In October this year LACE Partners were awarded the certification as a Great Place to Work. This accreditation supports an organisation along their journey to create outstanding, high performing workplaces, with a strong focus on building a positive culture. We’re extremely proud of our accolade and as we approach our seventh anniversary in November, we wanted to share more information about what value the accreditation adds to us and to the businesses we work with.
What is the ‘Great Place to Work’ accreditation and what do you have to do to achieve it?
Being able to articulate that you are a caring, passionate and inclusive employer is important, but having an external party confirm this is, we feel, equally as important. Throughout 2021 we have been engaging with the team at ‘Great Place to Work’ and decided to go through the process to get that third party seal of approval. So, what does it entail? For us it began with employee experience survey assessments, whereby we asked all of our team to complete a comprehensive survey about what it is like to work at LACE Partners. This took place over a period of three weeks and to ensure the integrity of the report and it was entirely anonymous, meaning employees could feel comfortable to be open, transparent and honest with their feedback. We wanted a true litmus test of the business, our culture, but also highlight any areas where we could improve.
The Great Place to Work team applies data from approximately 10,000 organisations to gain deeper insights, targeted feedback and benchmarking to encourage continuous improvement. It is an extensive global initiative which engages companies of all sizes. We wanted to see how we compared to our industry peers and other businesses of the same size – as well as a number of other metrics. Our objectives were clear; use this accreditation to demonstrate that the direction we are travelling in culturally was in line with our own people’s expectations, and also listen to where we can improve. We are passionate about our ambitions to be a true ‘employer of choice’ for professionals looking to work with a boutique consultancy, so this exercise intended to stress test our impression that LACErs really feel they can bring their true selves to work.
A Trust Index Survey and Culture Audit are completed by each business going through the GPTW certification, which provide a comprehensive measure of employee engagement, trust, wellbeing, HR and management practices. A score is then produced and organisations who score 65% or higher become Great Place to Work certified.
In order for LACE to get certified this required all our employees to complete the 60-statement trust index survey and submit a detailed synopsis about our company’s culture, programmes and practices for the Culture Audit.
The result
We were so happy with our scores which were extremely high and supported our understanding that we have positive culture and a happy workforce. Overall, we scored, 97% on the Great Place to Work Statement, meaning that 97% of LACE agree that it’s a great place to work. We also scored a 95% average of all statements, which takes into account all aspects of the survey equally. Both of these scores were above benchmarking for UK best workplaces in the small category, which is a huge achievement and something we are especially proud of.
What’s next?
As we have been GPTW certified, we will now be considered for the annual Best Workplaces lists and awards which will be publicised in April 2022.
We asked Aaron and Cathy to give their feedback, who have said “We’re incredibly proud to be be recognised formally by Great Places to Work. Since Cathy and I first set up the business we have always been driven towards creating an environment for our people that allows them to deliver their best in the best environment and we find that it enables a greater level of productivity too. But we always knew that to be a great place for people to want to work takes more than just our drive, but the drive of our people. This accreditation is a great validation of all the hard work and effort our teams have put into creating a welcoming and genuinely caring business.”
