O2 named best Irish employer
02-03-2006
by Charlie Taylor

O2 Ireland was voted the best employer in the country at an awards ceremony held in Dublin on Wednesday.

Employees of the mobile operator voted their workplace into top position on the fourth annual list of the "50 Best Companies to Work for in Ireland" Awards, which are compiled by the Great Place to Work Institute Ireland.

The operator, which employs 1,700 people in the Republic, was awarded both the "Best Company Overall Award" and the "Best Company" in the "Over 1,000 Employees" category at the Awards ceremony.

The Best Companies study sets out to identify and recognise the most satisfied workforces -- and therefore the finest employers -- in Ireland and throughout the European Union. The Irish study is the largest annual labour force survey undertaken in this country with 4,000 eligible organisations invited to participate, and more than 100 Irish organisations, with a total workforce of more than 90,000, surveyed.

Qualifying companies were assessed by an employee survey and a corporate culture questionnaire which looked at the levels of trust, credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie.

O2 scored highly in the areas of relationships between employees and management, the relationships between employees and their jobs and also the level of camaraderie between employees. In addition, the corporate culture questionnaire examined the benefits and perks available to O2 employees.

"I am delighted and really proud that we have been awarded the best company to work for in Ireland. As well as being the only telecommunications company shortlisted, we were also given the special award of Best Company With More Than 1,000 Employees for the second year running," said Danuta Gray, Chief Executive, O2 Ireland.

"At O2, we are committed to ensuring that all employees receive ongoing training and development and we continually strive to offer the most flexible benefit schemes available. Our aim is to create a friendly working environment where people take pride in their jobs, in their teams and in the company and where employees feel that they can be themselves."

Other Irish-based ICT firms were also awarded for their workplace practices with Intel Ireland winning the "Respect for Employees" category and Google Ireland picking up the prize for "Camaraderie", which covers best practices in creating a fun place to work.

In addition, a number of IT companies featured in the 50 Best Companies including BMC Software, Xerox, Philips Electronics, Keyland Computers (the firm behind IrishJobs.ie) and AOL Technology, which was included in the top ten leading employers alongside O2, Intel and Google.

The top Irish organisations will now be considered for inclusion on the fourth annual list of the "100 Best Workplaces in Europe", which will be announced in Berlin on 18 May. Irish workplaces have featured prominently on previous lists, taking eleven places on last year's list, with MBNA Ireland named as the overall "Best Workplace in Europe" in 2004.