Devon Air Ambulance (DAA) is delighted to have been ranked 15th in the Best Companies to work for in the UK Charity sector.

A staff feedback and engagement survey undertaken by Best Companies earlier this year has resulted in Devon Air Ambulance receiving a Two Star accreditation for the organisation as an Outstanding Company to work for.

Best Companies is the brainchild of CEO Jonathan Austin. He was inspired by a Servant Leadership conference in the USA in 2000, where he attended a seminar with the top 2 companies to work for in America at the time. Here they talked about how they attributed their over-achievement as a business to the level of engagement they had within their workforce.

As the owner of several businesses, Jonathan wanted to create a true measure of workplace engagement so he could learn how to build a happier, healthier workforce. The first step was to develop a world-class methodology, which he did in collaboration with academics at the University of Plymouth.

The Best Companies founder said: ‘We launched the first Best Companies to Work For list in 2001 and have continued to grow and develop ever since. Our Best Companies to Work For lists and Best Companies Accreditation are now recognised as the standard in workplace engagement. We recognise those in the small, mid-size, large and big categories on a national level, with recent expansion seeing us add additional categories by region and sector.’

The data that Devon Air Ambulance receives from Best Companies helps the charity to further explore what they do well as an organisation and embed their learnings into creating an enhanced culture, it also helps the charity to identify any areas for change, to ensure the organisation is creating a great environment to work in.

Head of people, talent & culture at Devon Air Ambulance, Kimberly Jones said: ‘Our staff are critical in ensuring the success of Devon Air Ambulance in providing exemplary time-critical care to patients and taking part in the Best Companies staff survey is one of the ways in which we can gather valuable feedback from our staff. We are incredibly proud of the results.”

Devon Air Ambulance CEO, Heléna Holt saod: “All of us at Devon Air Ambulance are proud to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the launch of our life-saving service this year - which would not have been possible without our amazing and dedicated people.

‘We strive to make this a great place to work, to value our team and invest in our culture in order to achieve our shared goal of saving lives. We are delighted we have maintained our two-star rating this year with some great improvements in many areas. We have worked through challenging times together, but our teams felt their wellbeing was looked after.

‘The next challenge is clearly going to be supporting our team through the emerging cost of living crisis. There are no easy fixes for charities like ours that are dependent on fundraising income, but we are absolutely committed to supporting our people through this so they can continue to work with the care and compassion they have always shown.’

If you would like to support the work of your local air ambulance, visit their website at daat.org