Ranking: The top 20 retailers to work for in the UK in 2022, according to employees

Data collated by company reviews and jobs website Glassdoor in the year to June 20 2022 revealed the recipe box company secured the top spot, with an average ranking of 4.9 out of five stars in current and former employee appraisals.

Flooring specialist Tapi came second in the ranking, with an average employee rating of 4.8, followed by jewellery specialist Vashi, which received an average ranking of 4.4 and has come third overall for a second consecutive year.

Vashi, which was praised by staff for its work/life balance, compensation and career progression opportunities, was one of eight retailers to achieve a top 20 spot two years in a row and the highest-ranked retailer to do so.

Other businesses to clinch a spot in the top 20 ranking for the second consecutive year were Oliver Bonas, Heron Foods, Dr Martens, Majestic Wine, Sweaty Betty, Schuh and The Very Group.

The top 20 retailers to work for in the UK in 2022

As non-essential retail staff and shoppers returned to stores in April 2021, retailers faced the core challenge of supporting their employees in getting ‘back to normal’ while also accommodating new expectations about how to work post-Covid – namely with a great sense of flexibility and purpose.

Glassdoor economist and senior data scientist Lauren Thomas says the companies that delivered high levels of employee satisfaction through this transition had four key attributes in common: they offered strong career progression opportunities, supportive management, a friendly social environment and a level of autonomy to staff working across all parts of their organisations, from the shopfloor to HQ.

Listening to staff

Thomas says one of the most positively impactful measures retailers can take to drive employee engagement and wellbeing is a focus on ensuring staff feel supported and heard, both by their immediate managers and the more senior leadership team.

“The negative impact of bad management is much more severe than the positive impact of good management, so it’s really important not to micro-manage, and to ensure staff feel supported and trusted,” she explains.

“Good professional relationships can’t be built in a day, but they can be destroyed in a day. What can follow is a sense of malicious compliance, whereby staff only do the bare minimum and are motivated by fear, which is not good and it’s also not scaleable. If your staff are motivated and empowered to do their best work it’s a far more effective model.”

She says that one way retailers can drive this is by ensuring staff across their organisations have a sense of flexibility and autonomy, not just those who work in the head office.

“That does also really apply for front-line workers, which you might not expect. We tend to think of workplace autonomy as occasional home working, but it is also important for those doing shift work and who cannot work from home. For them it might mean getting to choose your own schedule, or work without management looking over their shoulder,” she says.

Tapi group chief executive James Sturrock says that one of the specialist retailer’s business principles is autonomy, “which means each store manager makes every decision about how to run their store themselves, like it is their own mini-business”.

The retailer also supported store staff, who make up 90% of its 900-strong workforce, by continuing to pay them average store commission and bonuses during the pandemic, even when stores were closed. 

Tapi supported store staff by continuing to pay them average store commission and bonuses during the pandemic, even when stores were closed

As well as tangible financial support like this, Tapi ensures staff feel empowered to provide “continuous feedback” to senior management via its ‘Tell Tapi’ email channel, where employees can write in with everything from suggestions for operational improvements to commending staff who have delivered a strong performance in their role.

This channel is reviewed by Tapi’s senior leadership on a monthly basis, and staff who make a suggestion that goes on to be implemented by the business are awarded a £50 voucher.

Recent examples of initiatives introduced following a suggestion from staff include equipping store employees with information about a customer’s home improvement projects ahead of a consultation call, and the retailer’s online store finder displaying a branch’s proximity in drive time rather than by postcode. 

Mindful Chef, co-founder and chief community officer Myles Hopper says the business has focused on shifting the benefits it offers to colleagues based on feedback about what is most important to them.

Mindful Chef focused on shifting the benefits it offers to colleagues based on feedback about what is most important to them

The recipe box business introduced six months of paid primary parental leave and six weeks of paid secondary parental leave during the pandemic following staff feedback, and has also focused on bolstering its learning and development offer and providing access to support including cognitive behavioural therapy through its employee healthcare plan. 

“We try to take an active interest in people’s personal wellbeing. As co-founders we are all friends who want to enjoy coming to work and want employees to feel the same,” he says.

A personal touch

Sturrock says that since Tapi was founded seven years ago, it has “put a hell of a lot of effort into supporting our colleagues and making sure their experience as an employee is as good as a customer’s experience in our stores”.

“We talk about the Tapi difference for our customers, but as senior leadership, we also think about employee experience in the same way – what can we introduce to make working here feel as good as possible for our staff?”

To that end, the retailer has a range of initiatives in place to ensure the business makes “working for us feel as good as possible for staff”, including a handwritten birthday card from founder Martin Harris sent to every employee, to £500 of Virgin Experience vouchers for staff who have worked at Tapi for five years.

All members of staff who are nominated via the Tell Tapi channel for exhibiting the retailer’s seven leadership behaviours also receive a personal phone call from either Sturrock or Harris to tell them why they were nominated and thank them for their efforts.

“We talk about the Tapi difference for our customers, but as senior leadership we also think about employee experience in the same way – what can we introduce to make working here feel as good as possible for our staff?”

James Sturrock, Tapi

Each nominee is also entered into a review which is judged by a panel of store colleagues, with highly-commended entrants receiving vouchers and the overall victor winning a team treat and trophy to display in their store.

Sturrock, who joined Tapi from Eve Sleep in 2020, says he has “never come across such commitment and motivation by store staff to do the right thing, and a lot of that is engendered by the family nature of the business”.

Thomas says that creating a congenial working atmosphere is a particular priority for retail staff.

“A common refrain among the top-ranked companies is the importance of the social environment and having friendly co-workers. Particularly for staff who are showing up in stores and warehouses every day, it’s extra important to have a supportive and friendly environment, both from senior staff but also fellow colleagues.”

Hopper says at Mindful Chef he and the other co-founders “have always tried to maintain the personal element and open-door policy we had when we started.

“It’s always been a founder-led business and the first hires we made were our friends, so we have worked hard to keep that camaraderie as the team has grown.”

Hopper says he and his fellow co-founders still attend weekly team-wide meetings, run inductions for new recruits, and regularly buy lunch for staff in their two offices to sit down and eat together.

“We are a food business and we like to think that food allows people to share experiences and talk,” he says.

“One of the great and unintended consequences of the recipe box is that it does bring families together more and we believe that can transfer at work as well.

“If you make a point to sit down and have lunch together you don’t necessarily just talk about work, you talk about your lives and get to know each other better, which can then mean you have a more positive working environment overall.”

Find your mission

For many employees across all sectors, Covid triggered a broader reckoning with their work, as demonstrated by the ongoing effects of what has been dubbed the ‘Great Resignation’.

Although that was driven by myriad factors, a desire to work for a company that had a higher purpose and made a positive impact became more important to many workers, and could be a driving factor in Mindful Chef’s rise to being the top-ranked UK retailer to work for over the past year.

Hopper says Mindful Chef, which has recently obtained its recertification as a B-Corp, has been “purpose-led from its inception”, which means “the people who come to work with us tend to view the role as having a higher level of impact than a regular nine to five”.

“Because we are a food business and the margins aren’t huge we cannot pay top dollar, so the people who do work here have to really believe in the mission. We get amazing individuals to work with us because they are passionate about the brand, either as customers or are drawn to our ethos.”

“Making eating healthy easier is the soul of what we do, but it always has to be done in tandem with having a positive impact on the planet and the society around us”

Myles Hopper, Mindful Chef

As well as baking sustainability into its modus operandi by working with the most ethical local suppliers and launching meal kit options such as low-carbon recipes, Mindful Chef reinvests into its local communities.

The retailer has donated more than 14 million school meals to children in poverty through its ‘one feeds two’ scheme; it runs an annual ‘reverse advent calendar’, which allows customers to donate their recipe boxes over the festive period to families in need; and organises an annual Mindful Chef Clean Up where staff take a day out of the office to remove litter from beaches or parks.

“These are all things that cost the business money but engage the people who work for it on a bigger mission,” explains Hopper.

“Making eating healthy easier is the soul of what we do, but it always has to be done in tandem with having a positive impact on the planet and the society around us.”

As retailers reckon with the impact of staff shortages and changing expectations about work, they could do well to take lessons from Mindful Chef and Tapi, and prioritise personal care, autonomy and a mission-led purpose to drive staff engagement and inspiration.