The Best Companies to Work for in Fashion
Methodology and Approach 2017
The Business of Fashion’s The Best Companies to Work for in Fashion 2017,
spotlights the top global fashion employers based on 29 different data points
and detailed qualitative feedback gathered from over 2,600 fashion
professionals at over 190 companies.
We required a minimum of 20 completed, diverse (location, job function,
seniority) and email validated responses for a company to be analysed in the
study.
We measured employee sentiments on 29 metrics, across three indices:
Reward & Benefits (33%)
Today, employees expect their compensation packages to include much more
than salary and standard health insurance. From stock buy-back schemes, to
extended holiday, health and wellness provisions and clothing allowances, in
fashion, the proportion of the total compensation package represented by
additional benefits can be unusually high.
But that doesn’t mean financial remuneration is not a significant motivating
factor. Salary was among the worst performing metrics in our study with only
58 percent of respondents reporting that they were satisfied with their
salaries. Employers should take note that there was a strong correlation
between those respondents that were satisfied with their salary, and those that
saw themselves as working at the same employer in two years.
Salary (19%)
Benefits (14%)
o Holidays, health insurance, flexible working arrangements, employee discounts,
transport allowances, gym and wellness, pensions
Leadership & Development Opportunities (33%)
As the generational makeup of the work force approaches a tipping point
towards ‘millennials’ (those born after the early-to-mid 1980s), offering
attractive development opportunities, as well as clear pathways to promotion
and career progression has become even more important in retaining top
talent. Indeed, thirty percent of survey participants said that opportunities for
leadership and progression were the single most important factor in their
decisions to stay at a company.
Thus, creating working environments capable of nurturing potential is closely
linked to a company’s ability to retain and empower leaders. According to the
employee survey, the best leaders maximise efficiency — achieving
organisational goals without micro-management, and, importantly, keep their
teams happy and motivated.
Direct manager's leadership style
Manager's interest in employee professional development
Sufficient involvement in company decisions that affect employee work
Quality of feedback from leadership
Rewards / recognition for high performance
Right tools to perform well in role
Opportunities for further training and professional development
Employee motivation to go beyond the basic expectations of role
Opportunities for career progression within the company
Employee understanding of how their role contributes to the values and goals of
company
Retention (Expectation of staying 2 or more years)
Culture & Working Environment (33%)
Today, top talents are looking to their employers to provide them with more
than just a pay cheque, they are looking to find working cultures and
environments that resonate with their personal values and interests. The more
that people can identify themselves with their place of work, the more
companies can expect to have happy and satisfied employees who perform
well in their jobs and stay on and grow with the company.
Indeed, as the need for traditional office hours and even permanent
geographic locations continues to shift, and employee sentiment is shifting
away from drinking culture towards health and wellness, imaginative
companies have an opportunity to distinguish themselves in the job market by
creating inspirational environments in which to work, which often have clear
benefits in the quality of output and overall efficiency.
Ability to form strong collaborative working relationships with colleagues in
their team / department
Ability to form strong working relationships cross functionally / with colleagues
from different departments
Opportunities to bond with colleagues outside of the workplace
General level of camaraderie felt within the company
Understanding of the company values
Belief that administration selects talent based on their alignment with company
values
Workplace enables best work in comfortable surroundings
Reasonable workload given role
Company pride
Recommendation of the company as an attractive place to work
Analytical Approach
1. Aggregate responses from all surveys/questionnaires and review data, ensuring
the number of responses reflects a normal distribution, the data meets the
required level of completeness and accuracy (adjusting and/or excluding outliers
and inaccurate values), and all respondent work emails were valid
2. Process each indicator individually, producing a standardised score (t-score) for
each metric per company to evaluate the distance from the average using
standard deviations and allowing each score to be compared against others in a
statistically sound manner
3. Assign weights to each index to ensure that no category (reward & benefits,
leadership & development, culture & working environment) could have a
disproportionate positive or negative impact on a particular company’s final
score
4. Calculate an overall weighted t-score by applying the weights to each
standardised index score summing to form an overall total relative score for
each company
5. The final 16 companies were top performers based on the final weighted scores
Data and Inputs
“The Best Companies to Work for in Fashion 2017” is the result of a rigorous
analytical exercise with direct participation from employees and companies.
Fashion Employee Survey: Surveys completed by over 2,600 current
employees from over 190 different companies evaluating employee satisfaction
across 29 data points
Company Survey: Detailed survey information collected directly from
participating fashion companies to help support the sentiments expressed in the
Fashion Employment Survey
