Midlands-based floorcare manufacturer Vax has been named as ‘outstanding’ in ‘The Sunday Times Top 100 Best Companies to Work For’ list for 2014.The list recognises companies with the highest level of employee engagement, and Vax is the only small domestic appliance manufacturer business to be featured.
Vax UK managing director David Winterbottom commented: “Being recognised as an outstanding employer of choice is a proud moment in Vax’s history. The combination of increased investment in our product technology and continued investment in our people has resulted in a winning formula which has cemented our market leading position and created a dynamic working environment right here in the heart of the UK.
“Listening and acting upon what our customers tell us about their products has formed a major part of our recent growth and helped deliver exciting and innovative products which our customers love. By extending this feedback mentality to our internal teams we feel we have a good understanding of what makes Vax such a great place to work and what we could do to make it even better!”
Vax continues to invest in its engineering division and plans to recruit hundreds of engineers within the next three years. Vax is also tripling its graduate intake during 2014, resulting in 10% of its workforce consisting of new graduates, and setting itself stretching internal promotion targets to accelerate employees into leadership roles. Since January it has doubled the size of its contemporary head office in Birmingham city centre and started building a new state of the art distribution centre in Worcestershire, to accommodate the planned expansion.
HR director Kate Daines said: “I am delighted that this award recognises the extremely high engagement levels of the people who work here. This is undoubtedly an incredibly exciting time to join the business as we continue on our growth trajectory – the momentum is infectious. We have lots of opportunities for talented people: not only are we hiring hundreds of new people, we are also fast-tracking our talented employees through investment in training, development and talent programmes.”
President of the global floorcare group Simon Lawson commented: “If our customers experience ‘touch-points’ with happy and positive employees who are advocates of our business, they are likely to feel good about their experience with Vax and become advocates themselves. Therefore employee engagement will always remain at the top of our agenda for both our employees and customers alike. This award cements what we already know – Vax is a special business with a great team.”
