Softcat crowned second-best company to work for

Reseller joined by numerous channel faces in Great Places To Work rankings

Reseller Softcat was yesterday crowned the second-best company to work for at an event which celebrated a number of channel firms for their staff-centric ethos.

The Great Place To Work rankings, which were unveiled at an awards ceremony last night, place Softcat second in the category for companies employing more than 500 staff. It is the second year in a row Softcat was kept from the top spot by credit card firm CapitalOne.

Elsewhere in the large category, Salesforce came in third place, followed closely by Rackspace in sixth. Microsoft and Cisco came in ninth and 13th place respectively, while EMC and SAP popped up at numbers 19 and 30.

Tech and IT firms were well represented in the medium-sized and small categories too, with Autodesk, Intuit, Peer1Hosting and Liberty IT cropping up in the former segment and DMW, Fiscal Technologies, Orbium appearing in the latter.

Softcat, which has more than 700 staff and locations in Marlow, London, Manchester, Bristol and Leeds, also walked away with the Delivering Excellence in Leadership award last night, marking the second year in a row it snapped up the accolade.

The firm's managing director Colin Brown said Softcat's staff are central to its success.

"We tend to promote people internally rather than hire outside the company, which enables managers to relate well to their team, and it also inspires employees to work hard and move on up," he said. "Our managers and directors sit among teams 100 per cent of the time, and this approachability is key to good employee engagement.

"We feel privileged to have been given this double award, and I believe that this will further reinforce our sense of pride and satisfaction with our workplace – as well as attracting more like-minded people. We have always built our culture around the needs of our employees, which has proved a successful recruitment and business strategy; happy Softcat people result in happy customers and continued business success."