Meet the 2025 Top Employers: See what excellence looks like in 2025
Meet the 2025 Top Employers: See what excellence looks like in 2025
The world of work is ever-changing, but one constant remains, exceptional organisations lead with their people. We are thrilled to unveil the 2025 Top Employers and introduce you to the organisations setting the standard for excellent HR practices in 2025.
We are proud to announce that over 2,400 Top Employers have been Certified in 2025 across 125 countries and regions with over 13 million lives impacted. This recognition underscores these organisations’ commitment to fostering outstanding HR strategies and people practices globally.
As the global authority in recognising excellence in people practices, Top Employers Programme certifies organisations based on the results of their HR Best Practices Survey. This survey covers six HR domains and 20 topics, including People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Diversity and Inclusion, Wellbeing, and more.
The journey to become a Top Employer is no small feat. It requires a steadfast commitment to continuous improvement and a holistic approach to HR practices. The Certification Programme requires organisations to undergo a rigorous process that ensures that the most exceptional organisations’ commitment to excellence is reflected in their achievement of attaining their Top Employers Certification.
As we celebrate our 2025 Top Employers, David Plink our CEO has some words that expand on what this year’s Certified organisations embody: “Consistency in a not-so-consistent world? In a time of constant change—where technological, economic, and social shifts are ever-present—exceptional times bring out the best in people and organisations. This year’s Top Employers have showcased this strength, by demonstrating outstanding dedication to their employees. We are proud to celebrate these companies and their achievements in 2025.”
There are several approaches and recognition options available to potential Top Employers to ensure there’s a path to Certification for organisations of different structures, sizes, and geographic footprints. Those different paths are distinguished by different globally recognised Certification Seals that Top Employers can receive. The different Certification Seals include the Country/region Seal, Regional Seal, Global Seal and Enterprise Seal.
Global Top Employers are organisations that participate in a minimum number of countries (20 to 25 depending on several regional certifications) and regions (certified in three or four regions) including the global headquarters. Becoming a Global Top Employer signifies an organisation’s commitment to globally aligned excellent people practices.
These are the organisations that are globally Certified as leaders in HR for their outstanding HR strategies and people practices:
This is your chance to meet the organisations setting the new benchmark for 2025.
Discover the Top Employers Certification Programme and explore how we can enable your organisation with our data-led insights to stand out as an employer of choice.
Ready to start your Top Employers journey? Learn more about the benefits of becoming a Top Employer. Contact us now.
Best Practice | Stay Interviews at BAT
What do you enjoy most about your job? How do you feel about your current workload? What skills would you like to develop? What aspects of your job would you like to change? These are just a few of the key questions asked during a stay interview—a structured conversation between a manager and an employee that aims to understand how the employee feels about their role and workplace.
Stay interviews are crucial because they help employers uncover what employees appreciate (and don’t appreciate) about their jobs, providing valuable insights that can guide actions to boost productivity or prevent unwanted turnover.
In today’s article, we’ll explain what stay interviews are, how they differ from exit interviews, how they can improve retention and engagement, and share best practices from our Top Employer BAT.
Keep reading not to miss out on expert tips and insights!
What are stay interviews?
Stay interviews are a proactive and structured approach to engage with current employees and gain insight into their job satisfaction, career aspirations, and overall experience within the company.
While it is traditional for organisations to have exit interviews, many companies realise there is a need to conduct stay interviews.
How do stay interviews differ from exit interviews?
Where exit interviews are reactive, stay interviews are a proactive approach to assessing the needs of employees while they are still within the organisation.
How to conduct a stay interview
Conducting a stay interview effectively requires preparation, a clear structure, and an open, honest dialogue.
The goal is to understand an employee’s motivations, satisfaction levels, and potential concerns, while also gathering actionable feedback for improving retention and engagement.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a stay interview:
1. Prepare and Set Expectations
Plan Ahead: Schedule the interview in advance and make it clear that it’s meant to be an open conversation about their job satisfaction, career goals, and workplace environment—not an evaluation of their performance.
Set the Tone: Let the employee know that the interview is a chance for them to share feedback, and that their insights will be used to improve the workplace. Emphasize that it’s a confidential and candid discussion.
2. Choose the Right Setting
Pick a Comfortable, Private Space: Ensure the interview is held in a quiet, private setting where the employee feels safe to speak openly.
Avoid Distractions: Give the employee your full attention. Turn off phones and minimize interruptions.
3. Start with Open, Positive Questions
Start with questions that encourage the employee to reflect on the positive aspects of their role and the company.
This builds rapport and helps them feel comfortable sharing.
Example questions:
“What do you enjoy most about your job?”
“What keeps you motivated and engaged at work?”
“Why do you continue to stay with the company?”
“How do you feel about the team you work with?”
4. Dive Deeper with Focused Questions
After discussing positive aspects, shift to questions that can uncover areas for improvement. Use open-ended questions to encourage detailed answers.
Example questions:
“What challenges or frustrations do you face in your role?”
“Are there any aspects of your job that you wish were different?”
“Is there anything that could make your experience here better?”
“Do you feel your contributions are recognized?”
5. Discuss Organizational Culture and Leadership
Inquire about the company’s culture and management style.
“What do you think about your relationship with your manager?”
“Is there anything you would change about the company’s leadership?”
6. Address Any Concerns Immediately (If Possible)
If an employee shares an issue or concern that can be addressed right away, take action or offer to follow up promptly. This shows that you’re taking their feedback seriously and are committed to making improvements.
9. End on a Positive Note
Close the conversation by expressing appreciation for their time and feedback. Reassure them that their input will be used to improve their experience and the workplace overall.
Example closing statement:
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts today. Your feedback is really valuable to us, and we’ll take it into consideration as we continue to improve. We’re glad to have you on the team!”
10. Follow-Up and Take Action
Close the Loop: Follow up with the employee to let them know how their feedback is being acted upon. This shows that you value their input and are committed to making positive changes.
Review the Feedback: After the interview, review the key insights and, along with other HR analytics, identify patterns or areas of concern that can be addressed.
Take Action: If an employee raised specific issues, work with HR or management to implement solutions. Be transparent about what changes or improvements will be made.
Stay interview Best Practice: insights from our Top Employer BAT:
In the APMEA West region (Middle East, North Africa, Caucasus, Central Asia and Pakistan), BAT recently established stay interviews with their employees to help with retention and focus on customised, individualised, and purposeful interventions for employees instead of a ‘one size fits all’ strategy.
The primary objectives of stay interviews include:
Addressing potential concerns or dissatisfaction before they lead to turnover.
Aligning employees’ goals with the company’s objectives.
Tailoring retention strategies to foster a more positive and fulfilling work environment.
This is just a snapshot of BAT’s innovative best practices; you can find the entire practice on our HR Best Practices database, which is exclusively available to Top Employers. Get inspiration and insight into the approach, challenges and learnings experienced by certified Top Employers. Access it now via the Top Employers Programme if you are certified or learn more about our HR best practice library.
Why the stay interview practice was needed
BAT sees stay interviews as necessary for their organisation’s talent management strategy. The interviews provide a proactive and insightful approach to employee retention, allowing the organisation to understand their existing workforce’s unique needs, motivations, and concerns.
By engaging in open and candid conversations with employees about their experiences, career aspirations, and overall job satisfaction, BAT can identify potential issues and opportunities for improvement before those issues escalate into reasons for departure.
Stay interviews not only demonstrate their commitment to employee wellbeing and growth but also enable the customisation of retention strategies and be used for your employer branding strategy.
BAT’s main focus was a targeted approach, mainly focusing on their key talents, employees sitting in critical roles, and women; this was in line with the turnover trends and likely personas to leave the organisation, as the organisation had observed in the last few years.
Their strategy and subsequent practice were born out of numerous brainstorming sessions in the HR team aimed at curbing attrition rates within BAT’s APMEA West region.
Over the past three years, this region has witnessed an upward trend in attrition, mirroring prevailing patterns across diverse industries and markets.
To effectively tackle this challenge, BAT developed and deployed a proactive measure to understand employee sentiments – what it would take to leave the organisation and what they appreciate in the organisation so that BAT could focus on elevating and building on those initiatives.
How stay interviews were implemented:
BAT conducted external research to see what cutting-edge practices were available externally in the era of “great attrition” to foster employee retention and engagement and found that stay interviews were highlighted by many other researchers and top-tier businesses globally.
They broke down the process into four steps.
Step 1: For BAT, building complete awareness of the stay interviews concept for their HR teams across the region was critical, including upskilling sessions to explain the practice and how to conduct meaningful and targeted stay interview sessions for different personas.
Step 2: The second step was a region-wide upskilling session for all their line managers run by the Area Talent Team to ensure the same messaging and level of understanding was provided for all line managers conducting the stay interviews with their direct reports.
Step 3: The third step was to share the standardised stay interview templates, questions with all line managers, and online self-learning tools for additional content.
Step 4: The fourth step was to gather all the stay interview information and to begin a complete analysis to ensure consistency of findings. This analysis was done by the to commence by the Area Talent Team.
Stay interviews results:
Stay interviews allowed BAT to take a deep dive into what drives employee corporate purpose and contributes to fostering the best workplace to develop and build their careers.
Overwhelmingly, the organisation saw that there were three main reasons employees chose to stay with BAT:
Challenging work that allows them to grow both personally and professionally.
A feeling of camaraderie and support, providing employees with a like-minded circle to work within.
Learning opportunities provided by BAT to finesse functional mastery and leadership skills to deal with constant change and speed.
Stay interviews: a few more tips
Be Transparent: Make sure the employee understands the purpose of the interview and how their feedback will be used.
Be Consistent: Regularly conduct stay interviews, especially for key team members or high performers.
Be Honest and Open: Show empathy and understanding. If the employee is sharing difficult feedback, validate their feelings and show appreciation for their honesty.
Be Action-Oriented: Don’t let the feedback sit without action. Follow up and implement changes where possible.
Respect Privacy: Keep the conversation confidential, and avoid discussing the details of the interview with others in the company unless necessary.
BAT’s stay interviews: a new way to listen to their employees.
Understanding employee experiences is critical to helping an organisation thrive and keeping valuable talent.
As mentioned earlier in the article, This is just a snapshot of BAT’s innovative best practices; you can find the entire practice on our HR Best Practices database, which is exclusively available to Top Employers.
If you want to read more about BAT’s practice and get a complete insight into the approach, challenges and learnings, you can access it nowvia the Top Employers Programme if you are certified.
Employee-Centric Edge: Top Employers Institute’s Put-People-First Winning Strategy
Human Resource departments frequently consider how to attract and retain top talent. Top Employers Institute is no different. Paola Bottaro, People Director at Top Employers Institute, has found the most success by putting people first. Notably, the organisation is not alone in this endeavour. Taking a employee-centric approach to the workplace is a practice steadily gaining traction.
So, what does this move to a employee-centric model entail? During the 2023 Top Employers Inspire event, Paola and I discussed exactly that. I’ll share highlights of our discussion for companies interested in joining Top Employers Institute as a employee-centric organisation.
Employee-Centric approach: what does it mean?
Essentially, an employee-centric culture recognises and accepts that people are people. Organisations acknowledge that their employees are multifaceted individuals with lives beyond the office.
An employee-centric approach enables people to work in the best way that suits their needs and preferences, rather than requiring them to adhere to standard hours or procedures.
How Does a Employee-Centric Approach Work?
Employees at different phases of life, a new parent versus a recently hired university graduate, for example, will likely have very different preferences for the rhythm of their workday.
Allowing employees to determine their workday and workflow does not impact organisational results overall, yet it has a profound impact on each individual’s work experience.
If you give people trust, productivity and profits will follow
Trust is a critical component of making a employee-centric approach successful. Granting employees the ability to set their work dynamics, whether that involves unconventional hours or regular breaks, requires a high level of trust that employees will continue fulfilling their responsibilities to the best of their ability, even without constant supervision.
Employee-centricity: 5 best practice you need to follow
Although, trust is not everything. To make employee centricity the foundation of your people strategy, you need to equip your workforce with more than that.
Here are five best practice you need to follow to make your organizational culture employee-centric:
1. Tuning In: Listening to Employee Needs
To enhance engagement, consult employees directly through surveys and pulse checks. Regular feedback helps capture employee insights and identify areas for improvement. Stays interviews and exit interviews are also vital for understanding satisfaction and retention.
2. Flexibility as a Necessity in Today’s Workplace
Flexibility is no longer just an incentive; it’s a necessity. Companies should leverage HR analytics to explore hybrid work models, even if full autonomy isn’t feasible.
3. Embrace Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Creating an inclusive culture is essential for success. Companies that support diverse employee groups often outperform their competitors and see stock market gains, especially during downturns. Engaged employees drive profitability through increased productivity.
4. Investing in Employee Well-Being
Promoting a workplace culture that prioritizes employee wellness results in more satisfied and efficient teams. A dedication to holistic well-being is shown through extensive health perks, indicating that employees are appreciated beyond their job functions. By providing benefits such as fitness allowances and adaptable schedules for medical appointments, companies can boost health and foster fairness.
Furthermore, encouraging a balanced work-life dynamic allows employees to handle personal responsibilities efficiently, thereby enhancing their contentment and productivity at work.
5. Creating the best Digital Employee Experience
The right technology is crucial for hybrid work success. Many employees report frustration with current digital tools, making it essential for facility managers to collaborate with IT. Creating the right digital employee experience is nowadays a must for organizational success.
Employee-Centric Approach: Inside Top Employers Institute Winning Strategy
For Paola’s team, realising that there was no one-size-fits-all solution for creating a great workplace was a turning point.
Reflecting on this moment, she shared, “We had a lot of conversations about what way of working would be best and we came to the conclusion that everyone is different, and we all need different things.
Who are we to decide what each individual needs?” They concluded that in an ideal workplace, everyone gets to define the best way to work for themselves.
Another turning point was adapting to a primarily remote workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. This transition was smoother than anticipated, and productivity remained very high. Paola elaborated on their observations, “Everyone was very responsible and wanted to perform well. Actually, I had to make sure people took care of themselves much more than making sure that they were doing their jobs.”
Seeing how well the company ran while employees worked remotely was a valuable lesson that built trust. Going forward, the company had complete confidence in allowing employees to decide how they want to work.
Top Employers Institute’s company culture fully embraces a human-centric approach with its three core values:
We are all professionals.
All professionals want to be successful.
We succeed when we achieve great things while taking care of our own wellbeing and each other.
That teams communicate about everyone’s needs and preferences is critical. As our conversation progressed, Paola gave a simple example that Top Employers Institute does not want employees to pretend to be available during traditional working hours if they are not.
She explained that this freedom also benefits managers, “They don’t have to think about motivating their teams anymore. The core belief is that all professionals are intrinsically motivated to be successful.” Transparency about who is doing what and trust in employees to fulfil their responsibilities improves operations.
Although trust and open communication are generally recognised as positive values, translating them into practical action can be a challenge because doing so requires a shift in mindset. Top Employers Institute, like many organisations, was forced to try a new way of working during the pandemic.
The success of this experiment gave management the confidence to use a employee-centric approach even after pandemic-related safety restrictions were lifted.
Organisations that have not had the opportunity to test drive a new working model may struggle with transitioning from employees coming into the office every day during the same hours to people working from home at hours of their choosing. Embracing the values of trust and open communication in new ways needs to happen at all levels of the organisation for a human-centric approach to truly succeed.
If an employee is not performing well, the first step is to have a conversation. “Success is defined not only by great results but also by people’s wellbeing, which is a responsibility and not something that can be left to chance,” said Paola.
Considering the complete picture of an employee’s life while navigating challenges is a central tenet of a human-centric approach.
What are the Benefits of a Employee- Centric Approach?
An employee-centric approach gives your workforce the best possible work life, which fosters loyalty and productivity.
It also creates great returns.
Through this approach, organisations can:
Attract talent
Improve retention, and
Foster a culture of growth and internal mobility.
These benefits contribute to a positive atmosphere and help a company’s bottom line by attracting and keeping top-tier talent.
Top Employers Institute is in the process of hosting workshops with employees to discuss both the company’s and individual employee’s values.
“The most important thing is that we left one open space in our company values for employees to fill. There are three company-wide values and the fourth is for each employee to fill with their personal value. It’s an opportunity for them to connect their personal values and sense of purpose to the company,” Paola said of the process.
Ultimately, a human-centric approach forges meaningful connections between a company and its workforce.
By giving people the autonomy to work in a way that suits their needs best, organisations reap great returns. This approach truly benefits both the company and its employees.
To learn more about Top Employers Institute’s journey to becoming a human-centric organisation and other best practice in human resources, get in touch with us today!
Sustainability is one of the primary issues on everyone’s minds, as we look to the future and try to avoid the consequences of what the world may look like if we do not make significant changes. While the topic of sustainability has been discussed in various circles, we are now at a time where we need to make actionable changes. And the importance of moving these conversations into reality has not escaped the world of work. Instead, they have fuelled HR leaders to become a significant partner in creating and implementing sustainability strategies within their organisations.
The Three Pillars of Sustainability
Sustainability is a multi-layered concept. It is focused on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. There are three pillars of sustainability that are most interesting to us these are: economic, environmental, and social. More informally these pillars are profit, planet, and people.
The weight of sustainability issues has been focused on the environment, for good reason, as we try to maintain nature around us but that is not the full picture of sustainability. We are realising the need to focus on the other pillars of profit and people. While focus on the sustainability of people is more obvious, as people are one of our greatest resources, we also need to consider how we create sustainable profit. Without a sustainable profit there is no future for a company.
The Impact of Sustainability on Businesses
In 2012 the United Nations published their 17 sustainability goals for the world to reach by 2030. These sustainability goals have impacted all levels – from large governments, to corporations, and the everyday citizen. In many companies they have translated those 17 goals into session level goals for their business activities. This comes at a time when it is also now mandatory for listed corporations to publish information about their environmental, social and governance (ESG) behaviours. Meaning that they are now being held accountable for the impact of their actions in terms of sustainability. Bringing the importance of enacting these practices higher than before.
The emphasis on sustainability in the world has impacted many aspects of business that were previously taken for granted as we see the emergence of a new kind of business. These businesses are public benefit corporations (PBC) where their primary focus is geared towards having a positive impact on society, their workers, the community and/or the environment. These aspects of their business are legally defined in addition to their other, more traditional, goal of maximising profit for their shareholders. These companies are embedding sustainability into all their businesses practices and while they have been set up to work in this way, we can still make changes in our existing businesses structures to achieve similar goals. HR teams will become a big part of more traditional businesses making this shift.
Corporate Social Responsibility versus Sustainability
As companies begin to embrace sustainability practices it is important to note what they have done previously and why their move to sustainable procedures will help them to secure their futures. Many businesses have been engaged in corporate responsibility practices, which has been focused on reporting what a business has done to contribute to the wider society. While this has created some good initiatives it has caused people to look backwards – rather than looking at future possibilities open to the company. It is also driven by the need to protect the reputations of the business in developed markets as the projects of the CSR are managed by communications teams.
This contrasts sustainability practices that are focused on looking towards what will happen next as they make plans that secure the future of their company. Some of the practices they may adopt as they lean into sustainability are centred around reducing waste, assuring supply chains, developing new markets, and building their brand. The driving force of sustainability is the need to create opportunities in emerging markets, and this work is managed by various players in the operations and marketing departments.
In simpler terms we can understand CSR as giving a man a fish, whereas sustainability is teaching a man to fish. One makes someone, or for businesses purposes something, reliant on you to be maintain the system while the other builds a system that can maintain itself.
HR’s Role in Sustainability
In our recent study around the practices of our Top Employers we saw that 92% of companies are making social responsibility an important building block of their business. For this many rely on engagement from their employees to make these goals actionable. This is one of the important places that HR will contribute to the overall goal of facilitating sustainable business practices. HR teams have always been focused on people and without their involvement in engaging the employees in the sustainability project, it would be nearly impossible to achieve the businesses’ sustainability goals.
When we talk about integrating sustainability practices into a business, we need to realise that it is a multi-layered process that is inclusive of other social responsibility components including CSR and ESG. The process also involves asking questions about whether the company is committed to enacting these changes, how will they involve employees in this process and how will it be communicated to them. Approaching it from this angle we can clearly see where HR plays a fundamental part in the sustainability goals of their organisations.
HR will be involved several pieces of the puzzle needed to help the sustainability goal. It will differ for each individual organisation, but some aspects that HR will be involved in are around facilitating conversations with employees and the board; defining a code of conduct; launching equity initiatives; and engaging with employees through training, competency models and leadership development. HR is crucial in aiding in the technological and cultural changes needed to help in the sustainability goals of their organisation.
While we have discussed some ways that HR will facilitate current employees to be involved in the greater sustainability project. It is key to acknowledge the role they will play in redefining their employer brand strategically. They will also have a hand in identifying and attracting new talent to the company.
HR and Sustainability: Final Thoughts
The need to make and meet sustainability goals is an issue that we are all juggling with as we look to building the future. It is a complex matter that concerns everyone. While we have taken a big picture approach to introducing the topic, it is one that we, and the Top Employers we work with, are making a concerted effort to expanding as we get closer to 2022 and beyond. Sustainability is not something that we can push to the next year, it is necessary to engage with it now.
HR Practices to Elevate Your Workforce: Insights from Asia-Pacific’s Top Employers 2024
This year, we’ve certified 369 organisations in Asia-Pacific as Top Employers, and we have curated a selection of best practices from these esteemed organisations to inspire you.
In this comprehensive resource, you’ll find insights and exemplary practices that have not only raised the global standard of HR excellence but also set the benchmark for others to follow.
Download the ebook now to uncover invaluable insights. Here are some highlights you’ll find inside:
Learning and Development – Discover how AstraZeneca fosters a culture of lifelong learning to support its 2030 Bold Ambition. Learn how their 3Es Learning Framework (Experience, Exposure, and Education) empowers employees to embrace a ‘learning mindset,’ focusing on real-time application and long-term development through coaching and feedforward. Explore how initiatives like Degreed, P100, LEAP 50, and the Accelerate program enhance skills, broaden perspectives, and accelerate leadership development. Discover how AstraZeneca’s commitment to everyday development experiences drives innovation and delivers life-changing medicines to patients, reflected in high employee engagement scores and strong business performance.
Onboarding – Discover how NN Life Insurance Japan has transformed its onboarding process by integrating digital tools with personal communication. Learn how new hires benefit from instant access to essential information and e-learning resources, coupled with personal interactions such as welcome sessions with senior management. Explore how these efforts enhance digital employee experience talent retention and engagement by fostering strong connections within the organization.
Performance – Discover how Lyreco Thailand’s Performance Development Review (PDR) promotes ongoing learning and development. Learn how this holistic employee centric procedure integrates self-assessments, open communication, constructive feedback, and personalized development plans to align individual goals with company objectives. Explore how Lyreco’s PDR process, implemented through the Workday platform, has enhanced employee growth, reduced turnover, and increased engagement and satisfaction.
Sustainability – Discover how CHEP Australia fosters a culture of sustainability throughout the employee lifecycle. Learn how their sustainable HR practices are embedded from recruitment to onboarding and beyond, promoting a nature-positive economy through their pooling model. Explore initiatives like their annual Sustainability Week and Helping Hands program, which support employee engagement and community involvement, contributing to their ambitious sustainability goals.
Leadership – Discover how Servier Philippines anchors its leadership on the company value of CARE, fostering a highly inclusive and psychologically safe working environment. Learn how their transformation journey prioritizes acting on employee insights and feedback, with initiatives like “You spoke, we listened” promoting open communication and continuous improvement. Explore how their psych safety training programs and workshops have built trust and collaboration, leading to high engagement and recognition as a Top Employer.
Talent Acquisition – Discover how GSK Indonesia’s Talent Pipeline strategy shifts from reactive to proactive recruiting, building relationships with passive external talent for future opportunities. Learn how this approach has streamlined the hiring process, reduced costs, and improved their strategic employer branding and therefore their quality of hires. Explore the steps of identifying, assessing, and engaging potential candidates, ensuring a ready pool of talent for critical roles.
Career Development – Discover how DLMI Malaysia supports employee career development through initiatives like Personal Development Plans, continuous dialogue, and career coaching programs. Learn how their internal digital career marketplace facilitates mobility and advancement, enhancing employee engagement and satisfaction. Explore how their annual Talent Reviews and Succession Planning process ensure the development of talents for critical leadership roles.
Offboarding – Discover how GEP India’s Alumni Network on LinkedIn keeps ex-employees connected to the organization. Learn how this professional network facilitates brand advocacy, rehiring of boomerang employees, and networking opportunities. Explore how GEP maintains relationships with former employees through engaging content and periodic alumni events.
Meet the New Top Employers
Earlier this year, Top Employers Institute proudly announced that over 2 300 Top Employers had received the Top Employers Certification in 2024. Those Top Employers were recognised across 121 countries and regions.
In June, we are excited to share that 58 new Regional Top Employers and one European Top Employer joined our global community of organisations committed to excellence in people practices. This recognition underscores these organisations’ commitment to fostering outstanding HR strategies and people practices globally.
As the global authority in recognising excellence in people practices, the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme is an extensive process involving an independently audited and fact-based HR Best Practices Survey and validation to ensure truthful answers. The survey covers six domains and 20 subtopics:
In 2023 and 2024, organisations and leaders had much to consider, with many things in flux. David Plink, CEO of Top Employers Institute, observed: “In a world where geopolitical, societal, and macro-economic developments follow each other in rapid succession, the Top Employers 2024 are showing once again that they are a beacon of stability and reliability. Top Employers have shown that despite turbulent times, their focus remains on creating the best workplace possible for their people to thrive.”
When asked what makes a Top Employer, David Plink shared: “In my 16 years with the company, there are two characteristics that I have observed consistently within the members of the Top Employers community. First, certified Top Employers go above and beyond for their people. They are the embodiment of people focus. Secondly, not a single Top Employer got certified without always striving for more. To learn, to become better and to stay curious at all times. People-focused and a growth mindset. It sounds so simple in summary, but it takes a lot to consistently live up to these principles.”
See the full list of the newly Certified Top Employers, below:
We caught up with Gabi Sanchez, Managing Director at certified Top Employer Verisure UK who reveals how they retain talent in a competitive market, the fantastic wellbeing initiatives in place, and how the organisation utilises AI to enhance DEI within its recruitment processes and to boost efficiency and productivity across the board.
Introduce yourself and tell us about your organisation
My name is Gabi Sanchez, I am the Managing Director of Verisure UK. We are the leading European provider of professionally monitored security systems. We are proud to protect over 5 million customers in 17 countries in Europe and Latin America. Our mission is to bring peace of mind to families and small business owners by providing them with the best security solutions and services.
What makes Verisure UK a Top Employer?
We recognise the importance of continuous career development and wellbeing. Our initiatives are constantly evolving to allow our colleagues to grow both professionally and personally. We are delighted to offer a range of training and development courses, weekly check-ins, and annual career discussions to empower colleagues to reach their full potential.
We believe that personal wellbeing is critical to the overall growth of our colleagues, we offer a comprehensive employee benefits package to improve our colleague’s well-being, including private medical insurance, pension, flexible working, health and wellbeing programmes, away days, financial advisors, a day off for birthdays and many more.
Additionally, we have created spaces that foster a collaborative and innovative work environment. Our offices are designed to enhance productivity and satisfaction, with amenities such as subsidised canteen, games room and break out spaces in our Newcastle Centre of Excellence.
What is the biggest people challenge your business faces in 2024? And what will you do to meet this challenge?
One of our challenges revolves around talent retention and development in a competitive market. As one of the UK’s leading monitored alarm companies, we recognise the critical role our employees play in delivering exceptional service and driving innovation. As a result, we are continuously investing in tailored training, competitive benefits packages, providing clear career paths, and addressing feedback to retain top talent and remain competitive.
Tell us about a recent HR initiative you have instigated within your organisation that you are most proud of?
We are immensely proud of the initiatives we have implemented. One standout initiative is our Mental Health First Aiders program, a vital support system for colleagues navigating mental health challenges. This program cultivates an environment where individuals feel supported and empowered to seek assistance, resulting in improved mental health and overall wellbeing throughout our workplace. Furthermore, we extend a 24-hour counselling service through Aviva, ensuring that our team members have access to professional support whenever they need it.
How is AI affecting your business?
AI has become a transformative force in our business, impacting our people practices in different ways. One notable aspect is our utilisation of AI tools to enhance diversity and inclusion within our recruitment processes. We employ an AI tool to ensure gender-neutral language in our job ads, mitigating unconscious biases and promoting equal opportunities for all candidates. In addition, we’ve implemented an AI tool called Co-Pilot, which streamlines our work processes and workflows, allowing our teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than repetitive administrative tasks. By automating routine processes, we’ve been able to boost efficiency and productivity across the board.
Which wellbeing offerings in your business are proving the most popular with employees? And which are proving the most effective in terms of their impact?
Our flexible working opportunities and private healthcare are two of the most popular and impactful wellbeing offerings among our employees.
Our colleagues are given the flexibility to work remotely from home or abroad or simply adjust their hours to suit their schedule depending on their role. This plays a huge role improving work-life balance and maintaining high satisfaction levels. Additionally, our private healthcare offering has been incredibly popular. It has had a significant positive effect on our employees’ well-being. Our private healthcare option contributes to better overall health and morale within the team, and we continue to receive positive feedback on both fronts.
Have you any new DEI initiatives you can tell us about that help you tap into fresh sources of talent?
We have several DEI initiatives that help us tap into fresh sources of talent both internally and externally. This year, one of the exciting outcomes from our DEI roundtable is the launch of an internal job fair. This allows us to tap into fresh sources of talent within our existing workforce and promote internal mobility. It also provides an opportunity for our colleagues to meet colleagues from different departments and discover different opportunities that they didn’t know is available to them.
What’s next? Tell us about a new initiative/project for 2024 that you’re most excited about?
This year brings a wave of exciting new initiatives and roles. We are on the lookout for talented individuals, who would like to grow with our company. The roles currently available include customer service representatives, sales executives to Alarm Receiving Centre Ambassadors and many more. We offer extensive on the job training and a supportive work environment that empowers individuals to thrive and advance their careers. We’re also launching thrilling new initiatives, such as new television campaigns, so people can expect to see a lot more of our branding throughout the year!
Best Practice | Conscious Leadership Builds an Inclusive and Effective Culture at Boehringer Ingelheim
At Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico, leaders are crucial for shaping a culture where all employees can feel a sense of belonging within the organisation. As role models, they help to set the scene and show that diversity and inclusion are priorities. For the organisation, the meaning of diversity refers to diversity of thought, while inclusion is how they bring different perspectives and ideas together for innovation.
This best practice focuses on developing a new generation of inclusive leaders through a series of targeted training modules to enable them to foster psychological safety at all organisational levels and identify issues arising from micro-aggressions, harassment, discrimination, and unconscious biases. The basis for this transformation was a “Conscious Business Leadership Programme,” an Unconscious Bias e-learning course, and Psychological Safety & Speak Up workshops.
This is just a snapshot of Boehringer Ingelheim’s innovative best practice. You can find the entire practice in our HR Best Practices database, which is exclusively available to Top Employers. Get inspiration and insight into the approach, challenges and learnings experienced by certified Top Employers. Access it now via the Top Employers Programme if you are certified or learn more about it here!
Why the practice was needed
Culture and leadership are inextricably linked: consciously or unconsciously, leaders foster the values and beliefs that underpin an organisation’s culture and imprint values and assumptions that persist for decades. An organisation’s leaders can also shape culture over time through their conscious and unconscious behaviours.
Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico recognises that being able to promote their organisation as one where different genders, identities, races, ages, and backgrounds are celebrated is directly linked to increased employee engagement, innovation, and productivity. Prioritising diversity and inclusion training at all levels, but especially for the role models who lead organisational culture, is key to facilitating true inclusivity. Without engaged leadership, such activities can become nothing more than corporate speak.
How the practice was implemented
Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico has implemented a Leadership Journey that includes comprehensive D&I training. Traditionally, in business, leaders are often selected based on their individual success. At Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico, developing leadership skills goes beyond technical skills; the ethical aspect of leadership has become imperative. Leaders are asked to grow in their roles in a human sense.
These programmes aim to evoke the internal commitment of the team members to accomplish the organisation’s mission with effectiveness and integrity. It means doing so with the understanding that their team members are human beings who will only do their best if they are inspired, feel safe, and believe they are truly included and have a sense of belonging in the organisation.
All leaders in the company are required to participate in training programmes to ensure that they all operate from the same basis for managing talent within the organisation. For D&I, their Leadership Journey includes four programmes:
Unconscious Bias e-Learning accessible through an online D&I channel
Psychological Safety & Speak Up leadership workshops
People Growth + Diversity & Inclusion + Belonging: D&I topics as part of management are addressed during the mandatory training for Boehringer Ingelheim leaders. The training includes skills and tools for communication, feedback, and feedforward.
Conscious Business Leadership Programme: developed and presented in conjunction with Fred Kofman, a renowned Executive Coach and Advisor on leadership and culture and Founder of the Conscious Business Center. Over the course of 32 weeks, leaders engage in learning about the following topics: leadership, culture, communication, responsibility, humility, collaboration, resolution (honesty), coordination (commitments), essentialism, co-evaluation (feedback), emotions, meditation, perspectives (empathy), stoicism (flourishing), teamwork, coaching, capitalism (ethics), anti-capitalism (justice), and the West (economy and citizenship).
The web platform, for leaders and direct reports, was created on the company’s intranet. This space is available to ensure that employees are able to find all the information they need and more to reinforce an open, just and equitable culture. In this way, leaders have access to information from anywhere, at any time, to be able to effectively address issues such as micro-aggressions, bullying, discrimination, etc.
The Conscious Business Leadership Programme was designed and aligned with the company’s corporate competencies, behaviours and code of ethics, allowing Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico’s leaders (Directors, Senior Management and Middle Management) to put the organisation’s philosophy and values into practice on a daily basis within their teams. Their leaders learn to manage by improving effectiveness, caring for collaborative relationships with their team and peers, as well as promoting the welfare of all involved.
Leadership is divided into three cohorts, and the programme is tailored accordingly. Thereafter, the training is cascaded throughout the organisation. Those three cohorts are:
Cohort 1: Senior Leadership
Cohort 2 and 3: Leaders across the business functions
The results of the practice:
To measure the effectiveness of this best practice, a global survey is undertaken annually across Boehringer Ingelheim countries, totalling 54 000 employees. Each country has its own results and a comparison with the global results. Below are a selection of the results Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico has obtained that are directly related to the leadership development trainings and coaching discussed in this best practice:
86% agree that leaders work effectively with people who are different from themselves.
93% agree that people are treated with respect in Boehringer Ingelheim, regardless of their job, level, etc.
98% agree that the values of Boehringer Ingelheim and the principles of the Code of Conduct support employees in their work on a day-to-day basis.
Notable Quotes:
“No matter what position you hold in the company, you can make a huge impact with what you say and how you say it.” Luis Carlos Pérez, Director of Communication
“Regardless of position or rank, lets demand that we work with the principles of Conscious Business. It is the most efficient and fastest way to establish a conscious business culture.” Augusto Muench, CEO
Haier Europe: Elevating its People Practices with the Top Employers Programme
About Haier Europe
Haier Europe is a global leader in home appliances and consumer electronics, recognised for 15 consecutive years as the world’s No.1 brand globally in major appliances, selling under the Candy, Hoover and Haier brands. The organisation comprises of 750 colleagues in the UK&I and 100,000 globally.
Haier Europe’s Top Employers Journey
Haier Europe had been on an improvement journey, investing heavily in people systems, processes and benefits and whilst colleagues inside the business would have seen the transformation, they wanted to receive external recognition in order to attract great talent, and give candidates the confidence to know that they had been certified by an external, independent validation process. They therefore joined the Top Employers Certification Programme, and following completion of the HR Best Practices Survey and Validation Process, were certified as a UK Top Employer 2023.
Elevating its People Practices
“We have definitely seen the profile of our employer brand increase, we see our candidate numbers are very strong and our retention figures are improving in key areas, but the most important outcome from joining the Top Employers Programme is that it has really made Haier Europe a better workplace for our colleagues because it has given us the impetus and direction to keep improving.” Matthew Given, Group HR Director UK & Ireland, Haier Europe
Having achieved Top Employer Certification in year one, the Haier Europe team immediately started work on its action plan to further improve its HR, using the Top Employers Results Dashboard. They did this by:
Having a dedicated team of specialists within the HR team working on the Top Employers Certification project.
Aligning the Top Employers HR Best Practices Survey topics and results with the action plans and choosing focus areas which would add most value to the business.
Regularly reviewing with the team each quarter to ensure that improvements were being made within these focus areas.
Impressive results
In year two, following on from the action planning, Haier Europe increased their score on the Top Employers Best Practices Survey by 20% points.
They had prioritised Employee Listening, wellbeing and DEI, with the new colleague listening strategy bringing great insights and making sure that they really understood how colleagues felt about the business and its programmes. They also mapped, explored and improved many more colleague and candidate journeys.
The leadership team has also taken notice of the tremendous progress and are now championing many new initiatives across engagement, wellbeing and DEI.
Whitepaper | A Step-by-Step Process to Driving ROI and Growth through Effective Wellbeing Practices
Employee wellbeing is not just a trendy buzzword but a critical factor that directly impacts organisational success.
Employee wellbeing is not just a trendy buzzword but a critical factor that directly impacts organisational success. Over 95% of Certified Top Employers understand wellbeing’s importance as a strategic priority.
While many organisations are working to embrace effective wellbeing practices, they are still weighing up the return-on-investment on these initiatives.
In our latest whitepaper, A Step-by-Step Process to Driving ROI and Growth through Effective Wellbeing Practices, we are diving into the data around wellbeing with practical actions that businesses can put into practice to get the best out of their people.
Download the whitepaper for free to discover:
How employee wellbeing is critical for the success of an organisation.
A data-driven approach to making wellbeing decisions that involves three pillars: a holistic strategy that covers the health of body, mind, and spirit; predefined metrics to measure and track wellbeing trends; and regular evaluation of the utilization and satisfaction of wellbeing programs.
How to effectively evaluate wellbeing programs with information about how organisations should define objectives, identify root causes of problems and challenges.
We use cookies to improve your experience. Learn more
