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Bute Energy rank in the top 100 UK Best Workplaces.

By Tom Callow

 

 

A night to remember

On 14th March, the team at Bute Energy were lucky enough to be invited to the UK’s Best Workplaces Awards 2024 with Great Place to Work. The event in London celebrates the top-rated workplaces in the UK, and we were thrilled to find out that we’d made the top 100 in the medium sized category!

The night was one to remember, filled with laughter and celebration, and a chance to reflect on our successes as a business and the journey we’ve been on as a team. The event kicked off with a spectacular performance from the London Gospel Choir, it’s not often you see everyone on the dance floor before the night has begun, but it was pretty impossible not to join in! Hosted by the hilarious Katherine Ryan,  the awards celebrate four size categories, and countdown through the top 100 for each list.

Bute Energy reached #72 out of the 105 top companies in the medium category, not to be sniffed at considering it was our first time entering. Would we have loved to be in the top 50? Of course! We’re a competitive bunch at Bute Energy, but what that #72 doesn’t show is a business that wasn’t even on the map a few years ago, a business that decided to take a leap of faith and do things differently, and a business that, after a few short years, is the only renewable energy business to be included across all of the Best Workplaces lists! That #72 signifies a direction of travel and a uniqueness about Bute Energy, and the momentum of our work.

What’s most special to me is that, to become a certified business and even have a shot at the top list, it’s all based on the feedback from our colleagues. The list isn’t compiled in order of which businesses paid the most to secure an award, the only way to make the list and determine your position is by comparing your feedback with other businesses who enter. 95% of our colleagues told us that, with everything considered, Bute Energy is a great place to work, and that means more to me than anything else.

I know what you’re thinking, he leads the People & Engagement team, he has to say all this stuff! But I’m not really speaking here as the HR guy, I’m speaking as a colleague who joined the business when things were still getting started. I joined Bute Energy in June 2022, I was 25th person through the door, and the 5th person to join the Cardiff office. I have this really rubbish joke about Bute years being like dog years (in a really good way), so although I’m only coming up to my 2 year anniversary, in Bute years that’s 14! I make this lame joke all the time, but it’s because the sheer amount we’ve achieved in such a short space of time is mind-blowing, I feel like I’ve lived through so many different iterations of the business whilst always feeling grounded by the end goal and our shared purpose.

 

“The Great Place to Work awards ceremony was a phenomenal event- grand, exciting and brimming with energy. The event itself reflected the work place culture that Bute Energy has fostered which encourages individuals to embrace new and challenging opportunities. Experiences which will not only contribute to shaping the future of the company but also influence the broader industry itself.”

Oliver Forsyth, Commercial Analyst at Bute Energy

Values that matter

When I started, we had four values, and an employee handbook, a relatively clean slate as far as the people strategy was concerned! Recruiting kept me very busy for the first few months, and through that, with every Monday that rolled around and every new starter that joined, we built up our culture, we defined what our values actually meant to us in practice, and we started to put the nuts and bolts of a business together, all doing our bit to create something that tangibly felt different to anywhere we’d worked before.

98% of our colleagues said you’re made to feel welcome when you join, and that’s because we were all the new person fairly recently! We know it can be a bit of a whirlwind but we all chipped in and supported each other, in those early days, recognising the culture add and different perspectives that new people were bringing and we’ve built on that as our team has grown. I cannot take any credit for the culture created, that is down to every single person who made the decision to follow their heart and try something new, giving a new idea and a fresh approach to the climate crisis a try. It was a leap of faith in its infancy, but for many, it’s turned into the most valuable career step so far.

So what makes the business a Great Place to Work? Is it the commitment and genuine care for the communities we work in? Is it the people, the internal community we’ve created and the way we show up for each other? is it the accessibility and approachability of our founding directors and their genuine care for the team? Is it people policies that are forward thinking and have been built in collaboration with our colleagues? In short… yes. Yes to all of it. Culture is super hard to define, it’s the way we do things, the feeling that you have working here but it’s not something that you can adequately articulate, but when we filmed our colleagues recently for our Great Place to Work certification, there was a real synergy in how people spoke about working here, according to our team it’s fun, authentic, exciting, innovative, bold, forward-thinking and supportive (to name a few!)

As with any business we’re imperfect, we make mistakes, we’re still growing and finding our feet, but one thing I can say (and this is with my HR hat on), we’ve got business leaders who genuinely care about people, more than anywhere I’ve worked before, and that’s half the battle won right there. You can tell a lot about a business from how they treat people when things are tough. I’ve seen some of our colleagues go through some really tough times, and I didn’t once need to fight to do the right thing, it just happened, because simply it is the right thing to do and that was recognised by our business founders without missing a beat.

 

“Working at Bute Energy has given me a real sense of what flexible working means and I have come to deeply value it. It is refreshing that the company recognises we do our best work when we can maintain a healthy work-life balance. This simple recognition has had a significantly positive impact on my work and how I approach it. “

Francesca Stuttard, Land Manager at Bute Energy

Belong at Bute

I want to end on a fairly personal note and talk a bit about belonging. This word is banded about quite a bit these days, you’d be forgiven for believing that belonging is the next HR fad or buzzword, but as someone who always felt a bit unsure of themselves, struggling to shake a lot of insecurities from school days and difficulties with mental health, the trust and autonomy I’ve been afforded at Bute has been nothing short of life changing for me and in the 2 dog years I’ve been with the business, I can wholeheartedly say that I am a completely different person than the one I was when I started. Sure, the imposter syndrome creeps in every once in a while, but my confidence is louder and I feel really lucky to have found this quirky, unique little place where I feel like I belong more than I ever have.

So here’s a little cheers to us! One thing we’re not so good at is taking a breath and looking backward. The sheer amount we’ve accomplished in a short period is nothing short of extraordinary, and I think this award gave us a moment of pause and reflection. I hope through the ramblings of a very excited HR person and the photos in this blog, it paints a picture of a business that the #72 can’t quite show you, a business that is about to start a very exciting new chapter of growth and expansion, and one that will see you in the top 50 next year!

Tom Callow

Director of People & Engagement Team

A Great Place to Work - Bute Energy

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