With a larger-than-life character such as Felix Dennis as your boss, work is never likely to be dull. The flamboyant former co-editor of Oz magazine who was jailed in the early 1970s after a famous obscenity trial, is today a successful entrepreneur and owner of his eponymous publishing firm.

Responses to the employee survey show the people behind such publications as Maxim, The Week and Viz are a highly engaged lot. Staff feel a strong sense of family within their teams, giving a 78% positive score, find their work stimulating (78%) and think managers are supportive (80%) — all top 20 scores.

“If you put your time and effort into doing the work the rewards are amazing,” says senior sales executive Arti Shah. “I thought I’d do the job for about a year, but when you start at Dennis you get swamped by the environment. People go to other companies but they soon come back.”

Founded in 1974, Dennis Publishing is one of the world’s fastest-growing independently owned media companies. The group now publishes more than 50 magazines, websites, e-zines and mobile phone sites in the UK alone.

Related Internet Links

• Company website

• Dennis Publishing's entry in 2007

Turning up the Heat pays off

Strong training and a sense that work is to be enjoyed add up to Heat powering past its rivals into top spot this year

BACKGROUND

• Hats off to great leadership

• Getting the message across loud and clear

• Fly high with the X Factor

• Why it pays to know what you’re doing

BACKGROUND

• Charity wins top small company award

• Special awards for best practice

• Rules of engagement

• 100 Best SME's to work for 2008

Multimedia

• Best Small Companies to Work For 2008

• Highlights from the awards ceremony

“It’s a young company and it is quite entrepreneurial, which comes from Felix Dennis, and, because we are quite small we get things done quite quickly,” says Seema Hope, research manager. “We’ve got lots of geeks in the building, too, so if you need to buy a new laptop or car you’ve got lots of experts to ask.”

Teamwork is one of the firm’s main strengths, say employees, who give a 72% positive score for saying work gives them a buzz, 77% for colleagues going out of their way to help each other and 83% for work being fun. Just 30 firms score better in our My Team factor. The company promotes from within to retain talent and motivate staff, offering training courses as well as funding professional qualifications.

Eoin McSorley, editor of digital men’s magazine Monkey, likes the egalitarian feeling of it all. “It feels like a family-run business. The culture’s very open. Management feels quite flat. Egos don’t do very well here, you’d get found out pretty quickly. It feels like a can-do place. And there’s a good feeling about promoting from within,” he says.

Staff believe they can make a valuable contribution to the success of the organisation, giving this question a 79% positive score. They agree that their jobs are good for personal growth (80%) and say the experience gained from work is valuable for their future (83%).

The firm holds regular corporate bonding days where it is not unusual to find a sales executive playing Connect 4 with James Tye, Dennis Publishing’s chief executive. Staff say managers show appreciation for a job well done (74%), share information with them (75%) and care for them as individuals (77%).

Employees are proud to work for the organisation (an 81% positive score).

The company also has some unique rewards, such as all-expenses paid trips to Dennis’s own Mustique villa, complete with butler, for the four people who win departmental employee of the year awards. However, such luxury can prove a mixed blessing, as acting facilities manager Tony Smart discovered. “It was my first trip abroad, so then going to Spain with my mates was a bit of a letdown,” he says.

Explore Best 100 Companies

• Best 100 Tables