OPEN Health LLP named as one of the UK’s great places to work

OPEN Health of Marlow has achieved 15th place in the top 25 small businesses in the internationally renowned Great Places To Work scheme. In a black-tie awards ceremony in London last night, OPEN Health LLP was recognised for its enviable ratings for staff satisfaction, its supportive culture and its employees’ high level of trust in the company and its leaders.

Made up of a number of interconnected specialist businesses, OPEN Health operates across a wide range of disciplines including healthcare communications, market research and market access. The OPEN client base spans almost all of the world’s top 40 pharmaceutical companies as well as device, diagnostic and healthcare delivery organisations. With an eclectic team of experts from each field, OPEN Health are able to work with clients from scope to launch and beyond, to create the best possible solutions.

A selection of representatives from across the OPEN family of businesses attended the event, making the night a true team effort.

Who are Great Place to Work?

The Great Place to Work® Institute UK is part of the world's largest consultancy specialising in helping organisations build high trust, high engagement workplaces. Every year Great Place to Work® surveys some 6,000 organisations around the world representing around 10 million employees. The Institute defines three key elements of a ‘great workplace’:

• People trust their management
• Have pride in what they do
• Enjoy working with their colleagues

Unique

The Great Place To Work award is based on the combination of an employee survey or Trust Index, which accounts for two thirds of the total score, and a “Culture Audit” – a questionnaire completed by management and HR. Comparing these two perceptions of the business highlights how closely the company’s official vision aligns with the actual experiences of staff. The results are largely centred around responses from employees to two key questions:

• Is there anything unique or unusual about this company that makes it a great place to work?
• If you could change one thing about this company to make it a better place to work, what would that be?
• The majority of OPEN employee answers to the first of these questions were incredibly positive, with most comments pertaining to the culture of recognition of great work. OPEN Health staff cited “trust” and “appreciation” as key factors in their job satisfaction, with other positive comments related to –among other things - open internal communication, “good and true” leadership, encouragement to maintain a good work/life balance and a friendly workplace with a real “buzz”.

Outstanding results

OPEN’s results across the employee survey were amazing, particularly considering that this was the first time OPEN Health had entered the awards.

One area in which the company excelled was the assessment of how far staff agreed with the statement, “Taking everything into account I would say this is a great place to work” with 97% of OPEN staff agreeing – well over the average score of 91% for best small businesses in 2013.

Trust Index

The Trust Index survey measures employees’ perception of the quality of their workplace relationships – with management, with their job roles and with other members of the team. This was an area in which OPEN Health showed superb results, with “Teamspirit” and “Camaraderie and workplace culture” their highest-scoring categories: again 97% of respondents agreed with all three of the statements, “This is a friendly place to work”, “When you join the organisation, you are made to feel welcome” and, “You can count on people to cooperate”. This speaks volumes for the workplace atmosphere and is central to the OPEN Health collaborative approach to everything they do.

The Great Places To Work report also highlighted the OPEN Health welcome programme for new starters, deeming it “notably above average”. This programme includes use of a buddy scheme, an informal “tea with David” meeting with the CEO, induction meetings with key personnel and ongoing training and professional development that stays with every employee throughout their time at OPEN.

Other areas of note include the statements that ALL employees agreed with across the OPEN group. These include:

Management is...

approachable, easy to talk with – 100>#br###competent at running the business – 100>#br###honest and ethical in its business practices – 100>#br#/p>

People here are treated fairly, regardless of their...

race or ethnic origin – 100>#br###sex – 100>#br###sexual orientation – 100>#br###disability – 100>#/p###

And perhaps most inspiring of all...

“When I look at what we accomplish, I feel a sense of pride” – 100>#/p###

David Rowley, CEO said “We’ve always encouraged and rewarded individualism, fresh thinking and professional development here at OPEN Health, so we’re incredibly pleased to have that acknowledged by the Great Place to Work Institute this evening”

Learn more about the Great Place to Work Institute at greatplacetowork.co.uk