When I joined BHP back in January this year, little did I know what was about to happen. On my first day at work, I received an email to inform me that the firm had been awarded Great Place to Work® certification – what an introduction to my new role as Director of People!
Since then, Great Place to Work has recognised BHP one of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Wellbeing and, most recently, we heard the amazing news that BHP is now one of the UK’s Best Workplaces™ 2023.
Great Place to Work is the global authority on workplace culture, which makes our accreditations all the more commendable. As the only independent accountancy firm on the UK’s Best Workplaces list, we’re in good company as we share the accolade with some of our own suppliers including Xero, Moneypenny, Mimecast and Softcat – demonstrating that we share an affinity with the companies that we choose to work with.
Evaluation
Being named one of the UK’s Best Workplaces is such an incredible achievement. Great Place to Work evaluated hundreds of employee survey responses alongside Culture Audit™ submissions from leaders at each company to create the 2023 list. The insights were used to benchmark the effectiveness of each company’s employee value proposition against the culture that their employees actually experience.
The survey asked for comments on how the firm supports their work-life balance, sense of fulfilment, job satisfaction, psychological safety and financial security.
It is the first time that we had undertaken the Great Place to Work survey with our people, so it’s a real privilege to appear on this prestigious list – and to have received an overall score of 86%.
Common themes
Our employees were asked if there was anything unique or unusual about BHP that makes it a great place to work. Some of the key words that shone through in their answers included:
- Flexibility
- Social events
- Teamwork
- Work/life balance
- Treated fairly no matter what level or background
- Communication from the top
- Supportive learning environment
- Inclusive
- Look after our people
- CSR activities and opportunities
As a people-centric firm, we’re really pleased to see that these responses really reflect the values that we pride ourselves on. It’s so satisfying to receive the validation that our people really do love working here.
Rewarding our people
As a thank you for completing the survey and for making the firm a truly great place to work, we wanted to celebrate by providing the opportunity for our teams to get together and enjoy themselves outside of the working environment. One of the great things about BHP is that our team organise frequent social events – both locally and firmwide – a reason cited by many as to why they enjoy working here.
We held two events – the first at Boom Battle Bar in Leeds, where we were treated to great food and axe throwing, and the second at the Doubletree Hilton in Sheffield, where we indulged in more good food, dancing and a few games of Bingo! A great time was had by all!
Going from strength to strength
Our people are at the heart of our organisation and looking after their wellbeing is a priority. And when employees are genuinely happy in their roles, they tend to be much more engaged and productive.
Being officially named as a Great Place to Work and one of the UK’s Best Workplaces not only recognises how well we look after our team but also enables us to attract new talent to the firm.
As good as it is to hear that our supporting working environment is appreciated by our people, it’s also useful to get feedback on areas where we can improve. We’re always looking for ways to make our workplace even better, so we’ll continue to work closely with our employees to explore new ideas and implement them into our culture.
If you’d like to work for one of the UK’s Best Workplaces, take a look at our careers section, where you can find all of our current vacancies and details of our graduate training programmes and apprenticeships.
