Welcome to The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For 2009. Our ninth edition has proved the most competitive yet with no less than 997 companies fighting for a place on the three lists: the 20 Best Big Companies, the 100 Best Companies (both included in today’s 80-page supplement) and the 100 Best Small Companies (published free with The Sunday Times last Sunday, March 1).

All three lists of the very best workplaces in Britain can be found on our dedicated website: timesonline.co.uk/best100companies. This year’s winners have distinguished themselves by overcoming the damaging effects of recession while retaining engaged, committed and enthusiastic workforces. No mean feat.

This supplement and its counterpart published last week for smaller companies are tributes to the skills of managing directors, managers and ordinary staff members alike. Both supplements are packed with a host of ideas for coping with these troubled times while moving your business forward and positioning it so that when the economic wheel turns, you will be in the strongest position to recover.

More than 200,000 employees were surveyed for this year’s Best Companies project, making it by a distance the most comprehensive survey of workplace engagement, opinion and satisfaction in the UK. The end product is a definitive piece of research for companies aiming for best employment practice, or anyone looking for somewhere to work where their mind will be engaged, where their skills are used to the maximum, and where they will be treated and respected as individuals, rather than anonymous cogs in a corporate machine.

All 997 participating companies deserve praise for opening their doors to such forensic examination of their workplace practices and culture. It takes a brave chief executive to subject a business to scrutiny by an outside organisation and a national newspaper. But all our winning companies embrace openness and honesty from shopfloor to boardroom.

If you believe you have it what it takes to make the lists of Best Companies in 2010, registrations are open now. Go to bestcompanies.co.uk and follow the instructions. Listed and privately-owned businesses can participate, as well as charities and public-sector organisations.

I thank Best Companies Ltd for its continued dedication to seeking out the best workplaces in the UK and also our sponsors, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, who also work so hard to improve workplace culture. And I offer my congratuations to all the organisations that have made our lists this year. You have every reason to be very proud.

Richard Caseby
Managing Editor
The Sunday Times

Explore Best 100 Companies

• Best 100 Tables