WL Gore triumphs in best UK company to work for 2005

TOTAL REWARD

WL Gore triumphs in best UK company to work for 2005

The Sunday Times has published its fifth annual survey identifying the best companies to work for in Britain. For the second year running, WL Gore and Associates, manufacturers of Gore-Tex clothing, has claimed the top spot.

Gore, based in Livingston, is an organisation with "no hierarchy", according to the 100 best companies to work report. There are no managers -- all employees are "associates" who feel they have a share in the business. Pay and position are partly governed by colleagues, who rate individual contribution on a scale of one to six.

John Kennedy, head of the UK associates at WL Gore, said: "Sometimes it’s a tough environment if you don’t have any frames of reference. But if you do any basic fundamental research into management, you know if you can get people to also think (what you’re suggesting) is a good idea you’re going to get things to happen a lot better and stick a lot longer."

Kennedy added: "That’s not rocket science. It’s pretty simple stuff, but it’s amazing how many companies can’t get their heads round that."

Gore's results

Gore’s triumph was "remarkable", the report says. It had the highest scores in 37 of the 66 questions in the employee survey and finished second or third in a further 11. It top scored in six of the eight "factors" -- or groupings of questions around a similar theme.

The eight factors are:

• Leadership: how employees feel about the head of the company and senior managers.
• Wellbeing: how staff feel about stress, pressure and the balance between their work and home duties.
• My manager: people’s feelings towards their immediate boss and their day-to-day managers.
• My team: people’s feelings about their immediate colleagues.
• Fair deal: how happy employees are with their pay and benefits.
• Giving something back: how much companies are thought by their staff to put back into society in general and the local community in particular.
• My company: feelings about the company people work for as opposed to the people they work with.
• Personal growth: to what extent people feel they are stretched and challenged by their job.

Small companies listing

Bigger is not better, according to The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies to Work For survey of nearly 13,000 SME (small or medium-sized enterprise). Staff outperform their weightier cousins in all areas. But teamwork emerged this year as the pre-eminent quality that defines SMEs. Says the report: "Staff prosper in an atmosphere rich with solidarity." The list shows employees do not sacrifice career progression -- or their job satisfaction and enjoyment -- when they decide to work for an SME.

The SME contest, now in its second year, is open to all companies with between 50 and 249 employees and the number of companies participating in the survey this year more than doubled from 85 to 203. This year, the list was topped by Pareto Law, the Cheshire-based agency that trains and places graduates in sales jobs.

Want to know more?

Title: "The 100 Best Companies to Work For 2005", The Sunday Times, 6 March 2005.

Survey sample: This year, 449 companies took part in the contest to find Britain’s best employer, 228 of them fighting for a place on the main list.

Methodology: The views of 80,212 employees (47,927 working in companies on the main list) were canvassed across a range of 66 questions, making it "by far the most comprehensive study of the British workplace ever mounted".

Availability: For more details of the "100 best" check out The Sunday Times web site at http://business.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,12190,00.html