What Makes “A Great Place To Work”

 

What makes an organization a great place to work for, or, that place where you may go to and spend more time than you spend with your family – at least in pre-COVID times.

Energage is a company that organizations hire to conduct employee surveys, and every year they give a list of awards, on “Top Work Places” based on certain factors including the feedback of employees based on the surveys.

You can find the 2021 Awards for top workplaces companies at: https://topworkplaces.com/find-top-workplaces  

Energage says about “Top Places To Work”: Great Culture Is More Than Perks. Creating a Top Workplace is about more than offering great benefits and vacation time. It’s about organizational health. Employees want to align with the company’s vision, be challenged by a high-performance culture, and feel that they are valued and that their voices are heard.

Energage asked, what makes an organization a great place to work? Energage says “a healthy company culture is intentional. Some companies offer employees stock options. Others, like Google, provide their employees with free meals at work, etc. But great place to work criteria is about more than just fun employee perks.

They identified 9 qualities of what makes a great place to work, based on employee feedback surveys from various companies, this is what they learned and published on their site on August 5 of 2020, about the 9 qualities of great companies.

1.          Leadership is involved and engaged

2.          Communication is a top priority

3.          A healthy company culture is intentional

4.          Leadership understands threats and areas for improvement

5.          Innovation is critical to success

6.          Individuals are empowered to grow

7.          The focus is on employees

8.          Compensation and benefits are competitive

9.          They stand out as an employer of choice

I want to highlight some of the information they share under specific points:

1.   Leadership is involved and engaged: Employees find it easier to support the mission when they see leaders holding themselves to the same standard they hold others to. Energage says 83 percent of employees at Fortune 500 companies in the Best Companies to Work For category said about their leadership, that they “lived out the same values expected of employees, making them more trustworthy”. This contrasted with the 42 percent of employees, putting trust in their leadership at what Energage termed “average workplaces”.

4. Leadership understands threats and areas for improvement: Top Workplaces utilize employee feedback to better understand what makes a great workplace and also pinpoint areas where more effort is needed to create positive change. Transparency in this respect is often what makes a great workplace in the eyes of top talent who appreciate an organization that is committed to honesty and growth rather than denial and stagnation.

7. The focus is on employees: Great workplaces have shifted their focus from getting the most out of their employees to giving back to their employees to ensure their needs are met. This translates to better business outcomes that are often a result of employee-focused decisions. When organizations include employee survey data in their decision making, they are able to go straight to the heart of the business and better understand where they fall short. Building on survey insights not only brings about legitimate, actionable change, it also lets your employees actively participate in the growth of the organization.

Not all workplaces are in a position to implement every single item, but I think there is information that everyone who has employees can learn from.   Everyone can start with the basics, to start, such as a focus on employees, and empowerment of individuals contributing to the work.

Here’s an example. I recently visited a record store, the old-fashioned type that still sells vinyl records. I have visited the store for years. As I walked with a friend who is also a frequent visitor, they commented how helpful the people who work there are. I realized that in all the times I have visited I have never had one staffer be less than completely professional, pleasant, and helpful.

Then I thought about this. The owne is not always present. However, when he is there, he is always the same, courteous, polite helpful, to EVERY customer. When he is working in the store, unless you know who he is you would think he’s just another employee; he gives wide berth to his staff and lets them work with the customers without interference. I only know he’s the owner because a friend who has known him for years told me. It’s now clear to me that owner sets the pace for his employees. Leadership, as the cliché goes, starts from the top down. I have no doubt the owner of that record store treats his employees well, and they in turn pass that on to the customer, including following his example. You may say “it’s just a record store”, but their professionalism would hold up in any office setting.

One other thing, I have an acquaintance who worked in the store when he was new in town and he has since moved on to an excellent high-paying job. But, he still frequents the store and has nothing but positive words for the owner and his former colleagues.  Either the owner hires well, manages well, or both.

Back to Energage. Energage identifies itself as a Certified B Corporation. I have since learned that organizations that are certified B Corporations are organizations whose performance must meet certain standards such as: Social and environmental performance; public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. To become a B Corp, organizations go through the equivalent of “Fair Trade” certification, or the equivalent of the US Department of Agriculture regulatory process for foods. B Corp organizations identify themselves this way: they identify themselves as a community “that works toward reduced inequality, lower levels of poverty, a healthier environment, stronger communities, and the creation of more high–quality jobs with dignity and purpose”. In other words, they say they are committed to using business as a force for good.

What Makes an Employer a Great Place to Work, asked Mark Feffer. Feffer answered the question in an online article published June 1, 2015 by The Society for Human Resource Management (also called SHRM).  

Feffer talked about some of the perks offered by tech companies, while saying, those perks are “only part of the story”. He quotes China Gorman, a former CEO of the Great Place to Work Institute, the research and consulting firm behind the list of Fortune magazine’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For. Gorman says, what also matters is to have a very intentional, people-centric culture.

Feffer says, the leaders of organizations that are in the Best Company to Work For category do the following: the leaders of these companies talk about their people not as employees who can be satisfied with the right compensation package, but as colleagues who are invested in the business. They talk about the importance of trust …by managers in employees … and by employees in managers; of the commitment employees must have to each other; and of the importance of engagement -- of employees being “all in” with regard to the business and its success.

Feffer ends by saying that to build a great culture takes intentionality, which comes from the organization’s leader, like the CEO who decided that the advantages of a great workplace outweighed the expense and effort involved in nurturing one. He also says, senior leadership is only part of it, that the executive team, middle managers, employees all need to actively make the organization’s approach work.

I would like to recognize the passing of an American icon.  Cicely Tyson. As an African American actress who Ms. Tyson selected and accepted roles that represented strong Black women. As an actress she resisted stereotypes, turning down roles that were demeaning to African Americans. She used her platform and fame to support and champion the Black American fight for civil rights. Ms. Tyson died on Thursday, January 28, age 96. When asked by an interviewer how she would like to be remembered, Ms. Tyson said, “I done my best. That’s all.”