CASE STUDY: CHARLIE BIGHAM’S
CLOSING THE GAPS THROUGH SKILLS INVESTMENT
Journey From
Rank 72 To Top 20 UK’s Best Workplaces™ (Large)
CONSTRUCTION, ENGINEERING & PROPERTY • MANUFACTURING, PRODUCTION & TRANSPORTATION
Closing the gaps through skills investment
Proving the power of listening to your people
2024-2025 Charlie Bigham’s jumps up a massive 53 places – from rank 72 in 2024, to rank 19 on the 2025 UK’s Best Workplaces List (Large)! It starts with great leadership Leaders at Charlie Bigham’s strive to ensure colleagues consistently feel that management is approachable and shows a sincere interest in them as people, not just employees. They seek to make the company a place where employees agree people can be themselves at work; that special events are celebrated by leaders; and management shows appreciation for hard work and extra effort. In their high-trust environment, colleagues willingly help others, even when it’s not their job to do so; feel
supported by and trust their immediate managers; and go the extra mile for their customers. “We don’t just want people to like working here,” says CEO Patrick Cairns. “We want them to LOVE working here.” Key results In 2024, Charlie Bigham’s saw a remarkable alignment between its thriving workplace culture and financial performance. Several Trust Index survey scores, based on employee feedback, rose by up to 9 points, including employees’ intent to stay. This cultural momentum translated into tangible business results: seeing growth in revenue (climbing by 8.8% to £144.3 million), profit, and EBITDA. The data paints a compelling picture: when people feel valued, supported, and inspired at work, the business thrives.
For close to a decade, Charlie Bigham’s has been on a journey of growth, innovation, and most importantly, trust. Since 2018, the company has partnered with Great Place To Work® to continuously measure and improve its workplace culture, recognising that a great employee experience is the key to prolonged business success – and it shows! 2018 Charlie Bigham’s begins partnering with Great Place To Work to measure and improve its workplace culture. 2021 The company is recognised on the UK’s Best Workplaces™ List for the first time. 2022 Charlie Bigham’s is recognised on three lists in the same year: UK’s Best Workplaces, UK’s Best Workplaces for Wellbeing, and UK’s Best Workplaces for Women. 2023 Alongside recognition on multiple UK’s Best Workplaces Lists, the company sees improvement of 5 percentage points or more on over three-quarters of their Trust Index employee survey statements.
Manufacturing, production and transportation is an essential sector, collectively supporting around 2.6 million jobs across the UK. But ongoing challenges from Brexit, increasing automation, and competition from other countries (such as Taiwan, India and Germany) have all impacted growth – with the CIPD reporting a 27% average employee turnover for
manufacturing and production, and 30% average turnover for transportation. Equally, according to the CITB’s latest Construction Workforce Outlook, UK construction is forecast to grow by just 1.6% in 2025, with a need to recruit 239,300 extra workers over the next five years to meet demand. Moreover, a UK Labour Market Report by KPMG and
REC found that job insecurity and redundancies in engineering have led to candidate availability rising to its highest rate since 2020. Alongside a rising demand for talent, the sector is losing experienced workers to retirement at a faster rate than it can replace them – with 38% of the workforce aged 50 and over, and only 17% under 30, according to the ECITB 2024 Workforce Census.
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20 uk_info@greatplacetowork.com
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