Home improvement retailer B&Q was the only UK employer to receive a prestigious award for employee engagement last week – as a survey laid bare the poor state of staff commitment in this country.
B&Q scooped the Gallup Great Workplace Award, created to honour businesses with high employee engagement, for the second year running.
The award was presented to 20 businesses around the world. B&Q was the only retailer to receive an award, and one of nine repeat winners.
Martyn Phillips, HR director at B&Q, said: “We are delighted to receive this award as it really recognises the huge strides we have taken to put employee engagement at the heart of our business. Our people are the key to success in the current economic market.”
The winners were chosen from hundreds of applicants using a survey-based programme that allowed companies to measure and manage employee engagement.
Six out of 10 B&Q employees were calculated to be ‘actively engaged’ with their work, more than twice as many as the global average of 28%.
Meanwhile, another global study of employee engagement found that only one in four UK employees were fully committed to their work.
Consultancy BlessingWhite polled more than 7,500 HR professionals and line managers across four continents to produce the The State of Employee Engagement 2008 survey.
More than three-quarters of engaged employees indicated that they planned to stay at their employer throughout 2008, with the most common factor influencing job satisfaction being ‘opportunities to do what they do best’.
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Booka place on the IRS Employee Engagement Conference on 22 May in central London
