Workingmums.co.uk announces Top Employer Award winners

Workingmums.co.uk has announced the winners of its inaugural annual Top Employer Awards, celebrating the leading companies in diversity and work life balance.

Workingmums.co.uk has announced the winners of its inaugural annual Top Employer Awards, celebrating the leading companies in diversity and work life balance.

The Awards were presented at a ceremony at London’s Soho Hotel on 5 October where the keynote speaker was Lynne Featherstone, parliamentary under secretary and Minister for Equalities.

Winner of the Overall Top Employer award was Accenture, the global management consultancy specialist. It was praised by judges for making a strong business case for flexible working and for the way it measured its impact on company performance and staff commitment. The judges also felt the company had harnessed the full potential of technology to offer flexibility on all fronts and at all levels.

Awards were presented for four other categories: Winner of the Top Employers Award for Innovation went to professional services firm KPMG. The judges were impressed by KPMG’s record on transition coaching, maternity coaching, women’s networking and managing other colleagues’ perceptions and felt its approach was the most comprehensive and was a model of best practice.

The Top Employers Award for Commitment and Development, sponsored by Deloitte, went to Accenture. This award was in recognition of organisations which show ongoing commitment to developing policies which encourage work life balance. Accenture was judged to have gone out its way to engage women and implement flexible working, designing roles to fit the modern work force.

The Top Employers Award for Employee Engagement went to John Lewis. John Lewis was praised for its very comprehensive approach to continuous employee engagement which had led to increased staff motivation and commitment. In particular, they were impressed by how employee engagement fed into initiatives such as the summer camps, which made parents’ lives easier and improved their work/life balance.

The Top Employers Award for SMEs, sponsored by RBS went to HR180. The judges praised the human resources consultancy’s overall commitment to flexible working and its promotion of the business case for flexible working.

The Awards were judged by an expert panel made up of Gillian Nissim, founder of workingmums.co.uk, Andy Lake, editor of flexibility.co.uk, Jennifer Liston-Smith, head of coaching development at My Family Care, and Pip Dorkings, information manager at the Daycare Trust.

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said: “I’m a working mum myself, so I know how hard it can be to juggle the demands of home and career. That’s why the Government is taking action to make the workplace a fairer and more family-friendly place in which women are not penalised for being mothers. This includes working with business to extend the right to flexible working to all employees and looking at ways to promote shared parenting from the earliest stage of pregnancy through a system of flexible parental leave. But we can’t do this on our own and we need businesses to play their part, which is why I’m so pleased to see so many companies of all shapes and sizes leading the way. Congratulations to all the winners.”

Gillian Nissim, Founder of workingmums.co.uk says: “We are delighted at the calibre of entrants we received for the awards. Our aim is to highlight good practice around flexible working. We hope these awards will inspire others to follow their lead and embrace the strong business case for flexible working."

Shortlisted for the awards were:

Commitment and Development – Buckles Solicitors; Castlebeck Care Ltd; Justteachers Ltd; Royal Mail; Accenture 

Innovation -  Deloitte; KPMG; Justteachers Ltd; Deutsche Bank; Manpower, RBS

Employee Engagement – Buckles Solicitors; Manpower; RBS; John Lewis; Royal Mail

SME – Buckles Solicitors; HR180; 3C Associates; Omnium IT; IT Recruitment; Hireserve Ltd

Media partners were:

GrowthBusiness.co.uk presents a wealth of information for fast growth companies, helping over 600,000 CEOs, MDs, advisers and key decision makers grow their business in a controlled and strategic way. The site discusses the key issues entrepreneurs face when growing their company, such as – Technology and how companies can work smarter, financial issues and how to raise funding.

Smallbusiness.co.uk has an established online community of 1.5 million owner managers and is now established as the UK’s leading online resource for start-up companies and small businesses. The website has been established for more than 10 years providing valuable advice, guides, tips and Q&A for owner managers to start and succeed in business. Smallbusiness.co.uk is published by AIM-quoted Vitesse Media Plc.

To find out more about the Workingmums Top Employer Awards 2010 click here.

• Vote  
• 0
• 0
• You already voted!

• Tags:
• Maternity & Parental Leave Flexible Working Childcare Diversity Top employers