The Sunday Times list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For 2009 is derived from the views of employees and the policies and processes of employers. Using a methodology designed exclusively for the British workplace, it identifies best practice and ranks companies chiefly according to their performance in eight key indicators of staff engagement.

Eligibility

Organisations at least five years old were eligible. These include public and private companies, partnerships, government agencies, not-for-profit organisations and co-operatives. Those with 250-4,999 employees entered the 100 Best Companies to Work For list; those small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with between 50 and 249 staff qualified for the 100 Best Small Companies to Work For guide, published on March 1, 2009. Those with more than 5,000 staff entered the 20 Best Big Companies to Work For contest.

Nominations

Most entries came as the result of direct nomination. Approaches were made to organisations widely accepted to provide good working environments. All were considered. A total of 997 companies (49 big, 383 mid-size, and 565 SMEs) registered to participate.

Employee input

The views of 200,842 employees were gathered across all participating companies. Surveys were distributed to a randomly selected group of staff. At least 40% of these had to be returned for a company to be eligible. The survey contained 66 questions, measuring eight equally weighted workplace “factors” that have been identified from extensive research within the UK.

This research clearly demonstrates that a person’s experience of their workplace is a result of their perceptions in the following areas: Leadership (the heads and senior managers of the company); My Manager (the local management on a day-to-day basis); Personal Growth (opportunities to use skills and advance); Wellbeing (balancing work-life issues); My Team (immediate colleagues); Giving Something Back (giving back to society and to the community); My Company (the company and the way it treats staff); and Fair Deal (pay and benefits). These elements were used to determine the final company rankings.

Company input

A detailed company survey was distributed to all participating organisations. This sought data on policies (pay; maternity; benefits; healthcare etc); processes (recognition; promotion; recruitment; communication etc); and facilities (sports; training; catering; concierge etc).

Scoring

The marks gained from the employee and company inputs were combined to produce an overall ranking.

League table

The league table of the top 100 companies is published on pages 6-7. The staff figures given include full-time, part-time and contract workers. The number of sites from which the business operates covers the UK only. Sales and pre-tax profit data are published where firms were willing for them to be disclosed. Icons are awarded to the 25 companies that performed best in five (of the eight) survey “factors”, covering Leadership, Wellbeing, belonging (My Team), Giving Something Back and Personal Growth.

Statistics

Throughout this supplement, percentage results on individual questions from our survey are reported in tables, features and individual company profiles. In all profiles, these represent the percentage of the maximum possible score on each question and are expressed as the “percentage positive score”. People completing the employee survey responded to each statement by indicating their level of agreement on a seven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7). These scores were averaged and turned into percentages of the maximum score. For example, if a company gets a 67% positive score on the statement “This is my dream job”, this means that its overall mark is 67% of the maximum possible score that it could have had if all its staff had indicated that they strongly agreed with the statement.

Participation in the 2010 lists

Registrations are open for next year’s lists.
For full details, see the Best Companies website, bestcompanies.co.uk.

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