You walk in past the vertical garden and colourful fish tanks that line the walls, grab a coffee from the in-house barista while chatting with the chef about today’s menu. Coffee in hand, you’re tossing up between a game of ping-pong, some chill out time in one of the hammocks or a movie in the 100-seat theatre room. Shrugging, you decide to head downstairs instead, so you polish off your latte and take the slide. Yep, the slide.
No this isn’t a luxury tropical resort or an amusement park. All of these are real-life examples of what Australian companies are doing to create more engaging workplaces.
While we’re still using the stairs to travel between floors, BlueRock places great importance on building a positive workplace that employees enjoy being a part of. That’s why we’re so proud to announce that for the third year running BlueRock has made the top 50 Best Places to Work in a nationwide survey!
What is Great Place to Work®?
The Great Place to Work Institute is a global research company that studies and recognises workplace excellence. Each year, it conducts research in more than 45 countries and surveys more than 10 million employees to determine what makes a great workplace. And what have they discovered about great workplaces? Just like a great friendship, it’s all about trust.
Employees are happiest at work when they can trust the people they work for, enjoy working with their colleagues and take pride in what they do. Managers, on the other hand, believe a great place to work is one where employees give their best, work well together, and achieve organisational goals.
Great Place to Work Institute measures trust from both perspectives, surveying employees using a Trust Index© survey and measuring the workplace through a Culture Audit©. These surveys determine the behaviours and environment that the most successful workplaces are built on.
Be BlueRock
BlueRock was born in 2008 when eight entrepreneurial minds decided to pack it all in, leaving behind the Windsor knots and corporate culture of the mid-tier accounting firm where they worked. They knew they could compete with the best and that they could have fun doing it.
It’s this foundation of fun, friendship and ambition that makes BlueRock so refreshingly different. BlueRockers are given permission to break the rules, and that starts with breaking the cultural norms of a professional services environment – you won’t find rigid hierarchies and inflated egos here.
Did you know that Larry Page dreamed up the concept of Google? Before developing the search engine, he dreamed of downloading and storing the Internet on individual PCs. Good ideas can come from unexpected places, which is why we encourage employees to break the rules and strive to innovate.
We like to do things differently and we don’t ask employees to jump through hoops to be heard. Got a million-dollar idea? Pitch it to the big boss. The entrepreneurial mindset of BlueRock supports innovation, so while you might want to save some of those dreams for your journal, if you’ve got a better way of doing something, you’re encouraged to pursue and champion your ideas.
It’s a family affair
We’re a family at BlueRock – our community of BlueRockers is built on positivity, mutual respect, support for one another and honesty in how we communicate. This is how we build strong and lasting relationships, both professional and personal.
And we like spending time with each other. Sports teams, yoga lessons, running clubs, book clubs, wine appreciation clubs, team retreats, board game nights, Mario Kart tournaments, or games of chess on our oversized in-house chessboard. If you can think it up, you can probably start a club about it. With almost 200 employees, we’re a diverse group with varied interests and passions, but no matter how niche the activity, you’ll find BlueRockers are an open-minded lot who are willing to give it a go.
“BlueRock encourages all employees to develop close-knit relationships with those they may not necessarily interact with on a day to day basis...all employees are approachable, whether it be directors or interns." – Ella Tankey, Receptionist
We're a diverse bunch
At BlueRock, each division is run individually, which means that each team can take full ownership of their division and the outcomes of their team.
This is just one way that BlueRock builds trust within the company.
Each team must be proactive in reaching their goals and are accountable for their actions. In return, each division is given the freedom to drive their own vision. It’s this freedom that drives BlueRock’s diversity. We give ambitious employees with different approaches to their workplaces the space to pursue innovation.
"BlueRock is a great place to work because of my teammates. I've worked with about 8 different teams, and this team & culture stands miles above the rest." – Hannah Rachmat, Digital Analyst
A company with a conscience
When it comes to building a positive environment, we’re not just concerned with what goes on inside the BlueRock walls. A certified B Corporation, BlueRock is a company with a social purpose . With B Corp certification we strive to create positive social and environmental initiatives that benefit our employees, communities and the environment.
We do this by working with companies that share our ideals. A bottled water company trying to end global poverty, a coffee roaster that offers work experience to at-risk youths, and a brewery that donates thousands to its community. We surround ourselves with companies that do good and we encourage active patronage of our clients and businesses in our community. By supporting local businesses, we create meaningful relationships, build stronger ties with our community, and enhance the world we live in.
Our BlueRockers rock!
We are so proud of our result in the Great Place to Work awards – it validates the effort our BlueRockers put into creating a welcoming, innovative and diverse work environment that positively impacts the BlueRock community, the lives of our clients and the world that we operate in.
