Make Your Company a Great Place to Work

Everyone looks forward to the weekend, no matter how much they enjoy their job. But if your employees are dragging themselves into work on Mondays with a cloud of doom over their heads, it should raise a red flag. Sure, salary and benefits attract them to your organisation, but they will not reach their potential (or stay long) unless you make your company a great place to work.

“A great workplace is not espresso, lush benefits, sushi lunches, grand parties, or nice offices,” as Netflix Chief Talent Officer Patty McCord stated in a 124-page PowerPoint presentation titled “Freedom and Responsibility.” Making your company the place your employees want to be requires assessing your workplace and determining where you can improve the culture to help you retain that talent and succeed as a business.

Every business is different, but the following tips are meant to help you think about how to cultivate a great workplace and ultimately help your company reach its potential.

What Makes a Company a Great Place to Work?

In order to create a company culture that not only attracts the best and the brightest but also helps them achieve their highest potential (while reducing turnover), it is important to define what makes a workplace great. The Great Place to Work Institute, which conducts surveys and provides consulting services, says a great workplace is about:

• The level of trust that employees experience in their leaders
• The level of pride they have in their jobs
• The extent to which they enjoy their colleagues

This means that no amount of free lunch or Friday happy hours will create a great workplace unless, of course, these perks are part of a larger effort to cultivate trust, pride, and healthy relationships in the office. Actually achieving the goal of a great workplace, however, will vary by organisation.

Considerations for Creating a Great Workplace

Companies that actively improve their company culture are able to minimise employee turnover, facilitate better relationships with customers, and, ultimately, position their organisation for growth. For instance, San Francisco-based Salesforce, named “World’s Best Workplace” of 2018, has enjoyed tremendous financial success over the years.

When your employees trust their managers, take pride in their work, and have camaraderie with their colleagues, the whole company prospers. Consider the following tips:

• Do things differently. Leaders need to understand that different approaches work better for different employees, preferably with the involvement (and empowerment) of employees. Remember to communicate clearly and be transparent when making decisions.
• Be patient. You are not going to transform the workplace overnight, so do not get rattled by temporary setbacks, and keep your eyes on the end goal.
• Integrate trust. Rather than a top-down action plan, integrate the types of practices and behaviours that build trust throughout the organisation.
• Make sure your values are aligned: Simply putting together a list of company values will not be enough. These values must be integrated throughout the organisation, including the hiring process. If a prospective new hire does not seem receptive to your company’s values or culture, then it is probably not a great match.

Want to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work? Monster Can Help

You are eager to hire quality professionals who can take your company to the next level, but is the feeling mutual? Top candidates have the most options and will assess the calibre of your workplace while you evaluate their credentials. Positioning yourself as a desirable workplace is critical if you hope to hire the best of the best, and Monster can help you make that a reality. Make your company a top destination for job seekers with our free Employer Branding Guide.