“Even in this year’s edition, titles will be awarded in categories up to 500, up to 5,000 and above 5,000 employees, both nationally and in individual counties. There will also be no secondary prizes such as the Personalist Award for best HR project or the Health Prize. We will also announce again the Canteen of the Year, which will appreciate quality employee meals,” Pavel Hulák, director of the Employers Club, approaches for the competition organizer, adding: “We are pleased that, thanks to a transparent and internationally recognised method of evaluation, the number of firms involved is growing each year in all

size categories headed by giants such as Skoda Auto, CEZ, ORLEN, Plzeňský Prazdroj, Vodafone and dozens of other, but also medium and smaller companies. Our competition is not a poll, but a really challenging examination of the specific numerical indicators of individual participants.”

For several years now, the Fair Employer awardhas had its firm place in the competition, based on an evaluation of the employees themselves on the website atmoskop.cz. But this year there is a change in categorization and it will be newly announced in categories up to 100, up to 1,000 and over 1,000 employees. And after last year’s successful premiere, the Employer of the Year award will be awarded for the second time in the category of state government, public sector and state-owned enterprises. “We’re seeing a growing interest in participating from this segment. Hospitals, state-owned enterprises and other organizations from the public sphere are reporting to us,” says Pavel Hulák.

Some of the indicators are evaluated by business line for others this division is not needed. “Division by field is not needed for CSR activities, internal promotion rates or voluntary departure rates, for example,” says Hana Farská, giving as an example the last mentioned: “He measures the number of employees who left the company of their own volition. The range of reasons may be broad, including dissatisfaction with pay, working conditions, career prospects, development opportunities or superiors. In the long run, an average of 9% of employees leave their company voluntarily in a year. For the best performing companies, the value of this indicator is below 3%, whereas we see a value of around 20% for companies at the other end of the rating scale.”

Elsewhere, however, the field of business or the number of employees is already playing a role.”Of course, it is not possible to compare in absolute terms wages at the dairy and IT companies. That’s why companies divide into sectors, such as dairies belonging to the fast-moving goods sector, and compare first within their group and only then with each other. This means that if the dairy is 20 percent better than other dairies and the IT company is 10 percent better than other companies in its field, the dairy will win,” Farska describes, adding: “If an IT firm invests on average 33,000 crowns per employee per year in education and development and the median IT sector is 30,000 crowns, the company achieves a score of 1.1 in this indicator. If a dairy invests 12,000 kroner and the median sector is 10,000 kroner, then its score is 1.2, and it comes out better from the comparison.”