‘A great workplace culture is built on evidence, not instinct’ – Talexio Head of HR Jonathan Camilleri

Talent is Malta’s scarcest business resource. Every sector feels the shortage, and every leadership team is struggling to attract, retain, and engage the people their organisation relies on.

The companies doing well are not necessarily those offering the highest salaries. They are the ones that have made a deliberate decision to understand what their employees actually experience, and to act on that understanding with rigour and consistency.

Earlier this year, Talexio awarded its 2025 “Employee Approved Workplace” certificate to 14 organisations spanning sectors as varied as telecommunications, insurance, gaming regulation, education and hospitality. The list includes:

• AMSM – Alf. Mizzi & Sons Marketing Group
• Atlas Insurance
• BELS Malta Language Schools
• Enemed
• Food Chain Limited
• Hili Ventures
• Iniala Group
• Jatco Insurance Brokers PCC Ltd
• Malta Gaming Authority
• Melita Ltd.
• Nissan International Insurance
• Smart Technologies Limited
• St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation
• Vivian

What unites them is not their industry, size, or revenue, but the fact that their own employees have rated them highly enough to meet Talexio’s rigorous benchmarking standards.

“This recognition carries real weight because it comes directly from the people doing the work every day,” says Jonathan Camilleri, Head of HR at KonnektTalexio. “A company can create a compelling employer brand, but this certificate shows something that is harder to create – how employees feel when no one is watching.”

The certificate is earned exclusively through Talexio’s Team Voice survey, a 72-question, anonymous employee engagement tool. The Team Voice survey incorporates local benchmarking data, which enables organisations to understand how their people feel, not just in absolute terms, but also in comparison to similar businesses of the same size and sector in Malta.

Completing the survey alone does not guarantee certification. Each year, Talexio sets threshold scores that organisations must meet, and these benchmarks are reviewed and raised over time.

The survey covers diverse themes across core areas: leadership effectiveness, team cohesion, communication quality, reward and recognition, training and development, autonomy and purpose, engagement, wellbeing and overall psychological safety.

At its heart is the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS): the single question of whether employees would recommend their employer to others. This is a simple measure, but one that consistently proves to be among the most predictive indicators of retention risk, cultural health, and organisational momentum.

“Our data consistently shows that compensation is rarely the primary driver of disengagement,” Mr Camilleri explains. “What makes a difference is the quality of leadership, whether people feel psychologically safe, and whether their voices are actually heard and acted upon.”

The 2025 cohort reflects a wide cross-section of Maltese businesses. Roughly half of the certified organisations have more than 150 employees, while a smaller proportion have fewer than 50 employees.

The data behind this year’s awards reinforces a pattern Talexio has observed consistently: smaller organisations tend to achieve higher engagement levels, not because they try harder, but because proximity between leadership and employees naturally strengthens trust and communication. As the headcount grows, maintaining this connection requires a deliberate investment.

The business case for structured employee listening is harder to ignore than ever. According to Gallup’s 2024 data, only 22 per cent of employees in Malta are actively engaged at work – a figure that has remained essentially stagnant since 2019, despite the introduction of new workplace practices, hybrid working and increased investment in people programmes over the past five years.

This tells leadership teams that good intentions and open-door policies are not enough. As Talexio puts it, exit interviews only tell you what has already happened, and an open-door policy has never been enough to prevent a resignation.

What organisations need is a structured and confidential way to find out what their people really think, before they decide to leave.

“Having a number that tells you a specific team is 20 points below your company average is not just information,” Mr Camilleri says. “It tells you exactly where to focus, and it gives you the basis for a structured, evidence-led conversation rather than a reactive or intuitive one.”

For organisations that earn the certificate, the benefits extend beyond internal culture. In a labour market where employer reputation is an increasingly significant factor in candidate decision-making, the Employee Approved Workplace badge serves as a credible signal of what working at a company actually feels like, not just what the careers page claims.

Malta’s tightest business constraint is not capital or regulation, but talent. The organisations that will define the next decade of Maltese business are those that are investing now in understanding, and genuinely improving, the experience of the people who work for them every day.

Curious about what a Team Voice report actually looks like? Talexio is hosting a free webinar, giving business leaders a first-hand look at the Team Voice data, insights and reporting. Reserve your spot here.