UK's 50 Best Workplaces

ESD's UK director Paul Ruyssevelt believes that the nature of the business is one of the factors that has helped it gain a place on the UK's 50 Best Workplaces list, compiled by the Financial Times and the Great Place to Work Institute.

ESD employees can keep track of the difference they are making through the company's ‘Legacy' project which monitors the CO2 reductions achieved in its projects worldwide. The aim is to save 10 million tonnes by 2010 and so far they are on target. The company also reduces its own carbon footprint by using ‘green electricity' from Good Energy (a company that ESD helped to set up), minimising energy use at its offices and avoiding travel whenever possible.

Unavoidable emissions are offset through an emissions reduction project in Africa that meets the Kyoto CDM Gold Standard. Staff are offered the opportunity to offset their own carbon emissions through this scheme.

In order to get the best from employees, Ruyssevelt says that trust, support and encouragement are far more effective than unyielding management discipline. One example of this philosophy is the company's approach to working hours. Flexible time is available to all the company's 70 employees and several of them take advantage of this to fit in family commitments around their work.

This approach has not held back ESD's development, as sceptics might believe. In fact, its business has grown consistently by as much as 30% a year since it was founded in 1989.

The company has taken care to provide employees with a stimulating yet comfortable working environment. The head office is based in a converted 16th century farmhouse in a village near Bath where employees can enjoy the gardens and swimming pool, not to mention the services of a qualified chef who cooks up a daily communal lunch in the farmhouse kitchen. And everyone is treated to a stress-busting massage once each month.

Every year, staff from head office, the three UK satellite offices and three international branches meet up at an ESD retreat over a weekend in a rural location. It is a relaxed environment at which everyone is invited to discuss issues, address any problems, set the company's vision for the future and make plans for how to achieve it.

The retreat is valued as an opportunity for people to get to know each other outside the office. ESD's managing director Jeff Kenna also hosts regular parties for staff, family and friends and champagne celebrations for special occasions such as birthdays and weddings.

‘The foundation of every great workplace is trust between employees and management,' says the Great Place to Work Institute which compiles the 50 Best Workplaces List - and Paul Ruyssevelt agrees. "All our staff are consulted on the big decisions"' he says. "They know their deadlines and the quality of work that's expected and they respond very well to the trust we place in them. We all have a shared ethos in that we want to make a real difference to the world through our work in sustainable development and climate change.

"Working for ESD is a great opportunity for talented young engineers to do that."

If you're interested visit www.esd.co.uk