Over the last few years, financial recruitment organisation Goodman Masson has received a significant amount of external recognition for its workplace culture, reward strategy and its innovative approach to employee engagement, including first place in Great Place to Work’s UK Best Workplaces 2015, medium category.
Goodman Masson engages its 150-strong workforce throughout the awards process, informing staff if it intends to enter a particular award, communicating the entry process and then updating them as to whether or not it has been successful.
Guy Hayward, chief executive officer at Goodman Masson, says: “The most important thing for me is that we deliver our ambition to treat our people better than anyone else in the UK, which is remarkably bold, but when you receive a number-one ranking, first you feel quite humbled, but second I think it’s confirmation that the uniqueness of what we’re doing is working.”
The organisation offers its employees a range of benefits through its Benefits Boutique programme, which aims to provide staff with choice and access to benefits that are relevant to them through different stages in their life. This includes a mortgage fund, student loan fund, exotic holiday fund, knowledge fund, and home improvement and new parent loans, among others. “When you put all of that together and if I consider why people have stayed with us and why people have joined us, then one of those components has most definitely been our approach to pay and reward,” says Hayward.
Last year, 25 employees went on long-distance holidays through the exotic holiday fund, four people benefitted from the new parent loan, and seven took up the home improvement loan scheme. The student loan programme has helped three people pay off their student debt, and 34 employees are making use of the mortgage fund, which has helped three employees become homeowners so far this year.
Hayward adds: “People now expect more from their employer, I think they expect greater choice in how they receive their income and that they want that linked to their current lifestyle and the current challenges that they face.”