THE happiest workplaces are those where two-thirds of the senior managers are women, research for The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For shows.

In companies with plenty of female executives, employees are more satisfied with their managers, their personal growth and their colleagues.

The findings are derived from this year’s survey which canvassed the views of more than 86,500 employees across 522 companies. It is the most comprehensive barometer of workplace mood in the UK and the results are published today in two supplements to The Sunday Times.

Employees rated their companies in eight areas covering leadership, wellbeing, managers, teams, the firm overall, pay and benefits, personal growth, and social responsibility. The 48 firms where women occupy more than 60% of senior roles scored much better for having good managers, a good record for personal development and strong team relationships.

The more senior managers who were women, the better the company scored, though when the entire senior management was female, scores declined again.

When staff were asked if they thought their manager cared about them, companies with more than two-thirds of their senior executives women scored the best. The same was true when staff were asked about whether their manager praised them for doing good work.

Claire Owen, 43, managing director of Stopgap, a marketing and recruitment consultancy in Richmond, southwest London, holds the Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies To Work For award for leadership. “Women put others first; they don’t have the ego,” she says. “Ego is so destructive to a positive working environment. The other E word is emotions. I think men either aren’t in touch with their emotional side or certainly are not very good at talking about emotions.”

Pete Bradon, research manager at Best Companies, says: “Those companies with a higher proportion of women than the norm are outperforming the others in a significant number of areas.”

However, men remain predominant in senior roles. Among the 100 best medium-sized companies, just five are headed by a woman, and only 41 have more than a third of top positions filled by women.

This is partly because on five other measures in the study — including leadership and social responsibility — the balance between men and women in senior management had no impact on overall performance.

At the accountancy firm KPMG, senior management is just 21% female, but this did not prevent it being voted best big company to work for this year.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Oh no, Mr Darling: you have failed
• BBC survives dogfight over Kennel Club expose
• Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone