An acute understanding of the benefits of an engaged workforce has seen the Cheshire-based technology service provider leverage its Best Companies’ data to the fullest extent.
“We are businesspeople after all, and we wouldn’t be doing what we do, and investing as much time and effort into this, if we didn’t genuinely believe it had a bottom-line impact.”
Stephen Dracup, Chief Executive Officer, Chess
By focusing on the areas highlighted for improvement in its survey data, Chess has held a 3-Star Accreditation for 10 years.
Through working with Best Companies, the organisation’s sales results have been boosted by 20-30%.
Using Best Companies data has positively impacted Chess’ bottom line, with initiatives in place contributing to an overall improvement in business performance.
Recruitment and retention at Chess have been positively impacted by receiving Accreditation as a Best Company to Work For.
Technology services provider, Chess, values company culture so highly that it’s encapsulated it in a fully-fledged guidebook, known as ‘The Blueprint.’
Updated each year, the guidebook is Chess’ North Star and is shared with all employees to bring the company’s core values and principles to life, set out its strategy, and define the cultural differences that make it stand out.
And it’s this stand-out culture that brings benefits across the board to Chess, according to Chief Operating Officer (CCO), Stephen Dracup. By working with Best Companies for almost 20 years, the organisation has tangible proof that creating the right working environment has had a positive impact on its people, its performance, and its customers.
“We are businesspeople after all, and we wouldn’t be doing what we do, and investing as much time and effort into this if we didn’t genuinely believe it had a bottom-line impact,” Stephen explained.
“There’re all sorts out there to suggest that the businesses with engaged employees tend to do a lot better. I think it’s largely because, these days, most work is about collaborating. We're a professional services company fundamentally, and we need our people to collaborate with each other.
“And you collaborate much better if you're part of a team, with people you care about, than you would do if you were to collaborate with people who, you don’t have much of a relationship with. So, if you can get your people caring about each other and caring about the business and feeling like the business cares about them, then self-evidently, the business will perform better.”
“An annual heartbeat”
Chess undertook its initial survey in 2006, when Stephen, along with the company’s Founder and Executive Chairman, David Pollock, wanted an external validation of how its people were feeling, and a standard against which they could benchmark themselves.
Since then, the organisation has surveyed every year and has gone on a learning journey that has seen it progressively increase its Accreditation from 1-Star, representing ‘good’ levels of employee engagement, through to 3-Star, representing ‘world class’ levels of engagement.
“We felt like the regularity of the Best Companies survey was almost like an annual heartbeat, where the company had something to look forward to,” said Stephen.
“The data that Best Companies provides is really useful,” he added. “We sample people quite often here with internal surveys and one-to-ones, because it’s important to know quickly if the way people are feeling is changing. What we get from our annual survey with Best Companies is validation of everything we are doing. Typically, that means we will look at how the individual areas the survey covers, and we'll square that up with a lot of the questions that we're asking internally. And if there's a big mismatch, then there's something going wrong somewhere.”
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”
The data received from its Best Companies surveys is essential for Chess to plan strategically and enables it to put initiatives in place to help it with its mission of being ‘A great place to work, and a great place to be a customer.’
This, according to Grace Ingham, Head of People Support, has become instrumental in the company being able to react effectively to feedback and has been a pivotal aspect of it continually improving its engagement score.
“The Best Companies survey is anonymous, and it does give people a voice,” she explained.
“We encourage our people to answer honestly, because feedback is the breakfast of champions, right? People need to understand what that survey is doing. It's understanding the larger picture. Once you have undertaken your first year, you're setting yourself a benchmark, and for targets for improvement, especially when it comes to improving the data. And we’ve proven with our surveys that if people speak up, things will change, and people hold onto that.”
The result of creating an honest and open forum for feedback has had a positive impact on recruitment and retention of employees at Chess, something Grace says is instrumental in helping ensure the organisation has the right people, and skills, within the business.
“Being able to say we’re a Best Company to Work for is gold,” she said. “Especially in recruitment, it’s one of the first things we mention in the people team.
“We really want people to want to come and work for us, and they do, which is great. However, it's not something we take for granted. So, the people team, the leadership team, the board of directors, all our people work hard on our engagement journey. It’s about listening to our people, surveying our people, and keeping up with the trends.”
Data-driven trends
This approach, Grace believes, has been fundamental to creating a culture of openness and transparency at Chess, particularly when it comes to communication from leadership.
“At Chess, engagement doesn’t just sit within the people team. It comes right from the top,” she said. “So that’s why when we get the data, we share it. We speak to each different leader and show them their results. We then sit down with those leaders, identify the trends. It's a really good benchmark to say, well ‘let's have a look how we did against last year’. And see where our engagement focus has taken us.”
It is the strength of this culture that has enabled the business to grow, expanding its headcount to 250 people serving over 20,000 customers, as well as successfully pivoting to become a remote-first organisation, closing its physical offices in favour of creating mini ‘hubs’ across the country to enable its workforce to connect in person.
Tangible benefits
The result of Chess’ commitment to continually improving its culture, is helping it achieve tangible success when it comes to the way the business performs. For Sales Director, Oliver Lofthouse, it has led to clear benefits within the departments he leads.
“For me, there is clearly a strong correlation between the engagement of an individual salesperson and the results that they deliver,” he explained.
“And the reason that I say that – and why I think it's most impactful – is that we must empower our salespeople. We've got a large workforce that are spread across the country now. They're all focused on driving their own targets, and they do that in very different ways. And, therefore, you can't be on their shoulder all the time. You must empower them to achieve their results in the best way. So, as a leader, if that person is engaged, my honest belief very simply is they go above and beyond what they need to do. They come to work with the attitude that they know what they've got to achieve, and they're motivated to achieve it.
“My view is that if they didn't do that, we'd probably be 20-30% less effective in the way we get our sales results and engage with our customers. It's tangible to what I see in the business every day.”
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“Best Companies is effectively our benchmark”
As Chess operates in a fast-moving technology sector, with continual change and challenge, giving the best possible customer service is key to enabling it to continue to grow and meet its ambitious targets for 2025 and beyond.
For Oliver, having a unique culture and an engaged workforce, supported by the data and insights from Best Companies, serves as a point of difference in a competitive marketplace.
“Best Companies data helps me as it's a great shop window,” he continued. “When I sit in front of a customer, I think, what is Chess about and how do we differentiate ourselves in the eye of that customer? And what we have got to do is add value between what the product is and what the customer's receiving. And for me, Best Companies is that. So, whenever I talk to a customer in a proposal, I will always talk about the culture of our organisation.
“Best Companies is effectively our benchmark. It’s our measure to say we've got engagement, we've got people who are really aligned, driven, and motivated. And that for me, just gives the tick in the box for the customer to want to deal with us. We'll bring you the best product. We'll understand the needs of your business. But this secret sauce in the middle is about how we tailor those solutions, and that is all down to our people. That is Best Companies.”
To find out more about Chess ICT’s culture and latest achievements, please click here.
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