August wins at AFR BOSS ‘Best Places to Work’ awards.

Everyone at August is thrilled to announce we have made the 2023 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list, winning the professional services category.

The AFR BOSS Best Places to Work recognises companies based in Australia and New Zealand that push boundaries in workplace policies and practices.

Held annually, these prestigious awards uniquely acknowledge organisations that foster exceptionally productive, creative, and focused teams. The awards equally celebrate workplaces driving new, best-practice approaches to team wellbeing, flexibility, and equality.

From our team’s perspective, this award also reflects the important role of our client partners. Long term partnerships with organisations like Guide Dogs, Clover, Animals Australia, Care Connect, and Equal Experts—built and based on high levels of trust—allow us to trial new initiatives and explore exciting ways to work together.

We’re proud to score highly across all assessment criteria, with judges particularly noting initiatives that reflect our keen focus on team well-being. Some of these initiatives include:

• Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) which offer access to external psychologists and counsellors.
• A full-time performance coach as a member of the team to guide personal and professional development.
• A parental leave policy that provides staff with up to 52 weeks’ parental leave, and that does not dictate how that leave needs to be taken.

In speaking with the Australian Financial Review to discuss the award, August co-founder and team member Daniel Banik offered the following: “We encourage team members to express their preferences and are careful that all our conversations are devoid of judgement. Flexible policies like these are one of the reasons people quote as staying in the team. People feel that they can truly balance all parts of their life.”

“We openly talk about and encourage a focus on well-being.”

“We maintain a philosophy that if our team feels empowered, healthy, motivated, and is seen and heard, then collectively we’ll be better as a result.”

“Our average tenure has pushed out to 5.5 years from 3.8 years in 2018. We’re really proud of that achievement.”

Here’s August General Manager, Sarah, describing some of the policies and practices we highlighted as part of our submission:

How the judging process works.

Each entrant in the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work is rated using a scientifically proven methodology from leading behavioural science consultancy, Inventium. From a pool of several hundred submissions, a list of ten highly rated organisations is announced, with one winner per category.

Categories exist across a broad spectrum of industries and sectors, including:

• Agriculture, mining, and utilities.
• Banking, superannuation, and financial services.
• Government, education, and not-for-profit.
• Health industries.
• Manufacturing and consumer goods.
• Media and marketing.
• Professional services.
• Property, construction, and transport,
• Retail, hospitality, tourism, and entertainment.

For more information on the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list, check out:

• The official Best Places to Work website.
• The Best Places to Work editorial collection on the Australian Financial Review.