Employer of the year – CDP scoops Employer of the Year award in the 2019 Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards

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CDP scoops the ‘Employer of the Year’ award in the 2019 Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards

It’s official: Cambridge Design Partnership is indeed a truly great place to work.

CDP won the prestigious Employer of the Year award for 2019 at a reception at King’s College in Cambridge this month [March 2019].
“We’re absolutely delighted to win this award,” says founding partner, Mike Cane. “We have always wanted to be an inspiring and supportive place to work. This just shows we are getting it right.”

In the past year, CDP, which employs over 130 people at its Cambridge HQ and in the US, has become an employee-owned company. It’s a move which Mike believes helped to impress the judges. “We decided to become employee owned to give all staff the opportunity to share in the organisation’s future and help them focus on creating great innovation. Our aim as a key employer in Cambridge is to foster the skills and careers of our engineers, scientists and designers and help them to excel. 

Mike adds: “As an employee-owned company, the well-being of our clients and staff is at the centre of our business approach. The fact that we all work for each other collaboratively, supports our multi-disciplinary team based approach to innovation.”

Employees are able to contribute to business-related decisions through an elected employee committee. Mike adds: “As innovators, we recognise that our people are the real value in our organisation and the key to our future growth.”

The company encourages and rewards staff with a wide range of measures. These include significant training and career development programs, team-building social events such as curry nights, local community engagement and regular staff activities like daily lunch-time walks and spot prizes for success. “Above all, there is a real culture of staff helping and supporting each other to serve our clients to the best of our ability, which contributes to making CDP a fun and creative place to work,” says Mike Cane.