Key industries make impressive showing on the Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for

Key industry sectors, including legal, computing, finance and property have made an impressive showing on this yearís Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For, which is published on March 6 in a special 100-page supplement with the newspaper. The list also contains a high number of new entrants from the recruitment, media and retail sectors. The list, now in its fifth year, is the biggest and most comprehensive survey of the British workplace. The supplement also contains details of the 100 Best Small Companies to Work For and the 10 Best Big Companies to Work For.

The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For survey is compiled from results given by employees to 66 questions covering areas such as leadership, personal growth, wellbeing, fair dealing, how employees feel towards their immediate boss, their colleagues and their company generally, and what they feel about how much their company gives back to the community.

The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For, which is compiled by Best Companies Ltd and backed by the Department of Trade and Industry, also reveals key trends in the workplace. Overall, the attitude towards leadership within companies was more positive this year, with a 68.3% positive score from employees claiming to be inspired by the person leading their organisation, up from 66.9% in 2004. The survey also shows that senior managers are listening more to their staff, with the positive score for this question up from 61.7% in 2004 to 64.4% in 2005. However, this still leaves a large body of staff feeling their boss talks more than he or she listens.

The results in the well-being sector have fallen slightly since last year, showing people are less happy with their life-work balance. Just over half (50.4%) of employees report feeling exhausted when they get home from work, and 12% report working longer hours than in 2004. The number of people working 50-60 hour weeks has risen from 10.5% to 12.8% in the past year.

The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies to Work For, now in its second year, was open to all companies with between 50 and 249 employees. The SME (small and medium enterprise) list is kept separate from the main list of 100 best (larger) companies since workplace structures are different for small companies and most cannot match the extent of facilities and benefits of larger organisations. The separate surveys allow detailed and accurate analysis of the differences between the two sectors. For similar reasons, companies with over 5,000 employees were also taken out of the main list for the first time this year and competed for a separate 10 Best Big Companies to Work For award.