Does your company need a pool table to be a “great place to work” ?

6 seasoned, recruitment professional from Hays attended the annual Great Place To Work Conference (GPTW) in the Aviva Stadium earlier this year.  As recruiters we have a lot of experience of helping people find the right job and as part of the consultancy process we get some insight into the many reasons why a person might choose to work in one place over another.  So we were pretty interested to compare notes with some of the companies that would be presenting at the conference and who repeatedly appear on the GPTW list.  We wanted to find out more of what this whole movement is about. 

The conference is run by the GPTW institute, who each year, publish a list of top companies to work for in Ireland.  So how do they decide who gets in?  Well through completion of a staff sentiment survey along with a cultural audit a company will see how they are benchmarked against other similar organisations.  The index shows how you are scoring in a number of key areas that indicate if you are in fact a great place to work or not.  A nice definition that the institute has to describe a GPTW is that it is one where “You trust those you work for, that you have pride in what you do and enjoy your colleagues”  

There has definitely been a movement toward a more caring employment culture in Ireland in recent years. Many US multinationals take part in the US GPTW programme and have extended this to their international partners.  Anecdotally we have heard stories of how some companies are doing interesting things such as providing employees with on site games rooms, gyms and free food.  Now I like the sound of the free food and am partial to a good game of pool but does having a pool table make a company a great place to work?  What will happen in the future if there is less money for these types of perks, are there other things happening in these companies that are more fundamental to being a GPTW? 

As recruitment consultants we may be in a good position to sense check what’s happening with our candidates.  At Hays Ireland we meet thousands of professionals for interview each year and are in a position to offer some insight into what motivates a person to choose working for one company over another. At interview we’re careful to build a profile of the job and company that will be best fit for the individual; some people call it their wish list.  We discuss things like the salary and the benefits that they’re hoping to attract the desired location, the job description, the industry type and development opportunities - basically what is their ideal job.  But there are other reasons why candidates might choose one company over another, for example the organisations profile and its brand can be a big factor in the decision, the Big Four are always popular choices for up and coming accountants.  However there is another element that we have always been aware of but which is becoming more and more important to our candidates and that’s the perception they have of the organisations culture – what good stuff have they heard about this company on the grapevine.

Candidates want to know “is this a great place to work?” they may not be explicitly identifying this as their primary motivator in finding a job but it is evident that candidates are aligning themselves with the values of organisations that best match their own.  It turns out that for many of us we are quite similar when it comes to the type of place we want to work for, this tends to be companies that care for and respect their employees and who embrace their potential.

So the thing about these great places to work is that they often end up with some of the best and most motivated employees, very engaged teams and statistically proven better bottom line results, some of the benefits advertised by the GPTW institute are that “the best companies to work for perform 3x better than the general market and have 50% lower turnover” You’d nearly say a company would be foolish not to embrace this opportunity to maximise it’s opportunities and potential.  There are clearly some very convincing reasons why other organisations might try to emulate what’s happening in these great companies and the six of us were interested to hear their recipe for success.

For Hays we had another more important reason to be there.  This is our own first year participating in the GPTW competition and we wanted a broad range of employees from our organisation to experience what this journey might have to offer.  We can see that there’s a lot that we can learn and also contribute from being part of this great community.  Already we’ve identified some really great things about Hays Ireland from the feedback, one of the best being that people at Hays have is a feeling of pride in what they do and strong sense of camaraderie with each other - this is fantastic.  We have some of the most amazing people working for our business who are passionate about people, every day working to find their candidates jobs that could transform their lives.

I have to say there was a great line-up at the event and you’d expect no less.  We saw leaders from businesses including Microsoft, Topaz, Boots, Vision1, EMC2 and Diageo.  There was a strong practical feel to the day – we heard about simple things and more challenging endeavours that have made a difference to the people of these organisations.  One of my key take-aways from Bob Lee of the GPTW Institute was “It’s not what you do it’s WHY you do it”.  There is definitely no quick fix to becoming a GPTW and you can’t just copy what another organisation has done to replicate an outcome but you can take some inspiration from others success and adapt it to fit with your organisation.  Some of the other things that stood out to us were ideas around:  Peer to peer recognition programmes, fostering a “Thanking Culture”, more flexible and innovative working arrangements to reflect our changing world and engaging employees in the Values of our business.  It was also fantastic to hear about many inspiring CSR initiatives. 

For the Hays contingent we really enjoyed the day- it was a great success, we got to meet a lot of great people and took inspiration from the great stuff that’s happening out there.  Other highlights included frequent treats such as a mid afternoon tub of Haagen Dazs and a tour of the Aviva including the inside scoop on stories from the changing rooms.  But for me one of the best bits was really getting to see this great community in action, the generosity that you get from the participating companies can not be overstated.  I’ve had personal offers of assistance to help us get started in our journey, we’ve been invited to visit organisation to experience what they are doing and have had CEOS personally take the time to share their stories with us. This I believe is the real spirit of a GPTW, goodwill that is extended even beyond the walls of your own company. 

GPTW have invited us to the "Learn from the Black Belts of Great Place to Workism" session taking place on Thursday 24th May.  This is a fantastic opportunity for us to hear how Microsoft have achieved their success after being crowned as #1 Best Workplace in the World in 2011.   It's not only about their successes, but their failures, wrong turns and the challenges they faced.   Looking forward to finding out more!

Michelle Waters
HR Manager
Hays recruiting experts worldwide
T: +353 1 877 2481
E: michelle.waters@hays.com
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