Tribal DDB UK Make Sunday Times 100 Best Companies
March 19, 2009 by olivia · Leave a Comment
Tribal DDB London, along with sister agency DDB London, was named one of Britain’s top companies, arriving at 86th place on the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For 2009, now in its ninth year. In the words of the Sunday Times, those companies that made the cut exhibit the best employment practice. These are companies “for anyone looking for somewhere to work where their mind will be engaged, where their skills are used to the maximum, and where they will be treated and respected as individuals, rather than anonymous cogs in a corporate machine.”
The “100 Best Companies” is open to any firm with 250 to 4,999 employees. Because the Best Companies accolade has become the gold standard of workplace engagement, the publication has also opened up the list to 100 Best Small Companies to Work For and The 20 Best Big Companies to Work For.
This is the biggest survey of workplace engagement in the UK — so no small feat for DDB UK. In all, just under 1000 companies were vying for a place on one of the three lists.
This year the opinions of over 200,000 employees across the UK contributed to the overall results for the survey, which is designed specifically for the British workplace. It identifies best practice according to performance in key indicators of workplace engagement including staff opinions on leadership, fair dealings over pay and benefits, a company’s willingness to give something back to society and one’s overall sense of affiliation with the employer.
So what did DDB’s results say? Essentially that we have a fantastic, cohesive working environment:
- 79% feel we have a strong sense of family within teams, ranking us ninth overall in this section.
- 85% find teams fun to work with.
- 81% feel working at DDB is an important part of their lives.
- 77% find their work stimulating.
- 74% have confidence in the leadership skills of their manager.
Managing Editor of The Sunday Times, Richard Caseby, commented ‘All 997 participating companies deserve praise for opening their doors to such forensic examination of their workplace practices and culture. It takes a brave chief executive to subject a business to scrutiny by an outside organisation and a national newspaper. But all our winning companies embrace openness and honesty from shop floor to boardroom.’
For full report on our results go to: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/article5725558.ece
Social Media Influence 2009
March 13, 2009 by Phil · Leave a Comment
The fourth annual Social Media Conference, held on March 3rd in central London and sponsored by Radar DDB UK, saw over 180 delegates and speakers come together to discuss a host of social media issues (not just Twitter!) that are occupying the minds of both big and small business.
Titled, Social Media Comes of Age, conference keynote speaker Matthew Yeomans of Radar DDB asked the key question: What does it mean to be social when hundreds of major brands are looking at YouTube, Twitter (there’s that word again) and Facebook as a new channel for marketing. Using T-Mobile’s viral hit “Dance” as a launchpad for conversation, Matthew asked whether social media communication has a duty to do more than simply entertain?
Meanwhile Benjamin Faes, head of YouTube EMEA, articulated exactly how what once was a peer-to-peer video platform is becoming an entertainment medium in its own right, and Kevin Eyres, head of LinkedIn EMEA, outlined the growing importance of his business social network in a time of economic downturn. LinkedIn’s biggest growth spurt occurred immediately following the failure of Lehman Bros., Kevin told the delegates.
As he has done so well in all of the previous Social Media Influence conferences, Pinsent Masons’ Legal Director, Struan Robertson, struck fear in marketing, PR and corporate communications managers throughout the land with his smart insight into the legal dos and don’ts of social media in the workplace.
Some of the liveliest discussion of the day centred around the panel discussions, notably around the contentious subject of social media measurement. On a panel featuring Radar DDB’s Bernhard Warner and chaired by Tribal DDB MD Mike Parsons, speakers and delegates debated the ability of conversational research to deliver the traditional ROI statistics brand managers need. And on the PR panel, the intellectual debate was focused on and channelled through - yep, you’ve guessed it - Twitter.
Speaking of which, the conference made a certain microblogging platform’s second-most-popular-trend of the day (there’s a qualifier for you) while, in the world of traditional media, it warranted a feature in Business Week. In case you missed the day, Social Media Influencers have brought together videos, photos and presentations from the event available through the Social Media Influence.com website.
And for the latest in social media thinking, you can always follow Radar DDB on, um, Twitter at @RadarDDBUK.