Three leading registered social landlords/social enterprises have been named among the top 25 “Best Workplaces in Scotland 2011” by the Great Places to Work Institute.

The scheme honours and recognises organisations that have achieved outstanding effectiveness in HR and people excellence.

This the first time the Best Workplaces Programme has been run in Scotland and Link Group, Hanover Housing Association and Weslo Housing Management were placed 12th, 17th and 20th respectively in the rankings announced at an awards ceremony in Glasgow on 31st March 2011.

Participating organisations gained a detailed insight into the quality of their workplaces, making improvements if required and helping to attract new talent by highlighting the aspects that compare well against other employers.

Staff completed a short questionnaire about their experience of their working conditions/environment and senior staff also completed a culture audit survey.

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The Great Place to Work Institute analysed the data and ranked all organisations participating in the scheme based on the combined scores of the employee survey and management questionnaire.

Robbie Robertson, Link Chairman, said: "This is wonderful recognition of the approach that the three social landlords take to organisational culture, staff conditions and working environments, especially when times are hard and we could easily fall into the trap of lessening our commitment to best practice and staff wellbeing.

"It is particularly pleasing to receive this recognition not only for the three RSLs themselves but, by implication, the third sector as a whole in the face of such stiff competition from throughout the public and private sectors."

Echoing his Link counterpart's comments, Weslo Chairman, Professor Peter Robson added: "We are delighted to be in such august company in this our first venture into an assessment of this type and congratulate our RSL colleagues on their success. We're gratified that so many of our Human Resources policies and indeed our overall strategy in this area has been recognised by this award"

Andrew Aitken, Hanover’s Director of Human Resources said: “It’s a wonderful testament to the culture of the three organisations that Link, Weslo and Hanover have all been recognised as being ‘Great Places to Work’. We are very proud that we have achieved this accolade and my thanks go to the staff within Hanover for all the hard work. This award and feedback provides us with an excellent benchmark from which we will look to improve even further as we strive to become an Employer of choice."