About Openwork Limited

Openwork is one of the largest financial advice businesses in the UK, with a strong shareholder base and a professional community of more than 4,000 financial advisers across the group.

Openwork have been ever-present in the UKs financial advice market for over 45 years. From their rich heritage, they have the know-how and experience to understand what it really takes to provide a secure home for high quality, customer-focused advisers.

What really sets Openwork apart is the charity work undertaken by staff and advisers - and even clients too - through The Openwork Foundation. Since the Foundations launch, they have raised over £18m for disadvantaged children and young adults both in the UK and abroad. The funds raised are distributed in the form of charitable grants to national, local and overseas projects nominated by their advisers and staff. They are proud to be a unique community - the like of which you are unlikely to find anywhere else within the industry.

Openwork are value led and proud of it. Their core values are Customer Centric, One Team, Right-Minded Thinking and Extraordinary.

“I am delighted that we have once again retained our 2 star Outstanding accreditation from Best Companies with our highest ever score. This recognises the tremendous energy and passion our colleagues have put into making Openwork a great place to work. In these challenging times, we are working incredibly hard to ensure our colleagues feel supported and to create an environment where our wellbeing is just as important as keeping our business open not only for our colleagues but also for our clients. We’re really proud of our achievements so far and we will continue to listen and act on feedback from our colleagues” - Philip Howell, Chief Executive

What is it like to work for Openwork Limited

Wellbeing

71% of staff agreed:

I am happy with the balance between my work and home life

Colleagues who purchased additional holidays, up to 10 days, via flexible benefits were able to sell back the additional days. Colleagues were also given the opportunity to carry over 10 days annual leave, rather than the normal 5 and use this across 2021 rather than in Q1 of the following year. To try and keep colleagues in good health and to help manage resourcing requirements, everyone was requested to take at least half of their remaining years entitlement by the end of September 2020.

71% of staff agreed:

I am happy with the balance between my work and home life

My Team

79% of staff agreed:

My team is fun to work with

Openwork held a virtual all-staff conference in May to replace the planned face to face event asking teams to join as a group to view the Exec recorded updates so they could all discuss the content together. Manager packs provided guidance and colleagues did slido surveys to create the interaction, using this technology to bring teams together. Openwork also changed their ‘Colleague of the Month’ and ‘Team of the Quarter’ to virtual recognition where they surprised people by inviting them to a meeting where the CEO and their area Director would join on the call and announce their win.

79% of staff agreed:

My team is fun to work with

Giving Something Back

95% of staff agreed:

My organisation encourages charitable activities

Openwork’s Foundation team understood the impact of the pandemic on charities immediately and in March adjusted the grant programme to be more flexible. Nominated charities ordinarily apply for a restricted grant to support core costs or a specific project. This was changed to also support applications for unrestricted funding up to £5,000, to help address the impact of the pandemic. The 2020 grant budget was increased by 25% to £400,000 and Openwork colleagues and advisers were asked to nominate the smaller charities in their community, that they would like to help. The Foundation team also contacted all charities who had applied, prior to March, inviting them to amend the purpose of their grant.

95% of staff agreed:

My organisation encourages charitable activities

Learn more about the 8 factors of workplace engagement here