To attract and retain the right employees in your company, you need to cultivate a work environment that conveys connection, validation and a sense of belonging. Building an organizational culture where your employees come to work happily, are productive, and tell their friends about the experience goes beyond simply offering competitive salaries.
Certain benefits are must-haves:
We all know what makes a good job offer: a competitive salary, basic industry-specific benefits and the infrastructure needed to do the job.
What does it take to stand out as an employer?
Create a memorable employee experience at work. Here are some ideas:
- Generate excitement: surprise employees with measures they don’t expect, such as a gift card for every 10th completed project milestone.
- Encourage connection and belonging: invite high-performing or senior employees to a meeting with the leadership team, plus maybe the leadership team can occasionally eat in the cafeteria or have their morning coffee with teammates discussing outside, day-to-day business. These meetings will provide a sense of connection and appreciation.
- Encourage continuous education and development in the company: create “experience islands” where employees can learn about different aspects of the company’s operations. These could include product development workshops or tours of company facilities. Get suggestions from them and, very importantly, come back with feedback afterwards on what happened with the suggestion.
- Encourage continuing education and development on a personal level: provide budget for participation in courses of interest to employees, which are within the scope of their hobbies. An employee eager to develop will do so on all levels
Would you like to change something and don’t know how?
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Provides customisation opportunities
Involve employees in brand development! If you communicated your company culture openly in the interview and what you offer is aligned with your values and what you communicated, there’s nothing to fear. You’ll attract employees who fit into the family. Give them limited budget to customize their office, it can be the color, or the shape of the chair, trays, some plants, etc.
Cultivate future projects within the company
Give them time and space to develop projects or products they are passionate about and inspired by, you never know where something suitable for your organisation will come from.
If through the projects developed the employee will find another path, be open-minded, let them go and encourage them, they will be gone eventually anyway. You can keep him as a collaborator or partner, who could be more suitable than someone who has worked for you and already knows how things work?
Discover and tell success stories
Create a dedicated space where employees can share success stories, projects they have started or personal achievements. This not only celebrates achievements, it boosts the self-confidence of those who succeed and inspires others.
Every employee can be a role model
Offers photo sessions and personal branding workshops. Allows employees to develop their professional image and share their work experiences on social media.
Gives value to the work employees do
Identify social responsibility projects that resonate with your employees and give them the opportunity to get involved such as product collections based on company values. Create product lines or services that support causes that matter to your employees, such as sustainability or community development.
Remember, authenticity is key!
Practice what you say you stand for: If you stand for social responsibility, make sure your company’s practices are aligned with these values. Be transparent, open communication is very important and honest about challenges and successes. Actively listen to employee feedback and take it on board so they notice and feel listened to. A real commitment to employee well-being is essential.
Bottom line: By prioritizing these strategies, you can cultivate an employee experience that fosters a happy, engaged and loyal team. This will ultimately show up in a more productive, innovative and successful company.