13 Mar 2011
Keep Wales Tidy have been placed at number 34 on The Sunday Times Best Places to Work in the Public and Charity Sectors list for 2011. The new list recognises the one hundred public and charitable organisations that have created a truly outstanding place to work. Keep Wales Tidy is amongst only seven Welsh organisations to receive the prestigious award, including homelessness charity Llamau, Cadwyn Housing Association and Sports Wales.
Keep Wales Tidy also retains its Two Star Best Companies status for the second year running. Based on employee feedback, it looks at employee engagement as an integral part of a company’s success and growth, and sets a benchmark for other employers. The accreditation scheme follows a Michelin star style system with companies awarded one star for first class, two stars for outstanding and three stars for extraordinary performance. Only 158 organisations throughout the UK achieved Two Star Status.
Keep Wales Tidy works with communities and schools to influence, educate, campaign, support and facilitate action to improve the quality of the local environment by keeping it clean and safe and developing projects that encourage sustainable development. Its community engagement work encourages people to take responsibility for their actions and cease activities that have a negative impact on their local environment and its inhabitants. The charity runs numerous programmes, from helping communities to improve their local area, to educating children on the importance of caring for the environment.
Being a ‘Best Place to Work’ takes a deep-rooted commitment by an organisation to being the best it can be in every area of the workplace in supporting the day to day working lives of its workforce. Research has proven that employee engagement directly affects customer experience, staff recruitment and retention, productivity and absenteeism; and this project enables organisations to gauge levels of engagement.
Jonathan Austin, CEO and founder of Best Companies, commented:
"This year it is encouraging to see that more and more organisations are recognising the value of employee engagement and are willing to benchmark themselves against the best to ensure they are offering their employees the best possible experience. Organisations that have achieved accreditation have continued to focus on their employees and have been rewarded with engaged workforces who tell us that these are great places to work."
Keep Wales Tidy Chief Executive Lesley Jones commented.
"Keep Wales Tidy is delighted to be recognised as one of Wales’s top employers. Our staff work very hard and are committed to caring for Wales’s environment and so this award makes us very proud of our achievements. This only encourages us more to make our communities greener, healthier, more prosperous, and above all, better places to live."
For further information about Best Companies visit http://www.bestcompanies.co.uk