Tax Traders and Taxi have been named the country’s best place to work.
The Best Places to Work programme evaluates employers and workplace culture through confidential employee feedback and surveys.
Tax Traders and Taxi, founded by Josh and Nicola Taylor, took the overall award and the small workplace category on Thursday night.
The businesses combine provisional tax solutions through Tax Traders with access to working capital through Taxi.
Staff are offered support with childcare and school holiday programmes, and help with getting to work. The business also distributes 20 percent of net profits equally among staff regardless of their role. Pay decisions are made through one-to-one conversations and personalised letters outlining contributions to the business. It invests 9.5 percent of its total budget in staff wellbeing.
Best Places to Work chief executive Julie Gill said the business had been through a difficult commercial period but had remained transparent with employees, involved them in decisions about what should happen next and continued investing in wellbeing, development and culture.
“When conditions get tough, the choices leaders make tell people whether the organisation’s values hold up under pressure,” Gill said.
“It’s not about the perks or programmes or policies, it’s actually about what people experience every day … also it’s about the values that show up in the decisions and leaders who build that trust and feedback, and they want to see that lead to action.”
Other category winners included Auckland civil engineering company March Cato, Presbyterian Support East Coast’s social services across Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, and GO Rentals.
She said the programme’s research had found people wanted recognition at work and openness from leadership.
“When people found their feedback was valued and actually led to change, 81 percent said they would recommend their organisation as a place to work. Simple things can be quite powerful at the same time.”
The 2026 employee experience survey results showed 62 percent of employees selected work-life balance among their top three priorities, while 84 percent rated flexibility favourably.
“The results also ask employers to look closely at whether their actions match their values,” Gill said.
“Do leaders follow through? Do those values guide difficult decisions? Those experiences shape whether people trust an organisation and feel confident recommending it.”
But just 48 percent of employees surveyed said their employer had prepared them for the changes AI would bring. Preparedness was associated with a different view of the employer: 70 percent of employees who felt prepared for AI would recommend their organisation.
Gill said the programme was about continuous improvement.
“The heart of the Best Places to Work programme is the employee experience survey, so companies get involved in the programme and they do the independent survey, and they work with us and say, ‘look, it could take us two, three years, maybe four years to become a Best Places to Work’, so a lot of them start on the journey, but they want to have an independent way to understand how their people feel and experience work, and it’s fully confidential.”
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