The Best Companies Take Mom's Advice (Especially #8)
Mom giving advise

The Best Companies Take Mom's Advice (Especially #8)

Behind every great company leader? Pretty good chance you’ll find a great mom. Some of the most cliche pearls of wisdom uttered by the mothers of all leaders are highly valuable in business too.

In honor of Mother’s Day, we’ve surfaced the best company policies that just so happen to align with the best of mom’s marching orders. An accident? You know what she’d say: everything happens for a reason...

1.) Never lose sight of who you are

A defined company culture can set you apart from your nearest talent competitors and weed out unqualified applicants or bad fits for your culture. It also contributes to employees’ productivity and morale. A company culture code is the guiding set of values and principles that breathe life and meaning to an organization. Whether it’s accountability, adopting an “open to change” philosophy, doing less with more or simply being humble, a defined culture code facilitates not only a profitable work environment for teams, departments and employees, but also helps attract like-minded job candidates, who can help the organization grow and do good work. To stay true to yourself, learn exactly how to create your company’s own culture code, here.

2.) Don’t ever burn a bridge

In a good economy with low unemployment rates, retaining your employees is important, but turnover happens anyway.

While you can't always convince departing employees to stay, you can gather valuable information from them before they leave. Doing so will help you improve career development practices, strengthen your culture, and uncover other key issues that may be affecting your ability to retain employees. Learn everything you need to know about conducting effective exit interviews, here.

3.) Don’t give in to peer pressure

It’s important to avoid getting sidetracked or seduced by what you see peers and competitors doing along the way to your strategic goals as a company. Go after what you’re great at and what you aim to be great at – and become the best in the category. If you try to do everything, not only will your company mission get diluted, your employees will lose focus and suffer blows to their morale. If the business doesn’t communicate the mission to all levels when change is afoot, it will result in rumors, turnover and potentially even the demise of the business.

4.) Know your audience

 According to human resources experts, good managers will always have their pulse on the morale of his or her employees and will be able to know immediately if morale is starting to dip. But knowing and doing are two different things, which means if a company wants to prevent the low morale from spreading, they have to address it head on with the employee as soon as they sense it. Read about how to re-engage your employees throughout the year, here.

5.) Be a credit to your community

Empowering employees to make a difference in their community can actually give you more satisfied and well-rounded employees, which translates to higher productivity. Whether you organize company-wide community service activities or offer time off to volunteer at the organization of their choice, it will be a worthwhile investment. Read all about the booming benefits of corporate philanthropy, here.

6.) Never miss an opportunity to learn a new skill

Ambitious professionals yearning for recognition and career advancement naturally gravitate to companies who will help facilitate growth. Future-focused companies who are collaborative and employee-centered, empowering individuals and teams to implement great ideas, therefore, become magnets for job candidates. By extension, they also become known as great places to work. Really listening to employees and encouraging creativity (and action) are admirable qualities for employee-focused organizations. Learn how employers can earn this coveted reputation, here.

7.) Money can’t buy happiness – but it helps with security

When job seekers self-select based on transparent salaries, they come into the job with clarity on what’s being asked of them and what they’re getting in return. By offering more pay information to job seekers in job listings, we’re also helping employers attract and recruit top talent on Glassdoor, as we believe this will drive more interest to your job listings on Glassdoor. Find out how to use salary estimates to determine your next employee’s salary, here.

8.) If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all

Always take the higher road in your responses to reviews on Glassdoor. There will be criticisms, but they can always be leveraged to your benefit. You will always come out ahead if you address reviews thoughtfully and in a measured way – it builds trust with job seekers and employees alike. In fact, nine out of 10 job seekers find the “employer perspective” useful and six in 10 say their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review. Read about best practices for responding to reviews, here.

9.) Don’t forget to say thank-you

Saying thank-you is more than just the right thing to do. It turns your employees into your biggest advocates – and it doesn’t take a lot. Small tokens of appreciation can pay off in the long run. And it’s never been easier to show employees how much you appreciate them. Get details on how to make your employees feel valued, here. Or take the shortcut approach by reading about the 10 best ways to show appreciation in one click, call or note, here.

10.) Eat your vegetables

Many people turn to diet and exercise to improve their to look better, feel better, and have more energy in personal lives. But the truth is, smart eating is great for your employee’s career too. Eating well facilitates clarity of thought, which will help your people excel at their jobs and stay happy at work. Find ten ways employers can promote workplace wellness, here.

These maternal mandates align pretty well with the traits shared by companies on Glassdoor’s 2017 Best Places to Work list. Just like she always said: hard work always pays off.