Randstad, a leading recruitment and HR services firm, is pleased to announce that John Lewis has won the inaugural Randstad Award for most attractive employer in the UK.
Over half the 7,746 British jobseekers and workers participating in Randstad’s research for the Award picked John Lewis as the company they would most like to work for. Women, university graduates, people from the north of England and those aged between 50 and 65 years were the major voting groups for John Lewis and perceived the company to have strong management and a pleasant work atmosphere.
The top three organisations voted the most attractive companies to work for in the UK were:
1. John Lewis (53% of the vote)
2. Cadbury
3. Marks & Spencer
Reflecting recessionary Britain, long-term job security was listed by respondents as the overall most important factor when seeking an employer (68%). Other significant factors included competitive salary and benefits (54%), a pleasant working atmosphere (52%) and an interesting job (48%).A company’s financial health (42%) was also listed as an important factor.
Randstad’s research found that men look for financially sound companies with a strong management that offer career prospects, whereas women prefer organisations that offer flexible working, accessibility, atmosphere and interesting job content.
Randstad also found that interesting jobs, accessibility and flexible working are generally greater priorities for older workers. Younger counterparts look more for career prospects and training amongst companies that have a strong image and reputation.
Mark Bull, CEO of Randstad UK, commented: "The last few years have seen rapid changes in both job seeking behaviour and recruitment practices. When organisations are in a position to recruit new staff they are all chasing after the top 5 per cent of talent. It has never been more important to have a strong employer brand to attract the key skills required to meet the challenges UK plc faces. The stronger a company’s employer brand is, the more likely it is to grow and flourish.With skills shortages continuing to intensify, insights from the Randstad Award research will help employers find out why potential candidates choose one company over another and what factors determine the attractiveness of a workplace.”
The Randstad Award was first launched in Belgium in 1999. This marks the first time it has been awarded in the UK. The Randstad Award is the largest piece of employer branding research in the world, based on the views of over 100,000 jobseekers and workers in 14 countries. The Award has become a coveted accolade due to the unrivalled scale of the research on which it is based. Country summaries are available at www.randstad.com/award
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About the Randstad Award
The Randstad Award aims to reward and encourage best practices in building the best employer brands, as chosen by workers and job seekers in search of employment opportunities within leading organisations. The Randstad Award program is based on a robust research platform that gives unique insight into the key drivers of talent attraction within the UK and across the world. Randstad has been working with globally respected research company, ICMA International, for over 10 years. In 1999, Randstad and ICMA launched the first Randstad Award program in Belgium to measure employer brands. Based on its success, Randstad has expanded the research program into 14 countries around the world and the UK for the first time.
Randstad Award Methodology: The Randstad Award survey is based on the perceived attractiveness of companies in a specific market. The 150 largest employers per country are selected, each with at least 1,000 employees. The number of respondents on average per market is 7,000. This is a representative sample to measure attractiveness of the 150 companies. Samples are based on national demographics (age, region, gender, education level) with a slight emphasis on respondents aged below 40, potential workers being the target audience of the survey. Each sample is representative on age, region and gender and includes students, employed and unemployed workforce aged between 18 and 65 years old.
The UK survey was conducted in February 2012 amongst 7,746 respondents.
Respondents:
Men 3796
Women 3950
18-29 years 1936
30-39 years 2324
40-49 years 2324
50-65 years 1162
Secondary education 1677
Vocational qualification 788
Professional qualification 827
Further education 1042
Higher education/university degree 2553
Postgraduate 829
London 1549
South 1007
Midlands 1084
North 1239
Scotland 620
Yorkshire and Humber 697