Best Places to Work Categories
GOLD AWARDS
Small Agency (2-29 UK employees)
Mid-Size Agency (30 to 99 employees)
Large Agency (100+ employees)
SPECIALIST CATEGORIES
Training & Development Award
How do you decide what kind of training you provide to individual members of staff? Eg: during line manager appraisals, using third party training providers
Describe your approach to staff training
How do you measure the success of the training programmes?
How much money and/or time do you allocate to staff training and development?
How are staff promotions managed?
How do you identify and fill skills gaps?
Rewards & Benefits Award
Describe your approach to staff pay
Please describe your approach to staff bonuses. Eg: how the bonus is calculated, what percentage of profit is spent on bonuses
Are staff able to acquire equity in the business? If so, please detail your approach
What is your pay bracket for entry-level staff? Eg: £23k to £26k
How do you assess if staff are being fairly remunerated for their work? Eg: benchmarking against industry averages
Please describe your approach to holidays/annual leave
Please describe your approach to staff sabbaticals, if applicable, and detail how many employees have taken sabbaticals in the past three years
Describe your staff pension offer
Please list other main staff benefits that you offer. Eg: health insurance, gym membership, cycle to work schemes
Mental Health Champion Award
- How do you ensure your staff don't work excessive hours?
- How do you compensate or reward staff who work excessive hours?
- Detail any specific policies or schemes you have to support the mental health of employees
- How you measure the success of these schemes?
- How would you support a member of staff whose mental health appears to be suffering?
- How you ensure line managers are able to support the mental health of their team?
Diversity & Inclusion Award
- How do you encourage diversity in your recruitment, in terms of gender, ethnicity, educational background, disability and LGBTQ+
- What impact have your policies had on the makeup of the workforce? Eg: proportion of non-white and female staff and board members
Best Internship Scheme Award
- Describe your organisation's approach to internships, if applicable
- What impact has the internship scheme had on your organisation and on interns, if applicable? Eg: how many interns go on to become full-time staff members
- Describe your organisation's approach to apprenticeships, if applicable
- What impact has the apprenticeship scheme had on your organisation and on interns (if applicable)? Eg: how many interns go on to become full-time staff members
**NEW** Employee support during COVID-19
Please outline ways in which your organisation has adapted its workplace policies during the era of the coronavirus pandemic, with a particular focus on changes made in 2021. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
- Changes to the office (if relevant), especially with the 'return to office'
- Having effective systems and processes in place when teams are combining working from home with working from the office (if relevant)
- Mental health support
- Employee/employer communications channels and approaches
Please note: it's likely that you would have mentioned some of these steps earlier in the application form. It's not a problem to repeat them here.
**NEW** Sustainability Award
- Does your organisation operate a cycle-to-work scheme to encourage more environmentally-friendly commutes?
- Does your organisation offer other incentives for staff to travel using more environmentally-friendly means for business reasons? (If so, please give details)
- Does your organisation offer incentives for staff to travel using more environmentally-friendly means for non-business reasons? (If so, please give details)
- Does your organisation track and report its carbon footprint?
- Has your organisation set science-based targets for reducing its emissions? (If so, please give details)
- Does your organisation work with an external consultant or another third party to be more environmentally sustainable? (If so, please give details)
- Has your organisation taken steps to ensure its supply chain is more environmentally sustainable? (If so, please give details)
- Does your organisation buy second-hand computers or other equipment/furniture to be more environmentally sustainable?
- Does your organisation use a scheme or schemes to offset its carbon emissions? If you do, please indicate whether the schemes match the Gold Standard under the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
- Does your organisation have a policy of not working with specific clients or industries on the grounds of their detrimental impact on the environment? (If so, please give details)
- Has your organisation undertaken any other notable steps to be more sustainable (please give details)? For example: increase recycling capabilities, use low-emission lightbulbs etc.