Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble has been named as the best place to work in IT, after being recognised for its commitment to work-life balance and its advanced career development and training programmes.
The winner of Personnel Today sister publication Computer Weekly’s annual Best Places to Work awards beat competitors in nine different categories.
Craig Charlton, sales and marketing IT manager at P&G, put the company’s success down to “commitment to work-life balance and our rewards package”.
He said professional development is crucial to the company, which mainly recruits new graduates, to help it develop those who might become future IT directors or chief executives.
“All our chief executives have started at graduate level,” Charlton said. “Our next chief information officer will start at graduate level.”
The company runs three development programmes to help IT staff learn about the company’s business, to help improve their general IT skills and to provide them with specific business and technical training.
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Staff are rotated regularly through different business units and through different IT roles. “It allows us to give all round training,” Charlton said. “People move from back-office roles to retailer-facing roles. You get a breadth of experience you normally only find in smaller companies.”
IT staff receive a minimum of 10 formal training days a year, with additional on-the-job training from mentors and coaches. “We bring people into real jobs. We do not have people on full- time training, they are doing real roles from day one,” he said.
