If you have ever been hired by the White Knights to spy on the troublesome Black Knights in an effort to uncover their evil scheme, either you have a rather more complicated working life than the rest of us, or you were logged on to RuneScape, the online computer game. As well loved by players for its social networking as for its medieval quests, RuneScape has about 5m users worldwide, and this sprawling parallel cyber universe is based in Cambridge, at the offices of Jagex. Employees at the firm are largely young (their average age is 26), male (boys outnumber girls by 295 to 45) and keen “gamers” themselves, often having completed computer science degrees. It is an employee profile which befits the youth of the company itself, founded seven years ago by brothers Andrew and Paul Gower and Constant Tedder, the former chief executive. Jagex is a seriously successful company. Profits last year hit £15m. Current chief executive Geoff Iddison says: “I've never been in a company that's had such an employee-friendly package.” At 86% positive, just six companies in the Best Companies survey scored higher for staff saying people in their teams care for each other. Jagex received the 13th highest score for employees finding their teams fun to work with (also 86% positive), and the 14th highest for people feeling a strong sense of family in their team, at 78% positive. Junior graphics artist Daniel Judge enjoys the friendliness and individuality of his working environment. “We all go out together at weekends, I settled in so quickly. Everyone's encouraged to be themselves, whether you're wearing Doc Martens or a football shirt,” he says. Poker and role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons are some of the activities which employees enjoy together outside work, and the company is not shy when it comes to getting people together for a knees-up. The party to celebrate reaching 1m subscribers was held in a huge marquee in a field, everyone wore fancy dress and the fun went on until 5am. Last year the whole company went to Tenerife for a two-night break at a five-star hotel. Judge says the nice touches are appreciated. “I just had my birthday and got £60 tokens for Amazon,” he says. Baskets of fresh fruit greet employees each morning and everyone gets free gym membership. The company aims to be entirely carbon neutral by reducing its emissions and offsetting the remainder by donating to environmental charities. Employees are encouraged to cycle to work, an option made more attractive thanks to bike maintenance being carried out on site. Staff gave Jagex a 80% positive score for doing its bit to protect the environment — a top 10 result.
