Announcing the Escape 100 2021

2020 really has been a year that many of us would like to have skipped past. It’s been a year of profound change, for individuals and organisations alike. Companies have been forged, companies have folded. We’ve been forced to adapt our working circumstances to a new homeworking norm, and our aspirations have changed along with our reality. 

While much has changed in the world this year one thing remains the same amongst this community, and has perhaps crystallised by what’s happened. We all want to work in purposeful organisations that are making a real difference in the world whilst truly caring about their employees.

But being a job seeker or career changer in 2020 is difficult. Figuring out where to direct your energies in the first place and then trying to identify which organisations might be the right place for you to pursue your dreams is challenging even at the best of times. Having worked with hundreds of thousands of job seekers and more than 15,000 organisations over the past 10 years, we know how hard it can be to find potential future employers that align with your values and are great places to work. 

That’s why last year we launched TheEscape 100, to find the most impactful and progressive companies in the UK (and beyond) to escape to. 

Our goal? To shine a light on the organisations doing things differently. The ones that really are progressive, mission-oriented, and care about the people in their teams and the planet around them. We didn’t want to figure out who has the biggest bank balance, the most prestigious investors, or who thinks great culture equates to having a ping pong table in their office. We wanted to find companies that really walk the talk, and live their values instead of just professing them. 

Our awards are completely free to enter because it’s not about the organisations that can buy their way to an accolade. Rather it’s about showcasing the organisations voted for by their own employees, and have been checked and validated as being genuinely progressive in their methods. The result? We started with 13,000 organisations, collected thousands of votes from employees, and ended up with 100 companies that are doing things differently.

This year our awards have a special meaning. In a year that’s highlighted how fragile our planet is, how important human decency is, and how crucial it is to be working on things that really matter to us and the world, we want to recognise extraordinary businesses in an extraordinary time.

How do you measure a progressive organisation? We’ve tightened up our methodology, added more rigour to our questions, and will be assessing organisations on 6 key criteria: Mission, Planet, People, Innovation, Impact and Bcorp status. We’ve designed a series of questions to help us to come up with each organisation’s Escape score, a measure of how progressive they are. We’ll also be vetting reviews from their current employees to understand what it’s really like on the inside.

We hope that this list will help all of you looking to find an organisation that matches your ambition and sense of purpose. We hope this list will stand out amongst the many others, showcasing those who really are doing things differently by walking the talk. It's never been more important for progressive organisations to be recognised as a blueprint for what a good economy could look like in a post-COVID-19 world.  

Anyone can nominate, and an organisation only needs one nomination to be invited to the next stage of the campaign. If you run or work for an organisation creating real impact whilst looking after its people, nominate below before Monday 7th December!

Help us spread the word and find those organisations who really deserve to shine, not because they have the biggest marketing budgets but because they really showcase what it means to be a great organisation in 2021, making the lives of their employees and the communities around them, better.

We’ll be sharing the winners for 2021 in February and will give you insights and advice as to how you can land an opportunity to work in them in due course.

Nominate an organisation you admire here.

Check out last year's winners here.