UK media agency the7stars UK Ltd said of this year's Best Companies competition: “This will hopefully be our ninth consecutive year as a Best Company, something that we are very proud of and – alongside our three-star accreditation in previous years – something we work very hard on to keep employee engagement at the heart of everything we do.”

The London-based agency, founded in 2005 by Jenny Biggam, Mark Jarvis and Colin Mills, has purposely built a culture that puts people before process and prides itself on being a business where individuals move forward fast. Clients include Iceland, Warner Music, Ladbrokes Coral Group, Nintendo and Suzuki.

When the first lockdown struck, one of the first tasks at the7stars was to make sure it could still run its weekly all-staff meeting via video link. This was up and running by the second day. And the senior management team all agreed that taking a 10% voluntary pay cut across April to June was in line with the agency's Do The Right Thing value, in showing support to those on furlough.

Employee engagement throughout the pandemic saw successful campaigns that included a brief to get Stormzy's new Vossi Bop – his first major release in two years – to debut at No 1 in the UK Singles Charts. He beat Taylor Swift to top spot.

Another undertaking was to publicise the Sandals & Beaches resorts' Turn of Year sale, offering luxury holidays to the Caribbean with up to 45% off. Despite uncertain times, this became the best-performing campaign the7stars undertook for Sandals.