The Awards were presented at a
ceremony at London's Soho Hotel on 5
October where the keynote speaker
was Lynne Featherstone,
parliamentary under secretary and
Minister for Equalities.
The winners
Winner of the Overall Top
Employer award was
Accenture, the global
management consultancy specialist.
It was praised by judges for making
a strong business case for flexible
working and for the way it measured
its impact on company performance
and staff commitment. The judges
also felt the company had harnessed
the full potential of technology to
offer flexibility on all fronts and
at all levels.
Awards were presented for four
other categories: Winner of the
Top Employers Award for Innovation
went to professional services firm
KPMG. The judges
were impressed by KPMG's record on
transition coaching, maternity
coaching, women's networking and
managing other colleagues’
perceptions and felt its approach
was the most comprehensive and was a
model of best practice.
The Top Employers Award for
Commitment and Development,
sponsored by Deloitte, went to
Accenture. This
award was in recognition of
organisations which show ongoing
commitment to developing policies
which encourage work life balance.
Accenture was judged to have gone
out its way to engage women and
implement flexible working,
designing roles to fit the modern
work force.
The Top Employers Award for
Employee Engagement went to
John Lewis. John
Lewis was praised for its very
comprehensive approach to continuous
employee engagement which had led to
increased staff motivation and
commitment. In particular, they were
impressed by how employee engagement
fed into initiatives such as the
summer camps, which made parents’
lives easier and improved their
work/life balance.
The Top Employers Award for
SMEs, sponsored by RBS went to
HR180. The judges praised
the human resources consultancy's
overall commitment to flexible
working and its promotion of the
business case for flexible working.
The judges
The Awards were judged by an
expert panel made up of Gillian
Nissim, founder of
workingmums.co.uk, Andy
Lake, editor of flexibility.co.uk,
Jennifer Liston-Smith, head of
coaching development at My Family
Care, and Pip Dorkings, information
manager at the Daycare Trust.
Equalities Minister Lynne
Featherstone said:
“I’m a working
mum myself, so I know how hard it
can be to juggle the demands of home
and career. That’s why the
Government is taking action to make
the workplace a fairer and more
family-friendly place in which women
are not penalised for being mothers.
"This includes working with business
to extend the right to flexible
working to all employees and looking
at ways to promote shared parenting
from the earliest stage of pregnancy
through a system of flexible
parental leave.
"But we can’t do this
on our own and we need businesses to
play their part, which is why I’m so
pleased to see so many companies of
all shapes and sizes leading the
way. Congratulations to all the
winners.”
Gillian Nissim, Founder of
workingmums.co.uk says: “We
are delighted at the calibre of
entrants we received for the awards.
Our aim is to highlight good
practice around flexible working. We
hope these awards will inspire
others to follow their lead and
embrace the strong business case for
flexible working."
Shortlisted for the awards were:
Commitment and
Development - Buckles
Solicitors; Castlebeck Care Ltd;
Justteachers Ltd; Royal
Mail; Accenture
Innovation
- Deloitte; KPMG; Justteachers Ltd;
Deutsche Bank; Manpower, RBS
Employee Engagement
- Buckles Solicitors; Manpower; RBS;
John Lewis; Royal Mail
SME - Buckles
Solicitors; HR180; 3C Associates;
Omnium IT; IT Recruitment; Hireserve
Ltd
