It started with the idea that you could go for a walk in the wind and rain without feeling cold and wet. Now, more than 30 years later, you can’t pop to the shops, climb a hill or go skiing without spotting the ubiquitous jackets that are synonymous with W L Gore & Associates, our winner for the fourth year in a row.

The first jackets made with expanded PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene), a revolutionary versatile polymer, were made in 1976 and Gore-Tex clothing has been evolving ever since. So, while you may not know what you will be wearing on the slopes next year, Carole-Anne Smith, 39, the firm’s European product specialist for snow sports, certainly does.

In fact, she’s already been in talks with customers about the autumn/winter collection for 2008. Smith is the “mother” of new jackets. It is her job to find out what buyers want in terms of design, performance and cost and to find a way of meeting those requirements, however tough they may be.

“Customers buy fabric from us to make jackets,” says the mother of two, who has given nearly a decade of expertise to W L Gore. “We have to see what is required of the jacket. Is it going to be a tough skiing jacket that someone has to live in or something to walk the dog in? We look to see if we have what they want in our range, if we don’t we would look to develop a Gore-Tex fabric for that application.”

Requests could be for simple design changes such as adding a zip or a new range of colours, in which case W L Gore needs to be sure the shades wanted can adhere to tough specifications for not fading in the wash or light. Alternatively, companies might want a completely new product.

And that’s Karl Williamson’s department. As a member of the new product development team he was involved in the creation of the soft shell range, an in-house concept to create a warm jacket that was soft inside and out. For eight years scientists and engineers struggled to find a way to seal the seams because the fabric required was too thick. That was until Williamson came up with a creative way of thinning down the fabric to make it watertight. “It’s nice to go to the shows and see the garment that you have had a hand in making,” says Williamson, 34, who took a six-week job at the company to kill time after graduating 11 years ago and never left. “There is something special about it,” he says. There must be — almost half (45%) the workforce have been on the payroll for at least 10 years.

It is Gore’s ability to create the most contented workforce in the country that puts this pioneering company in the unique position of topping our list for an uninterrupted four years. Staff give 90% positive scores for the firm being run on strong principles, loving their jobs and not wanting to leave tomorrow even if they had another job offer, the latter two scores being the highest in our survey. They would also recommend others to get a job at the firm (91%) and are proud to work here (92%), ranking the company second and first respectively.

While expecting its staff to conform to its demands on high specification, W L Gore, which makes a wide range of products from artificial brain membranes to guitar strings, is nonconformist when it comes to the way it is run.

American scientist Bill Gore, who founded the company with his wife Vieve in 1958, believed a nonhierarchical environment would allow creative minds to flourish. Hence there are no job descriptions or titles, no managers, just leaders who make up about half the 454 staff.

Smith admits that Gore was not initially an easy place to work. “I hated it when I started,” she says. “Gore challenges you as an individual more. I had come from a very structured organisation. Here you do not get a job specification, you get set the problem.”

This autonomy empowers workers at the firm, which has two sites in Livingston and one in Dundee. The firm gets top positive scores for staff believing they can make a difference (89%), feeling fully involved (88%) and finding work stimulating (85%). Staff also say working at the firm is good for their personal growth, giving it a top score of 89%.

Even though how you get the job done is up to you, workers are not left to go it alone. Asking for help is seen as a sign of strength. Each individual chooses a person to help them grow and develop, and people say colleagues go out of their way to help them and care a lot about each other (both 88%) and are fun to work with (87%).

Staff, who are all associates, are paid on the contribution they make to the company, with colleagues helping to decide their pay. Among the benefits are 36 days’ holiday including 11 bank holidays, share options, private healthcare, dental insurance and on-site massages.

After her initial reservations Smith is surprised she has been at Gore as long as she has. “I never imagined I would stay longer than five years,” she says. Smith has travelled around the world with the firm and found it very accommodating when she requested to reduce her working week to 3Å days after having her children. “I have no plans to leave,” she adds.

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