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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
What are the ingredients that create a good workplace culture and what do staff want from their employer? A fair wage? Flexible working? A wide range of benefits? Trust in senior leadership and middle managers?
Regardless of the answer, it is a challenge for many companies as they strive to build work environments which will keep staff engaged and productive and attract and retain talented workers.
In the Financial Times and data provider Statista’s inaugural ranking of Europe’s Best Employers, 1,000 companies across 26 industries are rated based on a survey — gathered anonymously — where employees were asked whether they would recommend their employer to friends and family and were also asked to evaluate other companies in their sector that they would endorse.
The dominant industries represented in the list are retail, financial services and technology.
Germany has the most companies in the ranking across a wide range of sectors. Workers in the country have some of the strongest employment rights in Europe including generous parental leave, strict dismissal rules and the system of mitbestimmung, or co-determination, where workers’ representatives hold half of the seats on the supervisory boards of large listed companies.
Financial services is an attractive option for many jobseekers as the high salaries offered at the top investment banks, the prestige of working at a leading institution and potential for career development outweigh the long hours, stress and sometimes inflexible working practices.
The technology sector offers good earning potential, flexibility and remote working, diverse career paths and the chance to be involved in creative and innovative projects. In the FT ranking of the best employers, the top company is OneAdvanced, a UK-based software group.
The company, which supplies finance and procurement, risk management and human resources software to organisations, has an extensive employee training programme and has a “supportive working culture”, according to its employees. Worker benefits include four weeks of paternity leave and salaries are reviewed about every quarter.
Retail has traditionally been seen as a low pay sector with unpredictable and long working hours, the stress of dealing with potentially difficult customers, repetitive tasks and few opportunities for career progression. Despite this, the industry scores highly in the ranking and in the report we look at companies that buck this perception, such as the Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona.
The privately owned grocery group, one of Spain’s most respected brands, offers its employees benefits including flexible working hours, no Sunday working, a profit sharing scheme and a policy of skills training and internal promotion.
For all the attractive benefits on offer, however, if an organisation does not get the basics right, such as valuing workers, clear leadership and well trained managers, then the goal of a desirable workplace can be hard to achieve.
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