Wildflame Productions, the Welsh unscripted indie behind BBC's Bafta Wales-winning doc Strictly Amy: Crohn's and Me, has been crowned the ‘Best Place to Work’ in TV.
The annual report, compiled by Broadcast, puts the Cardiff-placed indie first among 34 qualifying companies, ahead of fellow factual producers MultiStory Media and Blast! Films.
The Talent Manager is hosting a Come Work With Us webinar with MultiStory Media North on 24 March.
The highest placed scripted specialists are Big Talk in fifth place, and Bad Wolf in seventh.
Wildflame chief executive Paul Islwyn Thomas said he wanted staff to feel “valued, respected and empowered”.
The company’s 18 employees, as well as the freelancers it employs, can access training through an NFTS partnership - a first for Wales - and select from a range of accredited courses across the UK.
Thomas pointed to a flexible working culture with no clockwatching and said Wildflame often provides an enhanced starting salary to help young people get through the “early difficult years” of their career.
Wildflame offers mentoring, enhanced maternity payments and hybrid working patterns and operates a staff bonus scheme.
The indie’s output also includes Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef for S4C/BBC4, DIscovery+/Channel 5 co-pro Yellowstone: the Supervolcano; BBC Wales' The 1900 Island and C5 series Michael Ball’s Wonderful Wales.
The Best Places to Work report also contains a focus on how the indies treat the “extendedfamily” of freelancers in their employ.
The Garden, for example, operates a “buddy system” that pairs a freelancer with a member of staff, while Stellify offers freelancers training, mental health support, careers advice and shadowing.
Strawberry Blond, which also makes the longlist, continued to pay freelancers during lockdown, when they were unable to work, while Raise the Proof offers production training for freelancers to get acquainted with the company’s culture.
The Best Places to Work’s top 10 in full:
Wildflame Productions
MultiStory Media
Blast! Films
Stellify
Big Talk Productions
The Garden
Bad Wolf
Sidney Street
Workerbee TV
Air TV
To see the report in full, click here
