Member Article

Explore Learning named second best big employer in the UK

Popular tuition provider, Explore Learning, has been named the second Best Big Company To Work For by The Sunday Times.

Explore Learning employs more than 3,400 people throughout its 137 centres across the UK. It had previously been recognised for six consecutive years as one of the best companies to work for in The Sunday Times 100 Best Mid Sized Companies to Work For List but this year marks its debut on the list of 25 Best Big Companies.

Employees praised Explore Learning for supporting personal growth and wellbeing. The business was the top scorer for the fun factor with 84.5% saying colleagues were fun to work with and a massive 95% of staff agreed that ‘this job is good for my personal growth’. The provision of easy access to elearning via the company intranet, podcasts and books were also commended.

Bill Mills CEO and Founder of Explore Learning says: “This is a really fantastic result and a great reward for all the hard, innovative work by so many people to make Explore what it is. We all know that the main thing that makes somewhere a great place to work is great colleagues – passionate about what they do and supportive of each other – so this is an award for everyone.”

Explore Learning was launched in 2001 by Chief Executive, Bill Mills, who is still very-much hands on. The company provides English and maths tuition to children aged four to 14, working closely with local communities, schools and libraries.

An extensive talent management programme for top performers is in place, with 86% of those in the experts scheme, being promoted to Head Office last year. Every head office employee is paired with an assigned centre, which they visit several times over the course of a year. People said they feel a strong sense of family in their teams and say managers talk openly and honestly with them.

Explore Learning is currently growing at a rate of 20% year on year and in 2014 opened its first international centre in America, under the name ‘Explore Horizons.’ The business now has five US centres in Dallas.

Best Companies has been producing and publishing the ‘Best Companies to Work For’ lists since 2001 to measure and acknowledge excellence in workplace engagement. According to BC, each year hundreds of organisations from a wide range of industries use its employee survey to measure their employee engagement.

The responses from these surveys are collated and combined to produce an overall engagement score for each organisation. Only the organisations with the highest level of overall employee engagement qualify for the 25 Best Big Companies to Work For list.

This award continues a winning streak for Explore Learning as it was also recently named the 20th Best Place to Work For by GlassDoor.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Katherine Adams .