York-based footwear company Pavers reflect its passion for providing comfort, value, and happiness to its customers; the organisation is proud to provide great jobs in a supportive environment for happy, confident, and upbeat employees.

Its people benefit from in-house training, external development opportunities, and other routes to progress their careers and build knowledge and skills.

Pavers’ care for its staff’s wellbeing includes signposting employees to Pavers' membership of Retail Trust, which provides confidential emotional and financial wellbeing support. The company has remained family-owned and run since its foundation in 1971 by Catherine Paver.

She took out a £200 bank loan for her start-up with the mission to find the perfect style for every foot. Her sons, Graham, Stuart, who is now the managing director, and Ian, joined the company, and what started out small at village halls and house parties has grown into a business that also owns and operates Jones Bootmaker and Herring Shoes.

It has 170 stores across Britain and Ireland and employs more than 1,600 staff. Reducing its environmental impact is a constant goal for the company, which boasts one of the North-East's largest solar arrays. Thanks to its installation of solar panels last year, both Pavers and Jones Bootmaker are carbon-neutral organisations.

Pavers Shoes took another step on the road to environmental sustainability last year by becoming a signatory of the United Nations Climate Neutral Now initiative.