The advantages of being a Glassdoor Best Places to Work are many, but perhaps one of the greatest rewards is how it invigorates a company’s ability to attract top talent. If one of your new year's goals is to become a 2018 Best Place to Work with a focus on improving talent attraction and retention, then read on for actionable steps you can take to be considered.
Resolve to hire talent who will work together:
In the heat of the hiring moment, especially amid crucially busy periods when a project is due, a product is being rolled out or a key customer is consuming your time, it is tempting to shortcut the hiring process.
This is perhaps when slowing down (in order to speed up later) is most crucial. Take a few moments to contemplate the type of people currently on your team and on other teams with which you coordinate across the enterprise, and pinpoint qualities you most value. Consciously and actively seek out those qualities in your next employee hire.
Collaborative people and teams rank high on the list of qualities commended by Glassdoor’s No. 1-listed company on their 2017 Best Places to Work list--Bain & Company. In numerous reviews, employees repeatedly commend the organization’s favorable culture, and specifically, the ‘collaborative support people’ with whom they work.
A current employee describes their colleagues as, “Really smart, dedicated people who are incredibly supportive and don’t take themselves too seriously.”
Diving further into the reviews reveals that having supportive colleagues enables people to stay the course during rigorous problem solving, steep challenges and sometimes long hours. Which brings me to number two.
Resolve to challenge your employees:
It is not uncommon for careerists to jump ship when they no longer feel challenged in their day to day, and when the possibility of a new challenge is nowhere on the horizon. In other words, when motivated employees begin to feel stagnant, and their initiative to move upward or onward is thwarted at every turn, they likely will begin searching externally for a new position.
A mantra interspersed throughout Bain’s employee reviews is that the company regularly challenges their employees. In fact, one employee said, “Here’s how you know you’ve made it at Bain. The reward for doing a good job is getting a bigger, tougher problem next time. Meaning, you are always solving the easiest problem you will ever solve again.”
Twelfth-listed 2017 Best Places to Work company Clorox offers employees “a wide variety of opportunities to grow and stretch,” according to one reviewer, who went on to say, “Demonstrate your expertise and ability to handle complexity and watch your career grow here.”
Resolve to steer the ship toward a common mission:
Employees at start-up companies as well as smaller entities often are connected and inspired by a common goal or mission as they aspire to grow to the next level. As a company expands, shifts gears, acquires or is acquired, that mission may get muddled or even abandoned.
New leadership, management and teams may serve to turn the ship in a new direction or even come to loggerheads as conflicting agendas emerge. By acknowledging this disconnect and taking stock of where you are and where you want to be, you can reestablish (or establish for the first time), a mission (and/or vision) for company wide engagement. Ensure the mission is communicated across the enterprise, business unit by business unit, team by team, and individual by individual.
Moreover, solidify your commitment to the mission by publishing it for the world to see. Fast Enterprises, Glassdoor’s sixth-listed 2017 Best Places to Work, includes its mission statement on their employer profile: “Fast is committed to being a premier provider of software and consulting services to government agencies.”
And according to one Clorox employee, one of many pros for working there is that “Management has a strong vision for the future.”
Resolve to invest in your employees:
By embedding personal development into the culture of the company, not only will you expand the value of your team members’ contributions, but you also can enrich the connection among stakeholders and illuminate the value leadership places on those employees.
A full-time Bain employee says, “Focus on personal development runs up and down the firm and is baked into compensation. Managers and partners really care about their teams. Firm makes funds freely available for forming deeper connections with colleagues.”
A proud Clorox employee claims, “It would be hard to find a company that invests in, believes in, cares about and champions its employees more than Clorox.”
Resolve to compensate beyond salary or wages:
According to one Fast employee, “The salary and benefits packages are great … Health care is most(ly) employer paid. Fast gives vacation time and sick time, as well as pays for overtime. Overtime hours can be used as vacation time in the future …etc.”
Ideally, your employee will feel well compensated across a plethora of areas as Fast’s employees do. However, if providing premiere salary and benefits packages is too lofty of an immediate goal, then aspire to make strides with at least one area of compensation and ensure you follow through consistently with new hires and across your employee base to spur reputation momentum in the right direction.
Resolve to actualize that you care:
Applying the show, don’t tell principle to this resolution means that even if your company cannot always roll out the red carpet for its employees, then do what you can – and do it with a generous spirit.
For example, employees at lululemon, who is No. 38 on the Best Places list, consistently remark how well the company takes care of their employees, how they are inspired by the people they are surrounded by and how everyone is supportive. One lululemon reviewer exclaimed, “Super-friendly team” and “Company really values your own personal and professional goals – everyone wants to see you succeed.”
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