Winners announced at Best Places to Work in Construction Awards

Six firms walked away with the right to list themselves among the best employers in the industry after winning one of Contract Journal's prestigious Best Places to Work in Construction Awards yesterday. The second CJ Best Places to Work in Construction Awards was held at a packed event at Lord's Cricket Ground in London. The event is designed to highlight and reward those companies that are striving to be model employers in the construction industry.

The winners are:

Professional Services
Winner: MPG Associates
Highly commended: Tony Gee & Partners

Specialist Contractors and Suppliers
Winner: Progressive Systems
Highly commended: Peri

Building and Civil Engineering Contractors (with up to 100 employees)

Winner: CRL
Highly Commended: Gipping Construction

Building and Civil Engineering Contractors (with 101 to 300 employees)
Winner: Richardson Projects
Highly commended: The Eric Wright Group
Highly commended: Walter Thompson (Contractors)

Building and Civil Engineering Contractors (with over 300 employees)
Winner: Willmott Dixon
Highly commended: Shepherd Construction
Highly commended: JN Bentley

Most Improved Year-on-Year Performance
Winner: Frank Haslam Milan
Highly commended: Bardsley Construction

Finding inspiration

Guests at the event were entertained by Simon Woodroffe, founder of Yo Sushi and panellist on the BBC's Dragon's Den, who urged those attending to create “outrageously” good places to work. Speaking of the need for organisations to innovate and find ways to inspire staff he said that vision was essential in creating an environment where people will “want to come to work for you”.

Whether the rather individual vision of Woodroffe – clad in vibrant turquoise shirt and matching suede shoes – is an example that would suit all industries is perhaps questionable, but he certainly inspired a number of guests to find their ‘yo’. Woodroffe's catchphrase was shouted out in place of traditional applause on more than one occasion during the presentation of the awards.

Woodroffe finished by regaling the slightly startled audience with an autobiographical song he had written and recorded with the surviving members of Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

How the awards work

Contract Journal's Best Places to Work in Construction Awards are unique in that the winners are chosen by each firm’s employees, who fill in a 30-question survey.

Each question earns the firm a number of marks depending on the strength of the answers. The scores are then added up to produce a total mark.

Every firm taking part, shortlisted or not, will receive the aggregated results of their staff survey. This will show them which areas they are good at and which areas staff think need to be improved.