Atlassian tops BRW’s Best Places to Work list for 2014

IS THIS Australia’s best place to work? It’s got pool tables, ping pong, beer on tap, and even a ‘Mood App’ to keep track of employees’ emotions.

SOFTWARE provider Atlassian has taken out the top honour in BRW’s annual Best Places to Work list.

Financial services company Optiver came second, followed by IT company Salesforce, media buying agency UM and retail outfit MECCA Brands.

Atlassian, which also came third in JobAdvisor’s recent Coolest Tech Companies competition, has the best work culture in Australia, according to BRW.

Employees are given the opportunity to spend part of their week working on their own projects and have access to a ‘Mood-App’ which quickly identifies problems.

Executives have ‘open-mic’ time with employees, who are given time to help out a charity of their choice.

New hires are paid to take a holiday of their choice before they start, and graduates spend a week at the beach completing challenges and getting to know the company.

Where else can you drink on the job?

Some of the perks of the office include a drinks fridge, boutique beer on tap, a pick ‘n’ mix station, table tennis, a pool table, video games and board games.

BRW editor Michael Bailey said: “BRW identified Atlassian as one of the most transparent companies we have worked with and they have approachable management.

“But with a recruitment drive underway to more than double their size with the addition of 600 more employees this financial year, staying at the top of a jobseeker’s wishlist will present them with a new set of challenges.”

Seven of this year’s top 22 places to work are run by management teams dominated by female executives, including Estée Lauder and MECCA, stationery retail chain kikki.K, media companies OMD and Mindshare as well as charity Starlight Children’s Foundation.

Atlassian-co founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

BRW deputy editor Caitlin Fitzsimmons said: “An interesting shift in the BRW Best Places to Work list this year has been the inclusion of more female-friendly workplaces.

“Australia’s best workplaces are also more likely to have a woman as CEO than the ASX100 and 13 of the 50 had women making up more than half the senior management team.

“Gender aside, the workplaces that staff love the most have common qualities: bosses dedicated to empowering, training and valuing employees.”

For the first time, BRW has created a separate Best Places to Work list for companies of less than 100 employees.

The top five in that list were The Physio Co, Coleman Brands, SiDCOR Chartered Accountants, Maxus and Ansarada.

The IT sector dominated the list with 19 companies represented. Media and health care had five companies each, while advertising and marketing had four.

The annual list is a joint project between BRW and Great Place to Work Australia. This year 137 Australian companies and more than 28,000 staff were surveyed.