Entries Open For The Sunday Times Best Places To Work - South Africa Awards

Partnering with WorkL, the employee experience platform that measures, tracks and improves employee engagement and employee happiness at work, the awards reveal the best places to work in South Africa.

Businesses entering will not only understand their own Flight Risk score, but understand their organisation’s overall engagement score, their Confidence in Management indicator, Diversity & Inclusion Indicator, NPS, their Six Steps to Workplace Engagement Scores and have their data benchmarked against global and industry scores.

Those opting for the enhanced option will receive their own personalised Instant Action Planning, Action plans around WorkL’s Six Steps to Workplace Happiness, Heatmaps on all WorkL standard questions, and the ability to filter results by several demographics such as age, and length of service.

The survey which entrants will send to their employees via a personalised link, features 35 questions centred around WorkL’s widely approved employee engagement theory: Six Steps to Workplace Happiness, which includes Reward & Recognition, which are integral to retaining talent.

Developed by behavioural scientists, data analysts, psychologists, business leaders, academics, and other independent parties, the survey accurately monitors employee engagement and well-being in the workplace.

To achieve a high overall engagement score, a company must consistently perform well across its six-step framework, encompassing: Reward and Recognition, Instilling Pride, Information Sharing, Empowerment, Wellbeing and Job Satisfaction Each of WorkL’s Six Steps consists of between three and five key elements, which are measured on a 0-10 scale.

The awards will recognise organisations with the highest levels of employee engagement, well-being, and satisfaction and businesses will be recognised by company size:

• Best Places to Work: Small Organisation (10-49 Employees)• Best Places to Work: Medium Organisation (50-249 Employees)• Best Places to Work: Big Organisation (250-1,999 Employees)• Best Places to Work: Very Big Organisation (2,000+ Employees)

Other areas that the Sunday Times South Africa may choose to recognise are:• Best Places to Work for Women• Best Places to Work for Disabled Employees• Best Places to Work for Ethnic Minority Employees• Best Places to Work for LGBTQA+ Employees• Best Places to Work for 16-34 year olds• Best Places to Work for 55+ year olds• Best Places to Work for Employee Wellbeing

The deadline for entry is 17 October 2025, with results announced towards the end of 2025.

State of work-life in South Africa

WorkL, which was launched in the UK in 2017, already holds data on the state of work-life in over 2,000 organisations in South Africa, which shows that the overall engagement level amongst employees in South Africa is a strong 76%, sitting just above global averages of 75%.

Managers are happier than non-managers in South Africa with a 12% difference in engagement score. The data also shows that the longer you are with an organisation in South Africa, the more engaged you are - employees who have worked at an organisation for less than a year have a 71% engagement score and those who have worked for more than 10 years have a 76% engagement score.

Lord Mark Price, founder of WorkL comments on the findings; “As we enter the second year running the awards with The Sunday Times, I am delighted to continue to help employers in South Africa to better understand their workforce as well as support employees looking for Best Places to Work. Entering the awards gets an organisation recognition as a best place to work and also will help them understand opportunity areas within the business that need addressing to improve employee engagement and experience. I look forward to seeing the results and recognising the winners.”

Enter now!