Retailers dominate Indeed’s inaugural list of best performing companies for workplace wellbeing

Care providers and retailers dominate the inaugural Better Work Awards from the leading jobs and hiring site, Indeed.

The awards, which this year honour the top companies for work wellbeing, are based on the world’s largest study of work wellbeing and insights from employees who rate and review their company on Indeed each year.

Winners were determined based on how companies fared over the past 12 months on work wellbeing across four key indicators: happiness, purpose, satisfaction and stress. Employers must have received at least 100 unique ratings to be considered.

Suffolk-based care home provider Kingsley Healthcare topped the list with a Work Wellbeing Score of 85 out of a possible 100.

It achieved scores in the top quadrant for every single category measured in our wellbeing measurements – not only happiness, purpose, satisfaction and lack-of-stress, but also each of the 11 sub-measurements that contribute to the overall score, like trust, inclusion and management.

Kingsley was followed by retailers The Entertainer and The Body Shop in second and third spot respectively, telecoms company Kelly Group was fourth and shoe shop Clarks completed the top five.

High street favourite and the UK’s largest employee-owned business John Lewis & Partners also made the top 10 while Jaguar Land Rover was one of two companies outside care and retail that made the list.

Better Work Awards: Top 10 UK Employers for Work Wellbeing

Work wellbeing — or how employees feel at work — is a critical factor for people today when deciding where to work, and plays a significant role for employers hoping to attract, hire and retain top talent. Everyone deserves to thrive at work and employees thrive when they feel their wellbeing is a priority.

Based on a global survey* carried out for Indeed by the consultancy Forrester, on average 90% of workers indicate that how they feel at work matters with 80% saying wellbeing data is important when considering a company.

The same research showed that just 23% of UK workers are ‘thriving’ at work compared to 29% in the US and 26% in Canada. Also in the UK, research* suggested workers were not feeling energised (51% of respondents) and did not have a sense of belonging (46%) or have trust at work (41%).

Priscilla Koranteng, Indeed’s chief people officer, said: “Finding the right job today remains challenging. But what we know is that people want to work for an employer that puts them first. Indeed’s Better Work Awards winners stand out from the rest for truly prioritising work wellbeing. When employers create better work, in turn, it leads to better lives for their employees. Indeed’s Better Work Awards recognize the companies that are doing this best by providing an outstanding employee experience. Congratulations to all of this year’s winning employers.”

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics at Saïd Business School and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University, added: “Research consistently shows that how we feel at work matters. It deeply impacts our general wellbeing, our productivity and benefits society.

“For employers, the wellbeing of their workforce cannot be underestimated as our research shows that those who prioritise wellbeing reap the rewards of higher productivity and improved employee retention and attraction. In turn, this leads to greater business performance. This is something we’ve now shown to be the case in both hard financial metrics as well as stock market performance.”

“Indeed’s 2023 Better Work Awards are determined by data from the world’s largest study on employee wellbeing with a majority of this year’s top-performing UK companies either in healthcare and retail. Given the war for talent over the last year it may not be surprising that these organisations have been at the forefront of creating work environments that seek to give workers the best possible experience.”