Beat the recession: be a great place to work

Companies ranked among the top 100 best places to work in Europe beat the recession last year, seeing revenues, productivity and recruitment activity all increase at above average levels despite the down economy.
 

Sales among such organisations grew by about 15%, while productivity rose by 13%. They also experienced low levels of staff turnover at only 4.7%, while even managing to boost their workforces by 2.2%, receiving about 5.7 job applications per existing staff member during the year.
 
Tom O’Byrne, chief executive of research and management consultancy The Great Place to Work Institute, which has just unveiled the winners of its annual ‘Best Workplaces’ study for the UK and Europe, said: “Awards are nice, but adding 15% to your revenues is the real prize in business.”
 
The secret to creating a great workplace lay beyond improving pay and conditions, but instead was founded on three key factors, he added - employees trusted and enjoyed the company of the people for whom and with whom they worked and they took pride in what they did.
 
A huge 87% of staff employed in the top 100 best workplaces in Europe also believed their managers to be credible “against a background of collapse in trust in business leaders worldwide”, O’Byrne said.
 
The top three places to work in the UK were named as management consultancy Baringa Partners, dairy giant Danone and Impact International, which specialises in behavioural change and leadership development.
 
At a European level, the top three were software giant Microsoft, Danish pension fund ATP and German cleantech provider, SMA Solar Technology. More than 1,300 companies in 17 European countries participated in the evaluation process.