How Signature Dining climbed into the top six Best Places to Work in Hospitality

For Signature Dining, the specialist care-sector caterer, becoming a top six Best Place to Work in Hospitality in 2025 marks a milestone four years in the making. Since first entering the list in 2022 and placing 13th, the business has steadily climbed the rankings – proof that its culture is resonating across its 140-strong team working at 24 sites from the Lake District to the south-west coast.

 

Creating a cohesive, connected workforce across such a spread is no small task, but Signature Dining has built its success on openness and shared ownership.

 

Sales coordinator Sarah Hannon, who leads on the Best Places to Work in Hospitality survey, says one of the group’s greatest strengths is its flat structure and celebrating wins as a team. And for businesses hoping to rise up the rankings as Signature Dining has, Hannon has some clear advice…

 

Signature Dining has risen through the ranks since first entering BPTW in 2022. What do you think made you enter the Top Six this year?

We operate without lots of middle management. Anybody can pick up the phone and call Paul (Robottom, Signature Dining’s founder) or the senior team regardless of position. That level of access is there for everybody and that’s something that Paul is very passionate about retaining.

 

We also celebrate successes as a whole team – when Paul Levy won Chef Manager of the Year at the 2024 Foodservice Cateys, the team felt ownership of that. Any win is made to feel a team thing, because everybody is sharing ideas and encouraging everybody else. When one person has success, it’s everybody’s success.

 

What do you think makes a great place to work?

When you come to work feeling happy, appreciated and comfortable to be yourself, where diversity is embraced and everyone feels accepted. A great place to work will care about their people, supporting them not just in their work but in maintaining a good work/life balance and their overall wellbeing.

 

How do you get teams motivated and engaged with the survey?           

We engage our team by communicating clearly the purpose of the survey. How our staff feel about their work is of huge importance to us, and the survey gives them the opportunity to be completely open and honest about their role and us an employer, safe in the knowledge that their views are completely anonymous and that we will take their feedback, positive or negative, to continue to develop our staff care strategy and support our team in the best way that we can.

 

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