Asda
has been named top workplace in the annual Sunday Times Best Companies to Work
For survey.
Asda,
whose employees’ average salary is £9,000, came fifth last year.
The
supermarket chain employees 116,867 staff, with annual full-time staff turnover
of just 2 per cent.
The
company offers employees share-options and run a competition where staff who
increase sales of a poorly-selling product can win the use of a Jaguar for a
month.
In
second place this year was Microsoft – whose employees’ average salary is
£45,000.
Microsoft
gives staff free ice-creams and picnic blankets in summer and outdoor heaters
in winter, a free gym, and a wellbeing centre.
Keen
to avoid sick building syndrome, the firm pumps new air into its building eight
times an hour, and, to ensure employees don’t work too long, donates 10p to the
NSPCC each time workers go home before 5.30pm.
Also
in the top hundred were; hi-fi retailer Richer Sounds (3rd), Goldman Sachs
(8th), Bacardi Martini (9th), Capital Radio (27th), Pret a Manger (34th),
Debenhams (80th), Pizza Express (85th), Ernst and Young (87th), and Tescos
(100th).
Patricia
Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said: "This exercise is
not about political correctness but recognition of an economic fact – a happy
workforce is not only good for employees, but essential for success."
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
