London - Friday 26 February 2016
Multi-award winning media company, UKTV, is celebrating being in The Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for list for the very first time.
UKTV is the first and only TV broadcaster to have achieved entry into the highly prestigious Sunday Times list which also features companies such as Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Edelman, OVO Energy and Hawksmoor.
Inclusion in the top 100 list is determined by the results of a staff engagement survey produced and published by employee engagement specialists Best Companies. Hundreds of businesses take part in the survey each year which reveals how employees really perceive their work environment. The responses are then collated to produce an overall engagement score for the organisation. This year UKTV has been awarded a two-star accreditation from Best Companies, building on its Ones to Watch accreditation in 2015.
UKTV's CEO Darren Childs said,
Everybody at UKTV has been working really hard to change how TV feels for the better: more engaged, more inclusive and more diverse. This award reflects that huge achievement in our success and growth, and whilst every department in the company wins many awards for their fantastic work, this is the first time everybody has won an award for making UKTV a great place to do great work.
Since participating in its first Best Companies survey in 2011, UKTV has made staff engagement a key business priority. The executive leadership team provide quarterly strategy updates to everyone in the business and host all-staff strategy away days, providing a forum for people to question, brainstorm and put forward new ideas.
The company's new head office in Hammersmith has also been designed to encourage collaboration, with a large communal area for all staff gatherings and break out areas, including a secret room decked out like a train carriage. Spread over two floors, the space is completely open plan and UKTV's leadership team, including CEO Darren Childs, do not have their own individual offices. Ideas are generated through everyday conversations and people move desks on a quarterly basis to encourage collaboration across the whole workforce.
UKTV is also committed to providing greater industry access for young people from all backgrounds and announced last year that all production companies making programmes for the broadcaster must pay all staff, including runners, at least the minimum wage. UKTV has also been recognised in 'England's Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers' list', and has committed to doubling its number of apprenticeships in 2016 to create new openings in areas of the business where it would like to develop grass roots talent, including Technology, Operations and Digital.
UKTV is celebrating its entry into The Sunday Times 100 best companies to work for list by awarding everyone a free day off on their birthday. This joins a raft of existing initiatives that recognise, reward and acknowledge people's hard work. These include: UKTV's peer-nominated CLICC awards, which celebrate work that demonstrates the company's five core values (Create, Learn, Influence, Collaborate and Challenge); The Learning Curve which offers employees the chance to apply for non-work-related, but life-enhancing training such as film-making or language courses; and 'on-the-spot thank you' where managers can award chocolate bars containing instant reward vouchers such as a lie-in, early finish, or duvet day, when people have gone above and beyond in their jobs.
For further information:
Kerry Parker, Head of Network Communications
About UKTV
UKTV is the multi-award winning media company that reaches 42 million viewers a month.
UKTV's eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, Watch, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food - include the most popular non-PSB channel in the UK and account for 9% of the British commercial TV market. The company's most recent financial results showed record-breaking year-end revenue of £283m and EBITDA of £74.1m. It invested £123m in programming and related launches last year, and is becoming an increasingly significant investor in UK creativity.
UKTV has a truly innovative model, curating brand-defining commissions, high-profile acquisitions and the very best of BBC, alongside programmes originally shown on ITV and Channel 4. The network embraces technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating its 22nd year at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the only British television broadcaster to be recognised by Best Companies.