Watt lands CEO award with backing of Softcat staff

The channel prides itself on being a positive place to work and at various opportunities gets the chance to talk of placements on public workplace ranking schemes that underline that commitment to a positive working culture.

Last month, Insight, which recently achieved third place overall in Great Place to Work’s 2021 UK’s best workplaces (large category), shared its views about why that mattered to staff and prospects – and now Softcat finds itself in a similar position to talk about its achievements.

The channel player’s CEO, Graeme Watt, has picked up a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award that honours Top CEOs in 2021.

Watt came third on the list, which was based on anonymous and voluntary reviews shared by Softcat employees on Glassdoor over the past year.

Staff get the chance to rate several factors that relate to their working experience, including some of their views on the CEO and whether or not they approve of the direction the CEO is heading in.

Softcat prides itself on its culture and has a strong reputation across the industry for its positive attitude to staff and strong graduate programmes.

“This has been a challenging and extraordinary year for everyone in all walks of life and I am extremely proud of how our Softcat team have responded and risen to the challenges,” said Watt. “I am chuffed to be the recipient of this rating, but it is really a positive and welcome reflection of how our senior leadership team and the entire company pull together in normal times and particularly during the pandemic.

“Our company ethos is about driving the highest levels of employee motivation and engagement which, in turn, enables us to deliver an outstanding customer experience. This is a vote of confidence in the team at Softcat.”

Softcat recently revealed plans to bolster its sustainable ambitions and has been supporting its staff throughout the pandemic.

“Company leaders around the world felt the ground shake as Covid-19 threatened the health, safety and wellbeing of employees and laid a new foundation for the future of work,” said Christian Sutherland-Wong, Glassdoor CEO. “Through a challenging year, it is inspiring to see Top CEOs who, according to their employees, adapted to change, redefined visions and led transparently while putting the health and safety of employees at the forefront.”

Watt was only pipped to the top by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in second and BlackRock boss Laurence Fink. Other industry mentions on the list included Michael Dell in 11th place, Mike Norris of Computacenter in 12th, Marc Benioff at Salesforce in 13th and HPE leader Antonio Neri at 16th.