UM goes MIA in Best Place to Work awards as Fairfax sponsorship ends
The annual Best Place to Work Awards is no longer being promoted under a Fairfax brand after last year’s controversy where media agency UM was accused of “gaming” the system to win the under 100 staff category.
Group M agencies performed strongly in this year’s awards in both the over 100 staff and the under 100 staff category – but UM was not included on the list with GPTW organisers refusing to say if the agency had entered this year.
The awards were published in a paid insert in the Australian Financial Review with no reference to Fairfax after having run under the BRW banner for the past two years.
Last year’s awards were mired in controversy after media agency UM was initially declared a winner in the 100 people and under category for its national network, before it was then declared the win was for the Sydney office of the agency and the supporting BRW story altered.
Protests were lodged after other national agencies had been told they could not enter their local offices as individual businesses with Maxus, ranked 23rd, one of those challenging UM’s inclusion.
Concerned about the repetitional damage, Fairfax called on GPTW to clarify terms and conditions of entry for future awards.
“We believe the terms and conditions of entry can and should be clearer about eligibility criteria. We have made this point to Great Place to Work,” a Fairfax spokesperson told Mumbrella in the wake of last year’s fiasco.
Lovrencic
However, in a statement to Mumbrella today, GPTW managing director Zrinka Lovrencic, denied there had been any requests by Fairfax to clarify the rules.
“In regards to changing their policy, no such changes have been made, nor were changes requested by Fairfax or any other party,” Lovrencic said in a statement.
A spokesperson for GPTW went on to say that awards had always been self-published.
“We have no interest in discussing this further. This happened 12 months ago, and there are 50 companies that have been named best places to work 2016 today that we are focusing on celebrating.
“The partnership with BRW from 2009 to 2015 was for cobranding and first right to publish in exchange for advertising the study. It was a mutually beneficial partnership, that no doubt is a contributor to the success Great Place to Work Australia is today.”
The awards are considered an important staff recruitment and retention tool by many companies, particularly in the highly competitive media and IT sectors.
Group M agencies MEC and Maxus both led the way for agencies in the survey with MEC ranked 7th in companies with over 100 employees and OMD Australia came 10th in the same category, while Maxus came 15th in companies with under 100 employees.
Other companies in the media and marketing space which performed well included Salesforce which topped the 100 employees of more category, while Sydney brand agency Zinc 5th in the under 100 category. Meltwater was ranked 11th in the same category.
Fairfax Media spokesperson confirmed that the BRW relationship had ended and that the insertion of the awards booklet was purely a “commercial publishing agreement”.
I think if you look deep into your soul, SalesForce is not the best place to work.
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Wow! After reading your article I checked out the Best Places to Work website. What a great idea! I’ll definitely be registering my company for next year’s study! Thanks for giving me the idea!
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Wow! After reading your article I checked out the Great Place to Work website. What a great idea! I’ll definitely be registering my company for next years study! Thanks for giving me the idea!
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Wow! After reading your article I checked out the Great Place to work website. What a great idea! I’ll definitely be submitting my workplace for next years study. Thanks for giving me the idea!
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Working in media I am acutely aware that controversy sells but it should at least be factual, not easily determined as inaccurate. I was curious after seeing the above to explore further and see digs at BRW/GPTW in your publication last year. Forgive me for noting that the smearing of these organisations by Mumbrella comes from an organisation that, as far as I’m able to determine, run awards based on arbitrary decisions of who’s best in the industry, yet happily knock organisations that list best workplaces based on hard and quite unequivocal metrics. Sour grapes, unsportsmanlike like behaviour? Honestly, I think Mumbrella needs to do a little navel gazing and consider how it perhaps abuses it’s media position to knock those that potentially compete in it’s space. Notably, for an organisation that suggests inappropriate practice, you sure don’t go to any bother to publish how you decide who wins your awards. Hypocrisy, much? Care to elaborate who decides who wins your awards? I might be interested in taking part, if it were even the slightest transparent.
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Given the awards are based on employee survey, it would seem the majority of SalesForce employees would disagree with your unique insight.
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Hi “Jeff”, “Steve” and Anon,
I see you all share the same IP address, and don’t seem to have previously commented before today.
Funny coincidence you should all pile in on this same post, and all in defence of the methodology of GPTW. You must have a very harmonious workplace. Have you thought about entering some sort of competition?
So forgive me if I answer all of your points with the same answer.
“Jeff”, given that your colleagues you share the IP address with seem to know all about GPTW, it seems weird that you’ve only now had the idea of entering. But good luck for next year anyway. Three times over.
Anon, Are you arguing that employee surveys – where the staff know the results are to win a competition – are infallible?
And “Steve”, I think you’re asking about how we judge the culture category of the Mumbrella Awards. And yes, we do publish the detail of how we go about it. But in short, it’s this…
We issue a call for entries, including detailed criteria.
Then we put together a jury of the most senior, more respected people we can find in the industry. Here’s this year’s jury announcement: https://mumbrella.com.au/mumbrella-awards-2016-jury-announced-358915
Our jury then shortlists these entries in the first round of judging.
Then all finalists present live to our jury, with the jury having the ability to ask any follow-up questions they wish. Each juror then scores the entries, against the criteria, individually.
These scores then decide the winner. So no, it’s not arbitrary.
(As to whether we’re competitors, it’s ironic you should be complaining about finding it difficult to find information about the process online. As far as I understand, we exist in quite different strata. We charge about $300 per entry. Your site doesn’t say what you, sorry, GPTW charge – potential entrants have to email you for more information. But it’s previously reported that you, sorry, GPTW charge ten times as much.)
Any more questions, just ask. I think you know how to find us.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/i.....92/ff7.gif
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I see my earlier point stands. You criticise an approach that uses dispassionate measures whilst simultaneously arguing that you and a team of your mates making arbitrary decisions is fairer, after taking their cash of course.
Does this mean that the money I donated to the Clinton Foundation can get me higher in your lists? Can never be sure how far that racket extends so I thought it worth checking.
As for IP address, I share mine with much of Sydney’s CBD so I see what you did there. Clever piece of smear. I shall raise a beer to you this evening for you have made me smile.
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Hi Steve,
I think we can safely assume that you’re aware that people pay a fee to enter just about any awards. In which case you seem to be arguing that no award from any organisation means anything because it is “arbitrary”. Feel free to take that view. But the jurors – who are looking for the best and have no horse in the race – would disagree. And if you want to argue that a survey of staff who presumably want to help their company win an award is dispassionate and therefore better then sure, go ahead.
And as to IP address. Weird that if the IP is shared with all of Sydney’s CBD, Mumbrella has never in the last eight years had a comment posted from it. Until today. When we had three. All on this article.
I suspect you may have thought you were relatively anonymous on your mobile provider’s network and forgot to turn off your wifi, so tapped into your office network instead.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Oh I’ve missed this type of thread since the site redesign and the seeming drying up of comments, but the Burrows IP checker is back with bang.
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Hi Simon/Tim, just a nod that Meltwater were in 11th spot last night, up from 15th the previous year. 112th – not quite as Great a Place To Work 😉
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Correct CB and apologies to Meltwater. It was a typo. Hard to be ranked 112th in a top 50.
It has been fixed. Thanks for pointing out.
Simon