The big picture: Employers guide 2008

This year’s good employers guide has expanded to 75 firms. The largest category was the general consultants, 27 of which made the final cut. The second highest was the architects, which were relatively over-represented with 20 firms. There were 15 consulting engineers, but only 13 contractors and housebuilders. In fact, Weston Homes was the only housebuilder to be included; there were nine firms that could be described as main contractors and only three subcontractors.

This is a striking discrepancy, given the structure of the construction industry. It may reflect the fact that we could not reach site-based staff without email addresses, which would make it harder for smaller specialists to enter. In the case of housebuilders, it probably indicates that companies’ HR policies are not a top priority at the moment.

Employees survey

Looking at the industry as a whole, it’s clear that employees in the best managed companies have a high opinion of their employers (see table attached). In particular, they are happy with their companies’ social responsibility and their own ability to contribute. The contractors feel especially warmly about their firm’s integrity: the average score was 7.9 out of 10, the highest in the table. The weak area for this group was working smarter and, indeed, there is a perception among commentators that there is a lack of work–life balance in the contracting sector.

Architects are equal first when it comes to feeling good, but surprisingly, perhaps, mark their companies down on inspiration, which is their stock in trade.

Engineers are delighted by their ability to contribute, and come equal first for the feel good factor, but as with the other professions, they are least happy with their leadership.

The general consultants have the lowest average scores, and are least happy about leadership within their organisations – the average score of 5.5 is the lowest in the table.

When it comes to searching for the happiest employees, it seems they are most likely to work in a medium-sized firm, presumably because they are large enough to work on exciting projects but retain some of the camaraderie and smarter working patterns of smaller firms. Of the top five firms ranked by employees’ responses, 13 out of 20 are medium-sized (defined as having between 51 and 250 staff).

Employees of smaller firms are next in the happiness league, with larger firms lagging behind.

Female employees

The table shows that women are still grossly under-represented, even among the industry’s best employers. The average percentage of female non-support staff among the contractors was 10%. Engineers were a little better, with 13%, and general consultants employed 14%. The exception was architecture, where 27% of all employees are female. These averages are slightly distorted by a few firms that employed rather more women than others, such as Lakehouse (18%) and Price & Myers (22%). Among the large surveyors, Turner & Townsend (30%) had the best balanced workforce, and the firms closest to an equal split were two architects: Quattro and Shepheard Epstein Hunter (both with 42%).

But if we look at the number of female architects who are equity partners, David Morley and Pozzoni come out on top with four apiece. Elsewhere they are thin on the ground: 37 firms, more than half the table, have no female equity partners. The entirely exceptional outfit here is Max Fordham, which has 18 female partners out of 156 staff, compared with the next highest, EC Harris, which has seven out of 2,751 staff.

On average, contractors had fewer than one female in an executive role, architects had one and a half, engineers had two (although this score was affected by Max Fordham) and the other consultants averaged three.

Family life

As for maternity benefits, two firms stand out: Lakehouse (18% female) and Rogers Stirk Harbour (33% female) offer a year’s full pay, which is exceptionally generous compared with industry norms. RSH+P is also top for paternity benefits: it offers four weeks at full pay, twice as much as any other firm. Eleven firms offer two weeks paternity leave at full pay, and 38 offer no enhanced benefits.

There is some correlation between maternity pay and the number of women employed, but unfortunately it is a negative one: architects, which have the highest percentage of female workers, are the least likely to offer enhanced maternity benefits (six out of the 20 do). On the other hand, they are the most likely to offer employees childcare vouchers (nine out of 20) and are the most receptive to part-time working (15 out of 20), followed by the engineers (nine out of 15). The most imaginative, or at least unusual, offer is Carey Jones’ “paid IVF leave” for its staff.

Cars, holidays and pensions

Cars are handed out fairly generously by the industry in general, and by the consultants in particular (all but one firm offer a car or petrol allowance to all or some of their staff). The architects are the least likely to offer a car, but two of them, David Morley and Taylor Young, offer them to all staff.

On average, each category of firm offers about the same amount of holiday: consultants get 28 days, architects and contractors 26 and engineers 25. However there are wide differences between individual firms: Faithful + Gould is the most generous with 40 days a year, followed by Carey Jones with 38 and John Rowan and Partners with 37. Fourth place is Gentoo, which gives 34, considerably more than the other contractors.

Few firms do not offer a pension: 67 of the 75 offer one to all staff, four offer one to some staff and four offer none. Of the 71 firms that have pension plans, 17 are non-contributory. The most generous profession by far is contracting: five out of 13 offer non-contributory pensions compared with three out of 20 architects, six out of 27 consultants and three out of 15 engineers. A final salary pension, which was relatively common in the industry 10 years ago, is now only offered by Gentoo.

Training

This year’s questionnaire asked firms how much training they gave their staff a year, and how much they spent on it. The average number of hours by profession were 28 for contractor, 32 for consultants, 35 for engineers and 40 for architects.

Again, these averages conceal a wide range of answers between firms. For example, contractor Leadbitter offers many more hours than any other contractor: 80, compared with second place Swift Horsman’s 46.

The group of firms that place the most emphasis on training are the large consultants. Of the six firms that spend more than £2,000 per staff member, three were large consultants. EC Harris (top with £3,500), Rider Levett Bucknall (third with £2,500) and Davis Langdon (fifth with £2,217). The other high spending firms were AA Projects (£3,255), Curtins Consulting (£2,348) and Taylor Young (£2,126). This may reflect the large consultants’ drive to expand by sector and by region, both of which call for extensive and intensive training. Overall, the consultants spend the most on training (£1,069) and contractors the least (£654)

At the other end of the scale, 10 of the top 75 offered fewer than 10 hours a year and six spent less than £300 per head. The average spend was £856.