Nando's: A peri good place to work

By Sona Hathi, Editor, Melcrum

It's that time of the year again! A few surprise winners, beautiful dresses and sharp looking suits and of course, plenty of golden awards handed out. No! I'm not talking about the Oscars, here at Melcrum's HQ, it's all about engagement awards. As if Melcrum's own engagement awards in the US weren't exciting enough (we awarded Deutsche Post DHL the winning prize), we've been chatting about the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For list, published yesterday. We're wondering how KPMG fell 10 places when it sat proudly at the top of the list last year, how on earth an investment bank (Goldman Sachs) has re-entered the list as the second best company to work for in the UK, and what (apart from all the free tasty chicken) makes Nando's employees love going to work so much, that it has debuted straight in at number one.

Congratulations to restaurant chain Nando's (see the Nando's team below), that attained the best overall positive factor scores for 'wellbeing' (70%), My Manager (76%) and 'my team' (79%). Employees – or "nandocas" as they're known in the coup (makes a welcome change from "colleagues" I must say) – reported that they love working for the chicken chain, handing the business an impressive 80% positive score. They also agree there's a strong sense of family in their teams (81%) and say that they can talk openly and honestly with their managers (82%). I just wonder how frontline staff feel about being so low in the pecking order? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Julia Claydon, the company's human resources director says: "The principle philosophy is creating a different kind of place to work. We wanted people to enjoy their jobs and it has been that way from the beginning. Our managers have the same value sets as our company, we want managers who believe that their restaurant will succeed because they look after their staff."  If, like me, you love to tuck into Nando's famous peri-peri chicken, it'll soon become even more easy to do so as the company plans to open another 20 restaurants across the country this year, taking the total number up to 240.

KPMG slips down

So what caused the downfall of KPMG? Last year, we reported on the Melcrum Blog that some 73% of KPMG's employees found their work stimulating, felt empowered and taken seriously. But since the last survey, the company has made 400 compulsory and 71 voluntary redundancies, which would naturally leave a sour taste for those left behind. But it looks like what keeps KPMG's employees engaged is its CSR initiatives (employees get half a day off every month for voluntary/community work for good causes) and its commitment to training and development (the company spends £1,920 per member of staff on more than training and offers professional qualifications.) Perhaps this is why this year, a massive 90% of partners and staff agreed to reduce their working week by a day or take part paid leave, as a result of which, KMPG avoided a company-wide redundancy programme

Against all odds

And who would have thought that an investment bank would have made it to number two on the list? Reputation has been an issue for the banking industry since Lehmans crashed in late 2008. This has particularly been the case with the reputation of leaders within the sector, whose morality has been seriously questioned in light of the global financial crisis. Goldman itself recently came under the spotlight following a rumour that the bank was  planning to pay its CEO a bonus of $100 million this year. So it's interesting to learn that, according to the Best Companies survey, Goldman's staff believe that Michael Sherwood and Richard Gnodde run the organization on sound moral principles (83%), have a great deal of faith in them (86%) and believe that they offer inspirational leadership (81%) — all top scores. Similar to KPMG, Goldman strongly commits to supporting worthy causes, and 62% of staff say this isn't driven by a desire for publicity

Sherwood told the Sunday Times, "Contrary to what some in the media might want you to believe, I think Goldman is just a very good, fair, ethical place to work."

An exclusive opportunity to meet the man behind it all

Another company that managed to significantly push itself further up the list is Mothercare and the Early Learning Centre, rising from 13th to fifth - 83% of the 7,000 employees report that their colleagues are fun to work with and that their jobs are far from dull. But I'll say no more about Mothercare, because you can find out how the company managed to improve its engagement scores and what effect this has had on the business at Melcrum's forthcoming Employee Engagement Conference, 11th - 13th May 2010, where Rob Jones, Head of learning and development at Mothercare, will be presenting the keynote speech alongside Wayne Clarke, Managing Partner at Best Companies. (Some of you may remember Wayne from our SCM Summit last year.)

Check the list out the Sunday Times Best Companies list for yourself, and then book your place at the Engagement conference so that you can quiz Wayne about it in person and gain some exclusive insights into the companies that won this year.

 A photograph of the Nando's team from www.timesonline.co.uk

Comments

[Coach handbags]

Awesome article! Paints nice pictures – I think I will come here next time, it is really good!