The state of the workplace remains one of the key drivers of reputation among the UK’s largest companies, according to new research from global business consultancy Reputation Institute.

The UK RepTrak™ 2013 study saw John Lewis emerge with the highest workplace reputation, followed by Selfridges and Marks and Spencer. Engineering company Dyson came fourth and Waitrose – part of the John Lewis Partnership – came fifth. Ryanair and G4S were ranked at the bottom.

Broken down by sector, the consumer product industry scored the highest on workplace reputation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the banking industry came at the bottom.

The study’s approach to measuring workplace quality focused on two parts:

• The ‘emotional connection’ – esteem, trust, admire, feeling
• The ‘rational explanation’ – leadership, performance, product/services, innovation, workplace, governance and censorship.

The annual UK RepTrak study was based on over 11,000 interviews with consumers across the UK and aims to gauge public attitudes to corporations. Close to 180 companies, across 18 industries, were included in the study.

The RepTrak study was also conducted globally, with some interesting conclusions:

• Just 53 percent of C-level executives believe reputation increases sales and revenue
• A five point increase in reputation increases customer recommendations by seven percent
• Consumers are 55 percent less likely to recommend foreign companies
• Just 16 of the top ranked 100 companies have a stronger reputation globally than in their home country

This study supports the trend for HR to increasingly liaise with PR because workforce perception has such a strong effect on reputation. Workforce perception is, however, just one of the ‘new’ factors consumers increasingly use to make purchasing decisions, alongside sustainability of operations and quality of CSR initiatives.