How the Top Employers Institute drives organisational trust

Its certification programme recognises companies with the best HR practices.

Trust is a powerful asset to have. The level of trust can determine how stakeholders such as employees interact with an organisation in the future, because the way stakeholders’ view an organisation’s motivations and behaviour influences their current and future decisions and actions towards it, according to PwC’s Understanding the Value and Drivers of Organisational Trust.

Globally certifying the top companies in the world for 30 years, Top Employers Institute has been a driver for organisational trust and has established itself as a global authority for three decades. Its Top Employers Certification is a global recognised certification of an organisation’s trust with their greatest assets—employees.

To participate in the certification program, an organisation must either have 250 employees locally or 2,500 employees globally. The company will be required to complete a detailed assessment of its people practices through the HR Best Practices survey which is split into six HR domains—Steer, Shape, Attract, Develop, Engage, and Unite.

After an organisation completes the survey, they will then be validated and scored by an independent auditing comment and be recognised as a Top Employer. The certification has three levels from Country Certification, Continental Certification, and the coveted Global Certification, each represented with a relevant seal.

To qualify for the Continental Certification, a company must enter a minimum number of countries on the same continent whilst to qualify for the Global Certification, companies must enter a minimum number of countries and/ or continents, and must certify in the country where their global headquarters is based.

“The Top Employers Certification certainly helps us to attract even more talent at PUMA. I think nowadays candidates want to see that you belong to the Top Employers in the market,” said Dietmar Knoess, Director of People & Organisation for Global at PUMA.

The Top Employers Certification shows that an organisation is a trusted employer and being trusted affects employees. According to PwC’s research, employees want to be employed by you and, once employed, are willing to go the extra mile. In a recent report, 92% of certified Top Employers have made use of their Certification Seal to attract and/or engage talent

The importance of branding
Being a trusted organisation leads to building a trusted brand.

The pandemic brought to light many questions especially for employers but the most frequently asked by employees was something along the lines of ‘What does this company do for its people?’

Aside from trust, building their brand as a caring employer with a strong sense of purpose is an asset that most Top Employers leverage on. Using insights from Top Employers Institute, companies review and update their employee value propositions to improve their relationship.

Currently, Top Employer certified companies’ branding focuses on training their employees on company values and making these values an integral part of the organisations’ performance management practices.

Strengthening global brand through people practices

The strength of Top Employers' brand is through its HR practices and this is where the feedback from Top Employers Institute will be important. Around 9 out of ten (86%) Top Employers in 2021 say that benchmarking data has helped them improve their HR policies to grow as an employer of choice.

Top Employers may share knowledge and gain insights through exclusive online and offline events with other Top Employers around the world.

Certified companies under the programme can leverage the feedback to bring an organization's people practices to greater heights by leveraging the opportunities to benchmark a company’s performance against other globally certified and trusted companies.