Flight Centre UK voted top place to work
Flight Centre UK has been named one of the UK’s leading workplaces for the sixth consecutive year.
It was the only travel company to make the list in the Great Place to Work annual awards, coming 20th in the category of companies with 500-plus employees.
The travel agency’s reputation was badly damaged last month when it was the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation.
Undercover reporters painted a picture of an intensively competitive sales environment within the firm, with staff under pressure to meet and beat targets.
It also found evidence of staff being encouraged to add hidden mark-ups to tickets and to say tickets are non-refundable when that’s not the case.
But Flight Centre fiercely refuted the allegations and said the views and recordings in the programme were not a fair reflection of its company culture or customer experience.
Announcing its achievements in the Great Place to Work awards this week, Flight Centre said it had been recognised as having a ‘high trust, high engagement’ workplace culture thanks to its £2 million investment in training and continuous development of its 2,000 staff.
The awards, which involve an employee survey and an audit of management and HR practices, are judged on five dimensions of the workplace – credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie.
"Flight Centre results were genuinely outstanding in every category, with scores soaring above the UK average," it said.
Tom O’Byrne, CEO of Great Place to Work, added: "It is a validation of the strength of their leadership and their commitment to creating the kind of culture where employees enjoy coming to work and want to do their best.
"The hallmark of a great workplace like Flight Centre is that their policies and practices are designed around the employee; this employee focus helps attract and retain the talent essential for driving and sustaining competitive performance."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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