Helping make the world a better workplace, this document outlines how we help organisations measure and improve their workplace engagement levels.

1. Unlocking
the power of
workplace
engagement

2. Contents
A note on imagery...
About us
What is workplace engagement?
What makes us different?
Our methodology
Your engagement journey
Asking the right questions
Analysis with Workplace Insight Pro
Managerial engagement with MC3
Interventions and workshops
Best Companies accreditation
The ‘Best Companies to Work For’ lists
Celebrate your achievement
Our product bundles
Our support packages
Start your journey
05
06
08
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
29
30
All of the images used in this brochure are real portraits
of real engagement, taken with the generous participation
of some of our valued clients. We felt we couldn’t tell the
story of engagement without them.
Image: Simply Business
No.1 Sunday Times Best Company
to Work For 2016
2 3

3. We help make the world a better workplace by measuring, improving and
recognising employee engagement. We enable organisations to understand
how their employees really feel, and then provide the tools and expertise they
need to deliver effective, sustainable change.
Our academically rigorous methodology (which powers the Best Companies
to Work For lists) allows organisations to understand in detail where
opportunities for improvement lie.
We want to make the world a better workplace by creating stronger teams,
effective managers and a happier 9 to 5.
We are the workplace
engagement specialists
- Jonathan Austin
Founder CEO,
Best Companies
“How do you make
your employees
smile?”
“Ask them.”
Image: COOK
Accredited every year since 2013
54

4. Better workplace engagement helps you to:
• Understand how people really feel about their work
• Boost productivity
• Attract and retain top talent
• Generate positive PR marketing
opportunities
When people are engaged they feel connected to each
other and to the aims of the organisation they work
for. They believe in a shared purpose and feel they
play an important part in fulfilling it.
An engaged workforce is more motivated and productive
because people take pride in what they are doing and have
faith in those around them. This leads to better working
relationships, greater collaboration and ultimately, a more
successful organisation.
Image: Simply Business
No.1 Sunday Times Best Company to Work For 2016
What is
workplace
engagement?
6 7

5. Our comprehensive data set, robust methodology
and decades of combined experience make our
measurement the industry standard.
1. Accurate
Our measurement and
analysis methodologies are
academically rigorous
4. Established
Our name is widely recognised
and respected as the standard
of engagement
2. Unique
Exclusive tools, developed over time
and proven to work
3. Relevant
Comprehensive benchmarking
from up-to-date, sector-specific
engagement data and best practice
5. Effective
We enable real behavioural
change through end to end
engagement journeys
What makes us
different?
Image: Virtual1
Awarded 2★ Rating 2017 2018
8 9

6. How employees feel about
and communicate with their
direct manager
How employees feel about
training and their future
prospects
Employees’ feelings towards
their immediate colleagues and
how well they work together
How employees feel about
stress, pressure at work and
life balance
How happy employees
are with pay and benefits
The extent to which employees
feel their organisation has a
positive impact on society
The level of engagement
employees feel with their job
and organisation
How employees feel about
the head of the organisation,
senior management and the
organisation's values and
principles
My Manager
MyCompany
Giving
Som
ething
Back
FairDeal
W
ellb
eing
My Team
Personal
G
rowth
Leade
rship
Our academically rigorous methodology is
one of a kind.
Developed alongside academics at the University of Plymouth, with help
from the Department of Trade and Industry, it’s been tested on millions of UK
employees and is continually reviewed.
It is consistently proven to be the most accurate and effective way to measure
and understand workplace engagement, providing insight into the factors that
affect engagement in your organisation.
Our methodology
Through Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis,
we are uniquely capable of identifying the deep and
interdependent relationships between the 8 Factors of
Workplace Engagement.
It goes far beyond simple assumptions of how people feel based on their
response to a given statement, revealing instead the underlying reasons
behind their responses and the complex associations between them.
It’s these patterns, connections and correlations that help you get to the heart
of what people want and expect from their working lives.
Patterns, connections and correlations
Our model:
The 8 Factors of
Workplace Engagement
10 11

7. Starting your
engagement journey
Your engagement journey can be as brief or as far-reaching as you like.
Wherever your organisation needs to go, we’ll be with you at every step
to make things as simple as possible.
A typical journey might include the following 6 stages:
Looking into the data for
actionable insights
If your BCI score is high
enough you receive a Best
Companies accreditation
Initiating positive change
through interventions and
engagement improvement
programmes
Gathering data and
establishing your
organisation’s BCI score
Defining the key objectives
of your engagement journey
Survey2 Analysis
Insight
3
Action4 Accreditation5
You have the option of
competing for a place on the
Best Companies to Work
For lists
Get listed6
Planning1
1. Planning
Putting a plan together
We will work with you to build an effective engagement plan
that will take you, step by step, through everything you need
to do to achieve your goal.
This could be a full day planning session with an
engagement specialist, or a simple pre-survey call with
a member of our support team, depending on how much
guidance you feel you need.
1312

8. Asking the right questions
The b-Heard survey invites your employees to respond to 70
statements about their wellbeing, pay and benefits, personal growth,
their team, the leadership and much more.
It is scored on a seven-point scale that allows for more nuanced
responses than an agree/disagree model or five-point scale. This,
combined with our unique 8 factor model, gives you a structured and
accurate insight into how your employees feel.
We combine and normalise their responses to give your organisation a
Best Companies Index (BCI) score – our exclusive and academically
verified measure of engagement.
We offer paper and online surveys. Online surveys are recommended
and by far the most popular, but we always try to make it easier for
less-centralised organisations to survey with us. We can also
facilitate multi-lingual and bespoke surveys to suit your organisation’s
distinct needs.
70STATEMENTS
50 8SCORING
STATEMENTS
FACTORS
2. Survey
1514

9. Analysis
Overall by factor
Find out how you score across each of the 8 factors
of engagement
Year-on-year
Benchmark against your previous years performance (if you have
surveyed with us before)
Scores by business area
See overall engagement scores for your top level
employment groups
By accreditation
See how you compare to 1,2 or 3 star accredited organisations
Key engagement drivers
See correlations that reveal what is driving engagement
in your organisation
Factor breakdown
Breakdown of scores for individual statements that make
up each factor
Sentiment
Percentage of positive, negative or neutral responses by statement
Demographic data
Breakdown of employee responses by job grade, salary, age,
gender lots more
Detailed scores by business area
Filter data by employment groups, benchmark vs the rest of
the organisation
Downloadable Data Packs
Download the most relevant insights from your survey results and
share them with the key people in your organisation
Against the 100 Best
See how you compare to the 100 Best Companies to Work For
Across all organisations
Compare scores for each factor and statement vs all the organisations
we measure
By top level
Choose an extra accreditation or list benchmark (e.g. 3 star or top 50)
By sector
Compare your scores vs other organisations in your sector
Employee comments
Rich qualitative data: a full transcript of employee comments
from the survey
Benchmarking
Feedback
Our Workplace Insight solutions
enable you to transform your
survey data into actionable
insights by providing you with a
unique and accurate picture of
engagement in your organisation.
Understand your data with the
Workplace Insight Tool
Our online portal enables you to
explore and understand the results of
your engagement survey.
• Graphs and charts that visualise
your data in a clear and easy to
understand way
• Powerful benchmarking and filters
summarise and contextualise your
survey results
• Exclusive ‘best practice’ examples
from leading organisations give
you practical inspiration on how to
improve engagement
Every client who surveys with us gets access to our basic Workplace Insight
software. But to really get the most out of your data, we recommend upgrading
to our Workplace Insight Pro for deeper analysis, richer benchmarking, and
access to individual feedback and comments.
Disseminate your data with
downloadable data packs
• Create and download high level
executive summaries to share with
your senior team
• Create targeted reports that focus
on specific employment groups
3. Analysis
Insight
1716

10. UNDERSTANDING
CARE
CARING
ENERGISING
INSPIRING
MOTIVATING
SUPPORTING
RECOGNISING
CONSIDERING
INFORMINGLISTENING
CONVERSING
MC3
is a powerful methodology for measuring and improving
the way that your managers engage with their teams.
Based on your survey results, the unique MC3
framework helps you identify great
management in your organisation, as well as opportunities for improvement. It
enables you to have effective conversations with the right people and creates
a positive platform on which to develop better recognition, understanding and
support.
• Compare your managers to the best in the UK
• Drive meaningful conversations with your managers
• Inspire your managers to aim higher
• Create high-performing teams
• Identify and retain your best talent
Image: Virtual1
Awarded 2★ Rating 2017 2018
The science of MC3
MC3
focuses on 4 key behaviours:
Motivating
Motivational managers sell the direction and
vision of their organisation, ensuring their people
understand how they fit into a bigger picture.
Considering
Considerate managers have realistic and
achievable expectations. They offer support and
make sure good work is recognised.
Conversing
Managers who engage in meaningful
conversations listen to their team members
and share vital information.
Caring
Caring managers respect their team members as
people who have lives outside of work, and show
genuine interest in them as individuals.
The MC3
Methodology
3. Analysis
Insight
18 19

11. We offer a range of interventions, workshops
and improvement programmes that can
give you and your organisation the power to
significantly improve engagement levels.
We will take you through your data
factor by factor and give you a clear and
actionable insight into how you can improve
engagement in your organisation.
As an independent specialist we can deliver the insights to
those that need to hear them most. Data Insight sessions
start meaningful conversations that can elevate your
organisation to the next level, or provide the essential first
step on the journey to improvement.
From insight
to action
Engagement
workshops4. Action
Our engagement workshops include:
1. Engagement planning workshops
A pre-survey planning session to help define the
goals of your engagement journey. We will help
determine which tools and what level of support
you need to deliver the improvements you want.
2. Managerial engagement workshops
Based on data from the powerful MC3
methodology, these sessions show you how to
make the most of the insights, including how to
manage the sharing and acceptance of both good
and challenging information.
3. Peer to peer workshops
These sessions show your managers how to
manage and share best practice throughout
your organisation. We show them how to handle
engagement challenges, and how to build
effective internal peer groups to ensure continual
improvement.
4. Survey champion workshops
These workshops promote awareness of the
engagement survey in your organisation, helping
others see the value of engagement and feel
comfortable with the process.
5. Organisational clarity workshops
These sessions will help you define your
organisation’s Primary Purpose, Core Principles,
an Outrageous Ambition and an Ingenious Plan
to achieve it – helping you define a clear vision for
your future.
6. Action planning workshops
End to end planning workshops answer the
question of what to do next once your survey
results come in, helping turn insights into action.
Analysing data is a science. Making it
meaningful and memorable is an art form.
Our engagement workshops and engagement
improvement programmes give you the knowledge to turn
your insights into effective, self-sustaining change. We will
help you disseminate information, create ambassadors for
engagement, and teach you and your team how to create
a culture of acceptance and a willingness to improve.
“Tell me, I’ll forget.
Show me, I’ll remember.
Involve me, I’ll
understand.”
Chinese proverb
20 21

12. Our accreditation programme is the standard for
workplace engagement.
Accreditation tells future clients, partners, investors and
employees that your organisation understands the importance
of workplace engagement and genuinely values its people.
From Ones to Watch through to 3-Star status, accreditation
offers organisations a tangible framework for benchmarking
and improvement. It also generates positive marketing and PR
opportunities, raising your organisation’s profile as part of a
nationally recognised and respected scheme.
Whether you want to attract and retain top talent, benchmark
your organisation against others or simply recognise and
celebrate great workplace engagement, an accreditation from
Best Companies can make that happen.
Accreditations that
can open doors
Extraordinary levels of
workplace engagement.
Outstanding levels of
workplace engagement.
Very Good levels of
workplace engagement.
Good levels of
workplace engagement.
5.Accreditation
22 23

13. EAST OF ENGLAND2019
7575 LONDON
20BEST BIG
COMPANIES
2019 LONDON
50
2019 MIDLANDS
75 752019
NORTH EAST
30
2019 NORTHERN IRELAND
1030
2019 NORTH WEST
752019
50
LONDON
75BEST SMALL
COMPANIES
2019
SOUTH EAST
752019
10
SCOTLAND
50
2019
SOUTH WEST
75 752019 WALES
3075 2019
YORKSHIRE
THE HUMBER
75
2019
Every year we celebrate and showcase the
very best in workplace engagement.
Earning a place on the Best Companies to Work For lists
gives your organisation a unique positive PR story on a
regional and national platform and provides an opportunity
to benchmark yourself against your competitors.
The Best Companies
to Work For lists
The Best Companies lists
Published in partnership with THE SUNDAY TIMES, the
lists are the longest-running and most respected of their
kind in the UK.
Bringing recognition to your doorstep
Based on data from the b-Heard survey, the regional lists are a
platform to celebrate your workplace engagement achievement in
the regions where your employees work and live.
They are a great opportunity to share positive stories, strengthen
your recruitment strategy, boost local reputation and develop
regional brand awareness.
National and regional
recognition
6. Get listed
2524

14. Celebrate your
achievement
Celebration is a crucial part of recognising great
workplace engagement.
Our annual awards celebration brings top organisations
together to reveal where they’ve been placed in their
categories’ lists, and to raise a glass in their honour.
Guests can expect a champagne reception, dinner and
dancing – as well as some very special guests.
2726

15. DiscoverStart Advance
The easy way to begin your
engagement journey.
See how your workforce really feels with this
basic insight package.
Compare yourself to other organisations
and aim for a recognised accreditation and a
spot on our national and regional lists of the
Best Companies to Work For.
Delve deeper into your
organisation’s workplace
engagement data.
Gain an unprecedented insight into the
engagement health of your organisation.
Create bespoke reports and access our
extensive benchmarking and best practice
libraries.
Compare yourself to other organisations
and aim for a recognised accreditation and a
spot on our national and regional lists of the
Best Companies to Work For.
The ultimate workplace
engagement package.
This comprehensive engagement programme
allows you to identify and remedy engagement
challenges in your organisation.
Understand and improve key management
behaviours, find your star players, build
tailored engagement plans and work towards
a place on our national and regional lists of the
Best Companies to Work For.
Optional Optional Optional
Basic
Support
Premium
Support
Full Survey
Management
Optional Optional
Optional Optional Optional
YOUR REGION2019
75
Product bundles
Our support package options allow you to choose the
features and benefits that best suit your organisation’s
budget and aims.
Support packages
Project planning session
Conference call or face-to-face meeting to establish the
requirements and recommendations.
Project management
A dedicated project manager will produce a comprehensive
and detailed project plan. They will create and set up the
survey for you, and hold regular scheduled status calls to
ensure everything is on track.
Priority support
You’ll be given top priority by a dedicated member of our
support team. They will take you through the welcome and
set-up process, and be on hand for regular catch-up calls if
required.
b-Heard survey support
Online and phone support from a single point of contact.
Project timeline
We will help you manage the project, providing a timeline and
prompting you at key milestones.
Welcome call
A survey workbook and an interactive welcome call to guide
you through the process.
Online resources
Access to tips, advice and how-to guides on our online
resources.
Data upload and validation
We’ll take care of your data upload, so you don’t have to.
Bespoke questions and demographics**
Customise your survey to focus on particular engagement
themes or key areas within your organisation.
Multi-lingual online surveys*
Multi-lingual paper surveys
Multi-lingual employee communications
Bespoke employee communications✝
We’ll work with you to create bespoke survey communications
to suit your requirements.
Bespoke benchmarking
Benchmark your performance against a specific set
of organisations.
* The languages available depend on level of support. Call us on 01978 851 220 to find out more.
✝
Not available if you are aiming for a list place or accreditation - this is to ensure fairness to all participants.
** Available online only for Premium Support subscribers.
[Not required]
[Not required]
2928

16. Image: T.M.Lewin
Engagement Workshop 2017
Start your
journey today
Join the hundreds of successful UK organisations
already working with us to become better
workplaces by measuring, improving and
recognising workplace engagement.
Call us today on 01978 851 220 and we’ll be happy to
answer your questions, provide more information and
get you started on your engagement journey.
3130

17. To find out more, visit www.b.co.uk
or call us on 01978 851 220
Share your engagement story on
social media with #BestCompanies