Ipswich Building Society, which has nine branches across Suffolk, has achieved One Star status in the Best Companies ranking of the UK’s top performing companies, based on excellence in the workplace.

It is the fourth year running that the society has achieved the accreditation which involves an independent survey of an organisation’s employees.

Best Companies uses the BCI Measure which is widely recognised as the most academically rigorous measure of workplace engagement, focusing on areas such as management, company culture, team-working, “giving something back” leadership and wellbeing.

The survey of Ipswich Building Society staff had a response rate of 85% and saw it maintain its high score for “giving something back”, in recognition of its investment in people, the local community and wider society.

Key community activity for the Ipswich over the past year has included involving staff in increasing levels of financial literacy for primary school children through is Money Days school programme, launching the free app “My Puppy: Maths and Money”, and tackling levels of homelessness in the East of England through work with charity partners to challenge preconceptions and raise awareness of the issue.

The society also improved its score in areas including “my team”, which examines how employees feel towards their immediate colleagues and how well they work together, “my company”, which measures the level of engagement employees feel with their job and organisation, and “personal growth”, which seeks to understand whether employees feel their skills are being used to their full potential and have the opportunity to progress within the company.

Paul Winter, chief executive of Ipswich Building Society, said: “We’ve worked hard to develop a great company for our employees as well as our members. The fact we were rated highly in the ‘giving something back’ category speaks to our ambitions to be the UK’s most socially responsible Building Society; it’s great to recognise our staff are fully invested in this journey.

“We’re also delighted to see a marked improvement in how our employees feel toward the specific teams they work in and the building society as a whole. It’s incredibly important to us that our employees feel valued and that they are able to grow and develop their skills whilst working with us.”