Sunday Times best companies to work for? I don't think so....

Each spring, the Sunday Times churns out its definitive list of the best companies to work for. The winners all promote their flexible benefits packages and having fun at work. Or how they offer a great work-life balance and how well they motivate staff.

But how many of the winners have actually taken the time to go back to basics: how many really engage staff and are supportive? Furthermore, how many actually trust their staff to get on and do their work, take their input to improve performance and appreciate them when they do a good job?

In my opinion, the answer to this is very few – organisations tend to be secretive and hierarchical in their design, and staff are rarely valued. Managers monitor and control their staff, and measure individuals’ performance against arbitrary targets that have been derived from the annual financial plan, paying attention to “poor performance”, but ignoring genuinely good work and effort.

An interesting insight in the Sunday Times best companies to work for this year is that the ‘best in class’ in some categories, just aren’t very good.

It is worrying to read that in the category “how many staff feel that their managers are supportive”, the best result is almost 16% of the workforce feel that their managers just don’t support them. Moreover, when looking at how well managers motivate staff to give their best”, the company with the best result has almost 30% of its workforce thinking that managers simply don’t motivate them. And when considering how many managers express appreciation for a job well done, we find that the best performer has almost a fifth of its staff saying that their boss doesn’t say thank you! In terms of allowing the people that know how to improve things to do so, the best companies don’t fare well either… 15% is the lowest proportion of workers that have indicated that they don’t feel able to make a difference at work. What a sorry state of affairs in our “best companies to work for”!

We need to see a bit more common sense in operations management to improve these numbers: surely it’s better to measure what matters to customers and to trust staff and allow them to take the time to work together to improve the work they do and do things “right first time” every time and then thank them when they do?

Then maybe the Sunday Times will be able to produce a list of companies that really are great places to work!