Business body supporting Hucknall and Bulwell named one of best companies to work for

The chamber of commerce for Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire featured in three categories of the Best Companies to Work For lists for Q2 2022.

It ranked 76th in the East Midlands’ 100 Best Companies to Work For, 15th in the national Business Services’ 25 Best Companies to Work For and 34th in the 50 Best Mid-Sized Company to Work for list.

The achievement follows in-depth staff surveys by the industry-leading employee engagement specialist, which asks questions about their wellbeing, pay and benefits, personal growth, team, the leadership and other aspects.

Judges commended the Chamber for ensuring ‘staff understand how the organisation works and how they fit in’, highlighting how a different area of the business leads a weekly internal meeting to explain what its team does and how it contributes to the business plan objectives.

A social committee that organises events for staff across the organisation to get together informally – one of several internal working groups, with others designed for mental wellbeing, as well as equality, diversity and inclusion – was also praised.

Lucy Robinson, director of resources and HR lead, said: “The experiences of the past couple of years have really emphasised the importance of looking after our people, who are the most important resource for any business.

“We have done a lot of work to ensure we can be a great employer by creating the conditions and environment that empowers our people to come to work as their best possible selves.

"A thriving workforce enables us to drive our organisation forward and provide the best services for our 4,000-plus members.

“As well as offering flexibility via a hybrid remote-office working model to our staff and a wide range of benefits such as two days’ additional annual leave for volunteering, we have sought to improve our transparency by holding weekly all-staff meetings to give everyone a detailed insight into the business and allow the various teams within it to share success stories, as well as the ability to ask questions.

“Continuous personal development is rapidly rising up the agenda and we are always keen to offer training and growth opportunities to people across all levels, with the latest initiative being a Future Leaders Academy that seeks to give a small cohort of people the chance to learn key skills and knowledge to take the next step in their career journey.

“For our business, it contributes towards our succession planning as we are developing our own talent for future leader roles while it helps with staff retention – a crucial consideration for employers given we are in the midst of one of the most challenging recruitment crises in memory.”