Courier company FedEx delivered again in the The Bottom Line Top Ten Employers awards presented by PwC — winning for the fourth time in five years.

FedEx claimed top spot for 2017, one up on last year’s second place, swapping places with the 2016 champion, law firm Marshall Diel & Myers.

Chris Heslop, FedEx senior manager for Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, said afterwards: “We have a corporate focus we call PSP. That’s people, service, profit — in that order.

“Our philosophy is if we take care of our people, they will provide outstanding service which provides greater profit and then we can invest that profit back into the people so we get a continuous cycle.”

Mr Heslop added that awards like the Top Ten were a crucial yardstick for FedEx and other entrants, as well as for clients.

He said: “They are very important to us and our customers because we are regularly congratulated by our customers on placing in the Top Ten.

“It shows them we look after our staff and I am absolutely convinced it brings in more business to the company.”

Mr Heslop added that US parent FedEx regularly won awards in America.

He said: “We believe all that adds value to the company and the shareholders.”

Mr Heslop also mentioned the company’s staff in the hurricane-hit British Virgin Islands who used their logistics expertise to pitch in and help the relief effort “despite their own personal tragedies like losing their homes”.

Adam Richards, managing director of MDM, accepted the company’s award at the ceremony at the Hamilton Princess and Beach Club last week.

He said: “We appreciate our very amazing staff at Marshall Diel & Myers, so it’s rewarding that they appreciate us and they’re happy in their job.

“It also holds us accountable as employers — it was a great honour to be top employer last year, but it comes with great responsibility.”

Mr Richards added: “Our ethos as a company is very much being a family. It’s a cliché, but we’re a family firm and it’s important everybody gets along.

“I’m extremely pleased we’re here again — it’s an honour to be in the Top Ten and number two is fantastic. Hopefully we be back next year one place higher.”

Insurance firm Argus, also a regular in the Top Ten, took third place on this year’s podium, after placing fourth for the past three years.

Kellianne Smith, head of global human resources at the company, told the audience: “I have never worked for a company where the staff are so engaged and committed.”

And she told the other employers: “You are all to be applauded for putting your employees at the heart of your organisations.”

IT company Fireminds took fourth place, with reinsurance firm Hamilton Re in fifth spot and global drinks giant Bacardi in sixth place. The Royal Bermuda Regiment — the only public-service organisation represented in the awards — moved up two places from last year’s ninth position to seventh.

Major Warren Furbert, the RBR second-in-command, got a spontaneous round of applause when he highlighted the 30 soldiers deployed in gruelling conditions in Turks & Caicos to assist the hurricane mercy mission there.

Another reinsurance firm, Tokio Millennium Re, took eighth place, with car sales firm Auto Solutions in ninth spot and wholesaler Butterfield & Vallis taking the anchor spot.

It was the ninth year of the Top Ten Employers survey, which rates employers by gauging the opinions of its employees. The data analysis is performed by market research firm Global Research.

Jonathan Kent, editor of The Bottom Line, said: “A common theme for all this year’s winners is that teamwork is a two-way process and that companies who look after their staff tend to be profitable and productive.”

Jonathan Howes, managing director of Bermuda Press (Holdings), owner of The Bottom Line and The Royal Gazette, said the awards underlined that employees “look for more than profits and balance sheets”.

And, in a nod to naturalist Charles Darwin, he added employers who survived and thrived were not always the richest and the strongest, but “the ones who were most adaptable to change”.

Arthur Wightman of global professional services firm PwC, the survey’s sponsors, told the assembled winners: “The glue that holds us together is values and that’s clearly something that which holds your organisations together and that’s very important.”

Mr Wightman, territory leader of PwC Bermuda, and regional insurance and markets leader, added: “Diversity is the fundamental way to be distinctive and differentiate yourself in the market.”

To see a video of the Top Ten Employers awards ceremony, see the online version of this story at The Royal Gazette website, www.royalgazette.com. Read about what makes the winners great employers in The Bottom Line magazine, out today and free with copies of this newspaper