The UK’s leading Digital and Cloud Service Provider, ANS is delighted to once again be placed inside the top 100 companies to work for in the UK at the Sunday Times Best Companies Awards 2020 which took place at Battersea Evolution, London.

ANS focused heavily on staff engagement this year, taking all staff members to the Crystal Maze Live Experience in Manchester for a day of competitive fun, interdepartmental socialising, and team building.

The organisation also launched their first women in IT campaign, appointing an internal ‘Women in IT Ambassador’ to lead their efforts. As part of the campaign, ANS educated all managers on unconscious bias, trained nine women in data science in collaboration with Microsoft and partnered with fellow Manchester-based organisation, Tech Returners to help support their ‘ Your Journey Into Tech’ programme which aims to empower returners and enable opportunities into technology by creating accessible routes into business.

ANS also continued their charitable efforts, donating £142,188 over the course of the year to numerous charitable causes. One of the charitable highlights of the year came in June when 11 members of staff abseiled 195ft for Humphrey’s Heroes, an initiative driven by the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. All funds contributed to the charity’s appeal to purchase state-of-the-art MRI equipment that will revolutionise surgical care at RMCH. The organisation also partnered with Bridge GM, an initiative created by Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham. The program aims to bridge the gap between the careers advice and experience given to students at schools and what employers are actually looking for, reducing unemployment across Greater Manchester.

Commenting on the achievement, ANS’ CEO Paul Shannon said, “Every year I get to stand here and explain how proud I am and this year is no different. 2019 was another monumental year for the business as we continue to expand and grow our services. In October 2019, we acquired, Alithya, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 specialist to help boost our data platform capabilities.

In this fast-paced industry, and as we continue to grow and evolve the business, it’s a tall order to expect all staff to adapt instantly but time and time again, the entire ANS team astounds me by not only how quickly they adapt, but the attitude they do this with in what can only be described as true ANS spirit.

I am especially delighted to hear that 87% of respondents said they feel proud to work at ANS and 94% feel they are gaining valuable experience for the future. We also ensured the newly acquired Alithya team were able to complete the survey and have their say as new members of our growing team. The data we’ve received has been absolutely invaluable and will help us to continue building an even better place to work.”

The Best Companies accreditation focuses on Workplace Engagement as an integral component of an organisations’ success and growth. This year will mark the organisations’ seventh appearance in the country’s most searching and extensive research into employee engagement.