Since our founding‚ our core value has been that our team is our greatest asset. This award is the embodiment of that and everything our culture stands for.
Last year‚ we decided to measure the current state of our workplace culture to understand and develop further. The result was incredible‚ with 91% of our employees voting hedgehog lab as a “great place to work” and us achieving official certification for our tech agency as a Great Place to Work™.
This year‚ we were proud to be invited to the glamorous award ceremony for the UK’s Best Workplaces™‚ which took place on Tuesday 26th of April 2022 in London. We were delighted to be named one of the best during the event and received our award for being ranked number 66 in the UK!
We put much effort into continuously improving hedgehog lab for our extraordinary employees. Some of the People and Culture initiatives that helped us to gain a place on this year’s UK’s Best Workplaces list include:
Flexa accreditation – Flexible working
We’re proud to have become an accredited Flexified Employer in 2021 with Flexa – a platform that helps people find truly flexible jobs. hedgehog lab embraces a flexible working environment and recognises that all staff have different needs and that those needs can change. Our culture is built on trust and autonomy‚ and we want our team to be happy and relaxed when working for hedgehog lab. We have an office in Newcastle‚ but during the pandemic‚ we have worked mostly from home and are open to employing team members from all over the UK or further afield. We also offer flexible working hours and part-time contracts.
Implementation of DEI initiatives
We are always learning and evolving our processes to foster an inclusive culture at the lab where everyone can be their authentic selves and thrive. For this journey‚ we partnered with Lila to help and guide us through their online training‚ which we rolled out company-wide.
We also included our fantastic team in our DEI journey by creating volunteer working groups made up of employees from different company areas. Together‚ we now plan and celebrate monthly inclusion events and have implemented other worthy changes to our ways of working. You can find more information on our work so far through our company page.
hedgehog of the month
We realise the importance of recognising exceptional work‚ so alongside our regular feedback tools‚ we initiated our hedgehog of the month scheme in 2021. This is voted for anonymously by all employees. The winner each month is announced to the whole team via our weekly town hall meeting and is awarded to the person with the most votes who then receive vouchers of their choosing as a reward.
ISO certification (9001 & 27001)
Our line of work requires us to be consistent and detail-oriented. Our ISO certifications‚ which we obtained in 2021‚ ensure we are. Our high quality and information security standards allow us to design and build exceptional software‚ provide outstanding product consultancy‚ and give our staff and customers peace of mind over the security of their data.
These Initiatives and our unique set of benefits are only the beginning. This award has shown us that we are on the right track to creating and maintaining a genuinely inclusive culture based on trust‚ autonomy and flexibility.
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Left to right: Our Marketing Executive‚ Antonia Hayianni‚ with our People and Culture Advisor‚ Catherine Roberts accepting our Award for Best Workplace in UK.
To determine the 2022 UK’s Best Workplaces™ list‚ Great Place to Work® performed rigorous evaluations of hundreds of employee survey responses alongside Culture Audit™ submissions from leaders at each company. They then used these data insights to benchmark the effectiveness of companies’ employee value propositions against their employees’ experience culture. The businesses with the highest scores after evaluation receive Best Workplaces™ status which is what our small mobile app development team managed to achieve.
We hope that this year will continue to bring similar success to our team‚ with even more awards. Watch this space!
Find out more
If you’d like to be a part of our fantastic team‚ browse our open vacancies to see if we have the perfect role for you.
If you’d like to learn more about our company culture‚ check out our blog post on how we’re leading the way in flexible learning and supporting our team’s mental health and well-being.
