Norfolk’s Best Employers were celebrated at the Best Employers Eastern Region 2018 awards conference which brought together over 150 business people from across East Anglia.
The awards conference, held at the Rowley Mile Racecourse in Newmarket on Wednesday 3 October, revealed the 2018 winners of Best Employers Eastern Region Awards and Accredited organisations.
It was also the opportunity for the region’s business leaders to learn from one another about creating engaging, inspiring and inclusive workplaces which bring out the best in their people.
The Best Employers Eastern Region initiative was founded by professional recruitment specialists Pure and psychometrics experts eras ltd. It is sponsored by law firm Birketts and provides businesses with the opportunity to gain unique data on their employee engagement levels through the initiative’s free employee survey which measures employee engagement, culture and values.
The chance to be officially recognised as one of the region’s best employers is based on the survey results.
As well as the award-winning organisations, more than 40 businesses were also presented with Best Employers Eastern Region Accreditations at the event.
New for 2018, the Platinum and Gold Accreditations were awarded to the organisations which scored in the top 25% of the Best Employers Eastern Region employee engagement survey and which also submitted further evidence for judging.
The Norfolk organisations presented with prestigious Best Employers Eastern Region 2018 Awards and Accreditations were:
Award winners:
- Best Overall Medium Company Award winner and Platinum Accredited: The Fountain Partnership, digital marketing agency based in Norwich
- Best Professional Services Company Award winner and Platinum Accredited: LSI Architects
Platinum Accredited:
- Flagship Group, housing association with its head office in Norwich
- Morgan Sindall Construction East, construction and regeneration group with offices in Norwich
- Quotatis, home improvements quotations provider based in Norwich
- Liftshare, social enterprise based in Norwich
Gold Accredited:
- Chadwicks, wealth management and business advisors based in Norwich
- Holden Group, automotive dealership based in Norwich
- Made, creative marketing agency based in Norwich
- Purple Tuesday, software development company based in Norwich
- ReAssure, life and pensions company based in Norwich
- Smithfield Foods based in Norwich
- Tiger Eye, work product management company based in Norwich
- Victory Housing Trust, housing association based in North Walsham
The judges also presented further accreditations to the organisations which showed high levels of engagement and which they believe are the ‘Ones to Watch’ ahead of the biennial Best Employers Eastern Region in 2020.
These included Independent chartered surveyors and business consultants Brown & Co, the Holkham Estate on the north Norfolk coast and Norwich’s family-run department store Jarrold.
On being presented with the Best Overall Medium Company Award and Platinum Accreditation, Rebecca Lewis Smith, Managing Director of Norwich’s digital marketing agency Fountain, said: “We’re over the moon to receive this award, which recognises the approach Fountain takes to looking after, supporting and empowering our team members. In a service business it’s clear that investing in employee engagement and team wellbeing has a direct impact on the quality of work we do for clients, and, in our industry, to their bottom line.
On a personal note, being part of a happy team, who are passionate about their work and proud to be Fountaineers, is extremely rewarding – and I’m extremely moved to receive this recognition of our commitment to our culture.”
Ben Goode, Director at LSI, which was presented with the Best Professional Services Award and Platinum Accreditation, added: “At LSI, we want to be the best employer in the construction industry, in order to become a better architectural practice. The Best Employers Eastern Region Platinum accreditation and award for Best Professional Services Employer are further evidence that we are on the right path. We regularly receive feedback from clients that our people are great to work with and we believe that this is because they are happy, healthy, highly skilled and motivated to deliver the quality design and committed service that we believe our clients should expect.”
Lynn Walters, Executive Director at Pure and founder of Best Employers Eastern Region, said: “We would like to congratulate all our winners and accredited organisations. The full list really demonstrates the breadth of amazing organisations we have in our region and this external recognition will help them to further enhance their employer brand. We developed Best Employers Eastern Region to raise the recruitment profile of organisations and the region as a whole. In today’s competitive recruitment market these businesses will now be in a stronger position to attract and retain the high calibre employees needed to achieve business growth. As well as being a celebration, the event was a unique opportunity for our region’s businesses to learn from one another. I would like to thank all our guest speakers for sharing their employee engagement journeys and helping us in our purpose of contributing to the growth of the eastern region by sharing insights on increasing employee engagement and productivity as a result.”
The guest speakers at the event included Mark Merryweather from Norwich’s creative marketing agency Made and Steve Shore from life and pensions company ReAssure in Norwich.
Jeanette Wheeler from regional law firm Birketts also led an interview with Catherine Spitzer and Julie Archer from Bidwells, in which they shared their experience of redesigning their Cambridge office as a catalyst to change the culture of the business.
At the event, Paul Henderson and Alex Pearce from eras ltd shared the key findings and regional trends from this year’s Best Employers Eastern Region employee engagement survey.
Alex Pearce, Managing Director at eras ltd, said: “We’ve had a fantastically diverse range of organisations taking part in Best Employers Eastern Region 2018. With double the number of participants completing this year’s survey we had some really high quality and valuable data to share.”
The awards event also raised money for charity with a proportion of ticket sales being donated to the regional offices of MIND. Together with money raised at the Best Employers Eastern Region 2018 launch event in February over £5,200 has been raised for the mental health charity.
The full list of award winners and accredited organisations is shown on the dedicated Best Employers Eastern Region portal.
