Rackspace ANZ: Australia’s Best Place to Work

Angus Dorney

Rackspace ANZ: Australia’s Best Place to Work

As general manager of Rackspace ANZ, creating and maintaining a strong and positive culture is a core part of my job.

In our industry, Rackspace ANZ is known as an energising and vibrant company that puts empowering people at the heart of our workplace and approach to business. Proof of this is that 98 per cent of Rackers (Rackspace employees) say Rackspace is a great place to work.

Last night, we were thrilled to be awarded first place in the Great Places to Work 2016 Awards for companies under 100 employees.

We’ve continued to rank highly over the past few years because our focus has never shifted from growing our workplace and the opportunities it presents to our incredibly valued, talented employees. This sees us constantly explore their experience from a productivity, creativity, happiness and client service point of view. We believe it is this commitment that’s seen us take top place this year.

While we embrace many talent development avenues as part of this approach, we also extend our services to community and workplace diversity initiatives, and curiosity and culture empowerment projects.

With this powerhouse of activity always on, we feel that what we do isn’t just industry leading but business leading, hence why every year we enter the distinguished BRW Great Places to Work Awards.

Last night’s acknowledgement is a true testament to the strength of our team and their values, this award belongs to every single ANZ Racker, past and present; for it is our people and their commitment to others, be it their teams, clients or stakeholders, that makes our local business so strong and prosperous.

So in the spirit of celebrating, I’ve pulled together a few highlights from our entry that we feel makes us unique but also proud to be the 2016 winners.

  • At Rackspace we launched the Curiosity Quotient to explore how the curiosity delivers a competitive advantage to those who challenge the status quo. Benchmarking our Rackers against all respondents showcased they were ‘highly Curious’ providing insight into how Rackers consistently deliver exceptional customer outcomes through Fanatical Support. We’ve nurtured this important trait internally by setting up ‘Curious workspaces’ to give employees thinking time away from their main tasks. The survey results also showed that Rackers felt valued and inspired with what they are able to achieve.
  • We have an internal diversity committee called Tandem, a group created by Racker volunteers, which focuses on equality for all members across work and social spheres including ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender and that directly involves Rackspace customers who deliver their unique stories and perspectives on what diversity means to them. We also enjoy 43% female representation on our local leadership team.
  • We take our culture very seriously and have a team of Rackers that allocate a percentage of their time to making sure everyone feels included and has a say. We’ve nicknamed this group our ‘culture instigators’. Most of these Rackers have been at Rackspace for a long time and are admired by peers. They offer guidance on the best way for Rackers to tackle situations, and also allow them to stay anonymous if desired. This is all while ensuring that awareness of particular issues is raised to the HR leadership and engagement teams.