Director of Change & Communications (Board position) & an Associate Director. Although we are proud of our 4.5/5 Glassdoor rating for ‘D&I’, we know that we have more work to do and have clear goals this year.

We encourage our managers to challenge their own biases, use inclusive language and most importantly always aim to create a safe space for their colleagues. We’ve seen this reflected in leadership satisfaction scores from two engagement surveys in 2022. 87.7% score from Engagement Multiplier and 98% from Best Companies.

[…] In 2021, we created the ‘Empathy Series’, where we asked colleagues to share their experiences on topics like menopause, anxiety, neurodiversity, and racism. The series has been incredibly powerful in helping create an inclusive environment and we’re told that it has added value to our people beyond their working lives. In 2022 we took this initiative to new heights – offering our customers a guide on how they too can implement their very own ‘Empathy Series’.

In 2022, we launched our Women in Stanton House (WISH) Forum, a safe place for women in the business to support one another and break down gender bias. The objective of WISH is to empower women to have a voice at the table in a male-dominated industry. Outcomes from sessions are shared with the Board, who take appropriate actions towards a gender-inclusive environment.

Ranking #37

About Bank of London and The Middle East (BLME)

https://www.blme.com/ 

At every level, Bank of London and The Middle East is a company driven by a strong sense of purpose. This can be seen in the ethical values we are proud to promote as an Islamic bank, as well as the initiatives, partnerships and activities enjoyed by staff across our organisation, which are a bedrock of our company culture.

Being a Sharia’a compliant bank means employees at BLME know our company is purpose-driven. We ethically screen finance agreements and won’t invest in gambling, alcohol, or armaments; and do not charge interest. As an Islamic bank, fairness, honesty, integrity and transparency are at the heart of everything we do. These values also shape how we treat our clients, employees and stakeholders.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… Our commitment to communicating clearly, compassionately and effectively with employees is demonstrated by the changes we made during the Coronavirus pandemic – the time at which employee communication reached its most challenging point for most businesses. We promoted our existing wellbeing support through the following enhanced communications:

• Bi-weekly internal announcements
• Bi-monthly town hall meetings
• Monthly themed ‘mail-outs’ sent to employees at their home address (creating ‘BLMEnvy’ as many family members, flatmates and friends commenting on the outstanding support and thoughtfulness of the company during this time)
• Weekly posts on our Comms Hub providing updates on benefits, business results and individual achievements, plus a dedicated COVID-19 section
• Introduction of a remote, anonymous feedback mechanism to ask questions and submit suggestions
• Swift Bank-wide communication following major government announcements to minimise uncertainty and clarify, ‘What does this mean for us?’
• External speaker series covered relevant topics on well-being, diversity, and resilience with signed copies of relevant books also sent
• New Starter Blogs introducing new members of the team
• 82% of employees agree the ExCo of their company work hard to stay in touch with employees – 8% higher than the previous year
• 84% felt well informed about what was happening within their company – up 4% on the previous year.

Our latest Employee Survey found that 89% of BLME staff said they receive (or can easily access) the information needed to do their jobs effectively – an increase of 13% compared to the 2021 Survey, and 14% compared to the external benchmark.

Ranking #38

About Claritas Tax

www.claritastax.co.uk

Claritas was formed with the idea of doing something different. Not just the high levels of expert knowledge for which we are known in the marketplace, but in the way, we approach things. Claritas’ founder Iain Wright wholeheartedly believes that there is a way to provide top-level tax advice, making it exciting, and accessible with a personal service. This is achieved by creating a workplace where our people are fulfilled, happy and love working here. 

[…] Claritas is a small business of 45 people formed in 2012. It has a culture of trust and engagement, and this is what makes us stand out. At Claritas, we are like-minded professionals, who work together towards a common vision to build a successful business. We as an employer recognise that our staff are individuals, therefore our aim is to be inclusive and nurturing so that everyone can thrive personally and professionally. We believe that we support our employees to ‘belong’ to something greater than making a profit, we want them to know that their contributions matter. 

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… The health and wellbeing of our colleagues is our highest priority, and we recognise that it comes in many forms. “Claritas put a big emphasis on our wellbeing and your interests are always a priority. You’re made to feel like you really make a difference” – Faith Ross, Manager. Claritas embodies the culture of a work-life balance, addressing all but not inclusive of:

– Physical (We do monthly keep fit initiatives)

– Mental (We have a MHFA and check-ins)

– Financial (‘People before profit’ which is reflected in our annual salary reviews)

– Social (We host monthly after-work events and all staff volunteering days)

We provide a flexible working environment for staff as we understand that ‘one shoe doesn’t fit all’. We know that offering this level of flexibility helps staff to work effectively and achieve a better work-life balance by allowing them to avoid the necessity to commute into an office every day, whilst still maintaining regular contact with the whole firm.

It’s important to us that our people have access to healthcare whenever they need it. This is our third year where we’ve invested in private healthcare for all our employees and ensured this includes 24-hour access to a GP doctor, other healthcare therapies and counselling whenever they may need it for themselves as well as their family members.

Ranking #39

About Policy Expert

www.policyexpert.co.uk

We’re Policy Expert and we currently provide home and car insurance, operating from 3 locations: London, Milton Keynes and Motherwell. Since 2011 we’ve been on a mission to shake up the world of personal insurance. We feel that customers have been under-served by the insurance industry for far too long and we are committed to putting our customers at the heart of everything we do and to deliver good outcomes to them.

We have big aspirations. Our ‘North Star’ is: ‘To be the most successful insurance disruptor people want to stay with for life’. In this instance ‘People’ means customers and employees. To achieve this we aim to build even longer and deeper relationships with our customers, where they see insurance as a help not a hindrance and to become an employer of choice.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… At Policy Expert, we are proud of our communication/engagement approaches that allow us to listen and engage with a diverse pool of colleagues. Also given we operate over three sites, we are aware of the requirement and importance of our communication and the need for it to be inclusive, delivered consistently and be of value for all our people.

[…] We have established approaches for one-to-one conversations, coaching conversations are encouraged at work and personal development plans are put in place for all colleagues. The PDP conversations take place quarterly between each individual and their manager to capture and have deep and meaningful employee lead discussions on career aspirations, their blockers, their achievements, their wellbeing, and any additional support they can be provided with. These conversations along with the one-to-one conversations are prioritised at Policy Expert and are now a natural discussion within our culture. This allows our people to feel engaged with and supported. All our managers are fully trained as part of their either induction or six-monthly training cycle on how to have coaching conversations and how to effectively have these personal development conversations.

Finally, an example of where we have truly listened to our people was in the creation of the business values. Here we held colleagues focus groups in each office, speaking to over 100 colleagues to get a sense of how they saw the company and what values would ring true for them. Off the back of these focus groups the business values were distilled and then they were communicated by way of an executive roadshow to each office. This allowed everyone to hear these pivotal messages at the same time and ask valuable questions to a senior leadership member. We will continue to communicate these messages and are now in the stages of creating a business-wide video to show what these values mean to us.

Ranking #40

About Product Madness

www.productmadness.com

Product Madness is an award-winning developer of social and mobile games which was founded in 2007 by two Stanford Business graduates. Armed with little more than a passion for gaming, a manifesto that values creativity and collaboration, and a truly unique office culture that prioritises the happiness and wellbeing of its employees, the company has since become one of the world’s largest top-grossing leaders in social casino mobile games.

Our core values and our people have taken us to dizzying new heights. We have succeeded in growing the business from just 75 employees in 2015, to well over 800 across seven global hubs in the UK, Ukraine, Poland, Spain, Israel, Canada and the USA. We don’t intend to stop there and are projected to reach profits of £1 Billion over the next 12 months, whilst onboarding hundreds of new recruits.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… At Product Madness, we all seek to constantly inspire and support each other regardless of role, as per our Champion Together core value and continual professional development is vital to everyone at Product Madness, throughout the whole business. This is concomitant to our Mad for More value, as we always strive to improve, innovate and move the business forward in any way that we can. Everyone has access to learning and development resources to further their careers, a career development plan, and ample opportunities to sign up for management courses.

We empower all employees to be ‘Mad For More’. As we see it there is no ceiling to an individual’s ambition at Product Madness and we want everyone to challenge their own perception of what they can achieve. For example, during the Covid-19 lockdown, our London Office Manager, Elaine Obeng came to the business with a new idea for how her team could operate given the change in physical circumstances. Elaine’s proposal was put in place for a Studio Experience Team and we have rolled this out to multiple locations since the pandemic. Elaine’s story is just one example where we openly challenge our people to strive for more.

Ranking #41

About AppLearn

www.applearn.com

AppLearn is a digital adoption platform (DAP) vendor with the purpose of making software work better for everyone. The continued shift towards hybrid and remote working—accelerated by COVID-19—brings with it new technologies. As more and more people need to collaborate and manage business functions remotely, organizations have been turning to tech solutions to support this new way of working.

The purpose of our business is clear—to make software work better for everyone. Aligned to our purpose, we have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), which is to build the best digital adoption platform. And aligned to this BHAG, are six business objectives, measured by 34 goals.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… We believe success happens when people are bought in. In order to get that buy in, we aim to create and maintain a high-performance culture to inspire our people and drive success.

To do this, we follow nine rules as a senior leadership team (SLT) and lead by example. These are:

1. Set a clear direction
2. Create a culture of we, not me
3. Develop a winning mindset – we win and lose as a team
4. Follow the 80/20 rule – focus on the most significant impact
5. Develop people – a happy team is a fast team
6. Live our values – sh*t happens, it is how we react that impacts the outcome
7. Get resourceful – what can we do to make it happen
8. Celebrate the wins
9. Communication is vital – over-communicate, never assume

Our SLT has extensive experience in scaling multiple business-to-business software organizations from the formulaic start-up stages through to strategic nine-figure exits. We have the in-house expertise to instill confidence in our employees, and by living by these rules and aligning our people strategy, we’ve been able to create buy-in, inspire our employees and drive success.

Ranking #41

About FSP Consulting Services Ltd

www.fsp.co

Founded in 2012, FSP Consulting Services (FSP) are a leading digital transformation specialist, combining real world experience in business strategy, change and adoption and digital solution delivery.

We work with a broad range of public and private sector organisations to help them drive efficiencies and accelerate the opportunities created through digital transformation. As a long standing Microsoft Solutions Partner, our portfolio of modern workplace, cloud, data, and cyber security offerings, alongside trusted managed services delivery, is driving change for high-profile clients across a range of sectors.

Our work is founded on the commitment to deliver positive impact for both organisations and their people. Behind this commitment is a dedicated employee-first strategy, built around our organisation’s core values: human, inclusive, performance driven, and ambitious.

Strongest Element: Wellbeing

From the submission… Alongside our mental health first aiders and 24/7 access to our employee assistance programme and trained counsellors, we run monthly wellness workshops for all employees with our retained psychologist Dr Katherine Bond. These have covered a range of topics. One example was a session focused on ‘Dealing with Change & Volatility’. As the world has been characterised by change and volatility over the past two years, we all experienced a psychological and emotional response to the instability and uncertainty of the climate, whether that volatility was global or more personal. This session was an opportunity to share how we were feeling and experiencing this and get a deeper understanding of our human responses and how to cope with this. Other sessions have focused on stress & pressure, relationships, self-care, resilience, sleep, motivation & mindset, coaching & listening. 1:1 support is also available to all. Topics are constantly being assessed and new topics are introduced regularly.

Furthermore, we have an internal podcast channel which was set up to provide an additional platform for anyone in the business to get involved and talk about subjects that matter to them. We have covered important topics like mental health, International Women’s and Men’s Day, Disability History Month, Pride and Black History Month. We ensure everyone has the chance to have a voice and talk openly with their peers about what matters to them. We hope those who listen feel supported, represented and know that they are not alone.

Ranking #43

About G-P

www.globalization-partners.com

Founded in 2012, G-P (Globalization Partners) is the world’s leading Global Employment Platform™ that makes it fast, simple, and compliant for companies to hire anyone, anywhere. G-P shifted the paradigm that required companies to have subsidiaries or local branch offices to expand globally by enabling them to hire talent anywhere. In 2022, research firms NelsonHall and Everest Group both named G-P an Employer of Record (EOR) industry leader.

This commitment is backed by a consistent, proactive strategy. As the G-P team continues to grow in size and geographical spread, we have made several important appointments. In 2020, we hired a Global Community and Culture Lead with a focus on growing and maintaining our employees’ well-being. We operate an internal culture committee to help continue to expand our programmes regionally, locally and globally. In 2021 we appointed our first-ever Chief People Officer, who now leads all facets of the HR function while playing a key strategic role in the growth of the business.

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… Our CEO and founder Nicole Sahin and her leadership team inspire their employees by living by our core values daily. First and foremost at G-P, our customers are our compass. Customer success is our success and we work with laser focus to deliver positive outcomes, every time. Accountability is at the heart of this purpose. We look around corners on behalf of our customers to identify smart solutions that scale and we work without ego across silos to show up and solve problems as “One G-P.” Our leaders heavily enforce the mindset “we outshines me.” Unlocking real opportunities for anyone, anywhere starts with respect for everyone. Thoughtful iteration leads us to constantly learn and solve for “better,” together.

Inclusion, acceptance, integrity, empathy, trust, and kindness: these serve our global vision. Across borders and boundaries, departments and desks, we put care for each other first above all else. The mindset of ‘humble can be hungry’, is another key pillar in our company culture. Our ambitions and appetites keep us on the move, but humility grounds us. We ask questions to understand alternate viewpoints and lean into courageous conversations. Resilience, agility and healthy debate help us surface the best solutions and we act with

plenty of hustle – but never forget to have fun. Challenging the norm is another key focal point at G-P. We use deep critical thinking to challenge assumptions, solve for the root cause and make timely decisions. Curiosity fuelled by data-driven insights help to guide us to our next breakthrough.

Ranking #43

About Globant

www.globant.com

Born 20 years ago in Argentina, we have evolved to become one of the leading IT service providers worldwide. Globant has shown impressive and sustained growth, thanks to its consistency in providing added value for its world-class clients and its relentless focus on reinvention.

Today, we are an NYSE-listed company (NYSE:GLOB), and we keep carrying our entrepreneurial spirit in everything that we do. We grew as a company with the foundational understanding that technology is much more than a tool. We are the first company to deliver engineering, innovation, and design at scale, and we are aware that, as technology evolves, professional services organizations must evolve with it.

We believe in making the world a better place, one step at a time, and we understand that we can make a difference if we focus on three key areas: our clients, our talent, and our Be Kind initiative.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… Our Studio Model is an effective way of organizing our company into smaller operating units. Each Studio represents deep pockets of expertise on the latest technologies and trends and delivers tailored solutions focused on specific challenges. It fosters creativity and innovation while allowing us to build, enhance, and consolidate expertise around a variety of emerging technologies and industries.

We have three different types of Studios: Digital, Reinvention, and Enterprise Platforms Studios.

Within our Studio model, we created our Agile Pods. Agile Pods are self-organized, collaborative, and autonomous teams that provide solutions to the challenges posed by each project in an agile and innovative way. The Pods are made up of multidisciplinary specialists from every corner of the world, with different backgrounds and experiences, who work together in pursuit of excellence and their goals.

With offices in 25 countries, we have more than 27,000 Globers working on different projects across Studios and regions, and nothing we do would be possible without our culture, which promotes the autonomy of each Glober.

Ranking #43

About AllSaints

www.allsaints.com

We’re a global fashion brand with an independent spirit, a community of curators and innovators. With more than 2,200 global team members working together with our manufacturing partners and brand business partners to create full collections of womenswear, menswear and accessories. Established in 1994, the AllSaints wardrobe was, and still is, a catalyst for individuality. Our customers can create a uniform without uniformity for themselves from our international stores, concessions, franchises and digital platforms.

We are open to everyone, and encourage our teams and customers to showcase their personalities through our collection. Aside from our beautiful products, we are especially proud of our teams. We have great representation across our team diversity (see DEI section for details). Ultimately we are on a journey to not only ensure we are respectful and considerate of our industry, fostering humble relationships with our suppliers, partners and third parties, we are also focusing on our teams at a whole new level. This is what is required of us in the new post-Covid world, ensuring our teams are supported, mentally, physically, professionally and personally. We want to create a workplace that enables our teams to thrive as well as create exceptional product which inspires people to feel their best, whilst looking after the community. All individuals, all united, together we are AllSaints.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… We are proud to have a CEO, Peter Wood, leading our brand who believes in open and consistent communication, whether that be in our quarterly global ‘town halls’ and Q&A sessions – where he also shares our brand performance, any challenges we may be facing and our plans for the future – or in regular informal video updates to the whole company. Pete sets out his expectation on culture: we do what we say we will, and we are a team that has each other’s backs. This ethos sits within our brand values too and is how we measure ‘how’ our leaders are showing up in their biannual appraisals. Pete has been with our brand over a decade and is incredibly passionate about our teams.

A supportive CEO is not enough – we believe that all our leaders should have the confidence, tools and support to lead their teams successfully and in a way that feels authentic. Our SmartLeaders leadership academy, born in 2020, works with leaders and future leaders at all levels of our global business. Not just by teaching leadership skills in classes but also through degree-accredited management qualifications, driving business improvement projects, receiving coaching and taking part in mentoring with external partners or internally for junior team members. We pride ourselves on curating a leadership offer that is flexible and accessible worldwide, no matter your existing qualifications or experience.

Ranking #43

About BP

www.bp.com

As an organization, bp has set a clear purpose and ambition: to reimagine energy for people and the planet and help the world get to net zero. With operations in Europe, North and South America, Australia, Asia and Africa, bp delivers energy solutions across the world. The company has taken transformative measures so they can deliver secure, affordable, lower carbon energy that the world wants and needs. Bp is working to make strides in bioenergy, EV charging, convenience, renewables & power, as well as hydrogen and carbon capture to help cut emissions while still delivering the oil and gas the world depends on today. This ambitious mission fuels the organization and informs every aspect of who they are as a company, including their culture.

With nearly 70,000 employees across several businesses in over 50 countries, this mission is what unites the company and is the central pillar of the organizational culture. Employees worldwide aim to achieve this goal as they work to grow new low-carbon businesses, products, services—and a more sustainable future. This central goal informs bp’s culture, which is built around five core values: safety, respect, excellence, courage, and one team. 

Strongest Element: Culture & Purpose

From the submission… Bp’s new purpose builds on their best qualities and those things that are most important to them: commitment to safety, to speaking up if something doesn’t seem right, compliance, care for others and working together as one integrated bp team – all while putting an even greater focus on how to take bp to the next level. Bp holds three simple beliefs that can inspire each member of their team to be their best every day. Bp believes that bringing to life all three of these beliefs will give them the energy and drive to deliver on the company’s purpose and ambition. As a company, bp aims to: Live our Purpose; Play to win; Care for others.

Ranking #43

About Julius Rutherfoord & Co Ltd.

www.juliusrutherfoord.co.uk

Julius Rutherfoord provides secure commercial cleaning in London. We exist to inspire cleaning people because having a clean environment contributes to a better work experience, which means that from our perspective, we help our clients be better companies by providing a clean space for their employees to work. This informs our culture which is to create a foundation for our cleaners to be the best they can be.

We accomplish this by providing a great deal of training for our cleaners, and our managers, and by bringing attention to our values of Meticulous, Passionate, Expert, and Personal. As an example, every month our cleaners complete a Tool Box Talk on topics ranging from Health and Safety to Diversity and Inclusion. At the beginning of every training module is a reminder of our values and how the training will help them become a better cleaner.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… There are multiple ways we inspire our people to achieve success including having a flat organisational structure as well as an open plan office, and most importantly, ensuring that our people feel valued.

Our flat organisation is a conscious decision for many reasons, but one of them is to ensure that our people can see there aren’t many levels to breakthrough if they want to progress. Additionally, the cleaning industry is naturally quite reactive and this means there are times we need all hands on deck to ensure that our clients are getting the best service. Having a flat structure means that a customer service assistant will see the Operations Director jump in to help out and that is inspiring for our people knowing that we are all one big team and no task is too small for anyone. This flat organisational structure can also be seen in practice by having an open-plan office. All members of the board, including the Managing Director, sit at the same type of desk as an administrator – there are no special offices or desks for anyone. This sends unconscious communication that anyone can get to the top of the organisation as well as being a physical representation that we are all one team.

Ranking #48

About CarePlanner

www.care-planner.co.uk

Challenges facing social care providers are funding and resourcing – they must find ways to operate efficiently. Technology can enable this; CarePlanner believes home care providers – of all sizes deserve a better deal from their software supplier(s). CarePlanner views itself as a business in the care industry that happens to provide tech, not a tech business that happens to sell into the care industry.

The purpose of CarePlanner is “to provide the most user-friendly product(s) for care providers, backed by the best customer service and support, with simple, transparent pricing and no long-term contract”.

Purpose and values are shared with all new starters during their Day 1 induction and YouTube videos that impart CarePlanner’s values are included within onboarding. Several departments are included in the Onboarding process all of whom have a different purpose and demonstrate different core values.

Values are reinforced during the year as our Employee of the Month Awards are given based on employees displaying one/+ of our values. Our Annual Review process also considers if employees have demonstrated our values.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… Leaders are expected to be role models for our purpose and values plus are expected to roll their sleeves and get involved rather than just ‘manage’.

To help our leaders share best practices and engage with their peer group we hold a quarterly ‘leaders event’. Each meeting has a different agenda where team leaders can share their views and any frustrations with the senior management team and senior managers share their own personal experience and advice. As it provides upwards and downwards communication, it helps provide an accurate understanding of what’s going on at an operational level and how both tiers of managers can work together better, aiding project work and improved relationships.

Topics covered to date: unconscious bias, managing difficult situations, company values, neurodiversity and making meetings more effective.

Outcomes:

1. The production of a ‘leaders toolkit’ for those who join/get promoted into a leadership role, equipping them with knowledge and a reference document.

2. Senior managers have offered to be a mentor/coach to any team leader for their professional development, emphasising the flat management structure.

Ranking #49

About The American Creativity Academy

www.aca.edu.kw

The American Creativity Academy (ACA) is an American school located in the heart of the Middle East. The complexity of the school’s structure is not a hindrance, but a defining feature, as it promotes exceptional standards-based education with a focus on key Islamic values. The school community comprises people from diverse cultural, religious, and social backgrounds, and they all share a passion for growth and faith.

When the pandemic hit, ACA had to shift its focus from survival and adaptation to wellbeing and balance. The school implemented a new learning management system (NEO LMS) and allowed staff to remain in their home countries while teaching during the Kuwait hours. The shift redefined the school’s identity and enabled staff to find a new balance. It was a tremendous achievement of culture and purpose for our school because it genuinely redefined our identity. At the same time, we shifted back to physical learning this year, and suddenly realized that people were overwhelmed. We added all the features of digital learning to physical learning and suddenly tripled a teacher’s workload and point of perspective. It was difficult, but it forced our leadership team to intentionally focus on (1) what’s most important? Our students, (2) How do we show care and respect to our teachers? By creating boundaries and balance, and (3) How do we intentionally craft culture? By onboarding and mentorship.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… ACA decided to take a bold step towards redefining its approach to leadership. The Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent were internal promotions having served in both curriculum roles and principal/assistant principal roles within the school before to moving into the highest school leadership roles. As a result, they cultivated a culture of inspiring leadership within all faculty and staff; empowering them to think critically and feel supported to develop as leaders within every role of the school. At the beginning of their tenure, they created the ACA Leadership Academy. While this cohort model existed within ACA before, they aligned the program with St. Mary’s University and established a partnership to deliver an on-site, fully accredited Educational Specialist Degree (Ed.S) with K-12 Principal Licensure for all candidates. Wonderfully, the school agreed to fund 10 full students in the program. Within the 2-year model, all 10 were placed into Assistant Principal or Principal positions across the 3 ACA campuses and 9 schools.This allows for a common leadership voice to emerge that not only provides rich alignment across campuses but also fosters a culture of collaborative leadership and partnership.

Ranking #50

About People and Transformational HR Ltd

www.pthr.co.uk

A connected, collaborative enterprise of conscious business activists. With audacious dreams framed by our mission: Better business for a better world. Our purpose is to transform teams, and the way they operate, to help people flourish in their work.

Our Manifesto. We exist to:

Help clients, partners and fellow positive activists transform, adapt and reinvent themselves through assisted systems of designing, facilitating, coaching, teaching and experimenting with us; Know as much about the next stage in human, organisational and work evolution to help others learn and be enlightened about the ways to craft better lives through good work; Bring together as many key players as we can in creating a coalition that builds a better future of work; And Place more business imperatives towards the climate emergency and regenerative activities for our planet.

Strongest Element: Communication

From the submission… We have monthly Leadership Circle forums. We have weekly Tune-Up Tuesday learning sessions together; we have regular 1:1s with our Gemini Partner (we work and learn in pairs as well as collectively to replace the role line managers would have). We have daily exchanges on Slack, in Slack Huddles, through Zoom and Google Meet gatherings and all our work is “out loud” using the Asana application. We can all see what we’re all working on. We check in daily (according to working patterns) and we have specialised our channels on Slack to reflect our operating stacks, projects and social, learning, safe space and thematic exchanges.

We have bi-monthly “Think Tanks” with the CEO and each member of the team to explore ideas, futures, pressures, performance, development and generally, time to think together.

We’re more communicative than most in-person teams.

Ranking #50

About Foundever

www.foundever.com

As one of the largest global providers of customer experience (CX) products and solutions, Foundever (prev. Sitel Group®) empowers brands to build stronger relationships with customers by creating meaningful connections. With 160,000 people around the globe, we securely connect best-loved brands with their customers over 8 million times every day in 50+ languages. Our award-winning culture is built on 40+ years of industry-leading experience and commitment to improving the employee experience.

As a global corporation with people spread across 40 countries, the four core values of Sitel Group® guide the way we work with our customers, our customers’ consumers and each other. In an ever-evolving world, our values are constant, anchoring us to our vision of the organization we are today and want to be tomorrow. As part of our DNA, our four people-centric values nurture our brand and reflect our culture focused on innovation, creativity and an entrepreneurial approach.

Strongest Element: Leadership

From the submission… Walking Management is an associate engagement program and a global operational standard to help leaders equip themselves with as much knowledge and a far better understanding of their people by observing them in the operational environment. This action opens a two-way conversation for both associates and management. It is a precious opportunity for leaders to lead by example while in action so they can consciously develop a culture that is reflective of our Peak mindset, and our values. This in turn has the potential to create an environment that is conducive to the growth of our people and of the organization as a result of the observed behaviors during the Walking Management session.

Strongest Element: Inclusion

From the submission… As part of MyID, (My Inclusion & Diversity), we are proud to offer employee resource groups (ERGs). WELead (Women Executive Leadership and Supporters) is an ERG dedicated to supporting, empowering and recognizing women. In fact, 54.24% of Sitel Group associates are women.

Another ERG is our brand-new BEProud, launched in 2021. During Pride month we host different internal and external sessions covering various topics to educate our associates on inclusion, the LGBTQ+ community and how to be an ally. We invite associates to share their unique #SitelLife stories via our Empowered Voices platform: voices.sitel.com. By sharing their stories of success and pride, they inspire others to do the same. What one of our associates said during Pride month was: ‘’The pride messages for Pride month really do go above and beyond a standard company, and make me feel safe and represented. I am so happy about the positive reactions from everybody, especially those that learn new things and enter with an open mind.’’ – Sophie, Sitel UK.