Top Employer Awards 2024 shortlist revealed

Twenty-six employers have been shortlisted for the 2024 WM People’s Top Employer awards which celebrate the very best companies for diversity and inclusion, flexible working, career progression for women, mental health and family support.

This year’s awards, the 14th annual awards, include a new award for innovation in recognition of one-off, stand-out initiatives and new awards for learning and development and talent attraction and outreach.

The Top Employer Awards 2024 are sponsored by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. In addition to the Special Innovation Award, there are nine categories: Best for Mental Health, Best for Diversity and Inclusion, Best for Flexible Working, Best for Family Support, Best for Returners, Best for Talent Attraction and Outreach, Best for Learning and Development, Best for Older Workers and Best for SMEs.

There will also be an Overall Top Employer Award awarded based on the winners of all the other categories.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on 6th February. The keynote speaker is Coach & Leadership Development Consultant Jenny Garrett OBE. She is an experienced facilitator of programmes for managers, Directors and CEOs from a variety of organisations, including private and public sector and focuses in particular on Diversity and Inclusion, leadership coaching and team performance. Jenny’s latest book is Equality vs Equity, tackling issues of race in the workplace.

The shortlisted companies are:

Best for Mental Health, sponsored by Vistry Group

This award celebrates employers who have been exemplary in the way they have sought to protect their employees’ mental health.

Shortlisted are:  4PS Construction Solutions Ltd, Deutsche Bank, Kearney, ServiceNow UK Limited and Next

Best for Diversity and Inclusion

This award is for organisations who demonstrate actions taken to ensure equality of opportunity for all.

Shortlisted are:  4PS Construction Solutions Ltd, AMS, ServiceNow UK Limited and SLR Consulting

Best for Flexible Working, sponsored by Lloyds Banking Group

This award is for employers who show how they promote and manage flexible working and encourage a flexible culture in their organisation.

Shortlisted are: AtkinsRealis, Brooklands College and Imperial College London

Best for Family Support, sponsored by Harper James

This award is for employers who demonstrate how their policies and practice support working families and carers.

Shortlisted are: AtkinsRealis, Deutsche Bank, Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Imperial College London, Kearney, Lloyds Banking Group, ServiceNow UK Limited and Teach First

Best for Returners, sponsored by ICL

This award is for employers who demonstrate stand-out programmes or initiatives aimed at returners – those who have taken a career break and are looking to get back into the workplace.

Shortlisted are: Aviva and Lloyds Banking Group

Best for SMEs

This award is for SMEs who demonstrate a real commitment to work life balance practices.

Shortlisted are: A City Law Firm, Autism Oxford UK Limited, Broadplace, Harper James and Lem-uhn

Best for Older Workers

This award is for employers who provide details of what they do and how it helps older workers, including through metrics, how they are monitoring success and individual case studies which show impact.

Shortlisted are: Aviva, dentsu Ltd UK and Phoenix Group

Special Innovation Award

This award is for organisations that have a stand-out policy or initiative related to working parents, women’s career progression, older workers or flexible working that has/is having a demonstrable impact on its employees or the wider community.

Shortlisted: Murphy and ServiceNow UK Limited

Best for Talent Attraction and Outreach

This award is for employers who demonstrate that they are thinking creatively about outreach and recruitment in a difficult labour market.

Shortlisted are: Membership Bespoke, Shieldpay and Vistry Group

Best for Learning and Development, sponsored by Murphy Group

To be eligible employers should demonstrate that they have created the right culture and environment for all individuals to learn and grow and to keep learning and upskilling, throughout their working lives.

Shortlisted are: Broadplace, Motel One and ServiceNow UK Limited

Gillian Nissim, Founder of WMpeople.co.uk, the umbrella group for workingmums.co.uk, workingdads.co.uk and workingwise.co.uk, said: “It’s been another tough year for employers, facing multiple economic headwinds, leading to rising redundancies while many sectors still face labour shortages.  Despite all of this, many are continuing to put their people front and centre, knowing that, in the long term, valuing and supporting a multigenerational workforce will give them a competitive advantage.

“We have once again been very impressed by the quality of entries we have received and how many have gone the extra mile to attract and retain a diverse workforce as well as harnessing data to innovate and improve their processes.

Those shortlisted all offer stand-out examples of good practice and we look forward to sharing that with other employers in our Best Practice Report next year.

“We hope that, in challenging circumstances, we will continue to see employers thinking creatively about how they can ensure that everyone is able to fulfil their potential at work.”

The Awards will be judged by an expert panel made up of Gillian Nissim, founder of WMpeople.co.uk; Andy Lake, director of Flexibility.co.uk; Jennifer Liston-Smith,  Head of Thought Leadership for Bright Horizons Work+Family Solutions; Dave Dunbar,  Head of Digital Workspace at the Department of Work and Pensions; Clare Kelliher, Professor of Work and Organisation at Cranfield School of Management;  Salma Shah, Writer and Founder of Mastering your Power, and Kim Chaplain, Associate Director for Work, Centre for Ageing Better.

*A copy of the Best Practice Report based on the 2023 Top Employer Awards is available here. To request a copy of the next Best Practice Report which will feature case studies and profiles of Top Employer Award winners. The report will be sent to you when it is launched in late Spring 2024.

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