Vets Now today announced that it has been recognised with a prestigious Best Companies Accreditation.
The organisation, which provides Out Of Hours emergency care for small animals through its network of 33 emergency clinics across the UK, was surveyed along with 794 organisations who entered the Best Companies Accreditation.
Of these companies, 685 completed the final process with an overall number of 414 organisations achieving Star Status accreditation this year.
The Accreditation scheme, developed by Best Companies, is based on a star rating system where one star is first class, two stars are outstanding, and three stars are extraordinary. In 2009, 55 organisations achieved Three Star Status, 150 organisations achieved Two Star Status and 209 organisations achieved One Star Status.
Vets Now was awarded a One Star Status, giving the organisation the accreditation of being an exceptional place to work with high levels of Workplace Engagement.
The past 12 months has seen Vets Now introduce various initiatives for employees and last June the organisation launched its Flexible Benefits scheme, offering employees an additional 1.5% of their salary to spend on benefits such as Bupa private medical insurance, childcare vouchers and professional membership schemes.
Commenting on the award, Group Managing Director and founder of Vets Now, Richard Dixon said; “Vets Now is delighted to receive this accreditation which recognises our commitment to making Vets Now a great place to work. The award is testament to our highly motivated team of employees whose passion and dedication in providing a great service are reflective of the highly positive, caring and people focused culture which we as an organisation have fostered. I'm incredibly proud that such positive feedback has come from our team and that our efforts have been recognised by this award.”
The full list of factors by which organisations are judged included the following:
- Leadership: how employees feel about the head of the company and senior managers.
- Wellbeing: how staff feel about stress, pressure and the balance between their work and home life.
- My Manager: people's feelings towards their immediate boss and their day-to-day managers.
- My Team: people's feelings about their immediate colleagues.
- Fair Deal: how happy the workforce is with pay and benefits.
- Giving Something Back: how much companies are thought by their staff to put back into society, and into environmental protection.
- My Company: feelings about the company people work for as opposed to the people they work with.
- Personal Growth: whether staff feel challenged by their job, their skills are being used, and if there is scope for advancement.
Speaking about the Accreditation, Jonathan Austin, Founder and CEO of Best Companies commented; "I would like to congratulate Vets Now on their outstanding achievement. Our role at Best Companies is to set a rigorous benchmark so that organisations can become even better employers. This year it is encouraging to see that the number of companies entering the accreditation scheme for excellence in workplace engagement has grown by over twenty percent."