Tesco is most admired retailer

More than 30 per cent of retail professionals rate Tesco as the most admired company to work for, an online survey has claimed.

John Lewis Partnership and Arcadia secured second and third place respectively in the Retailer Reputation survey of 1,500 professionals, by retail recruitment agency Adgrafix.

Tesco and Arcadia were praised for their commercial success, while John Lewis swayed the voters with is reputation as a fair employer.

Marks & Spencer came fourth, followed by Next. Asda came in sixth, followed by Primark, Virgin Megastores, Monsoon Acessorize and Zara at number 10.

However, despite securing fourth place in the most admired list, M&S also topped the least admired pile.

About 37 per cent of respondents said the retailer was ‘too top heavy and bureaucratic’, while 28 per cent cited ‘poor leadership’.Another retailer facing prolonged media glare last year, Morrisons, took second place in the list.

Phones 4U, Tesco and Woolworths completed the top five least admired list, with reasons given such as ‘disregard for employee welfare’.

Adgrafix account manager Helen Jones said: ‘This study is the first of its kind and offers a powerful insight into how retail’s major players are perceived by a hugely important demographic, their own industry’s personnel.’