HAYS IRELAND BLOG

THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD OF WORK

Tuesday 21 May 2013

"A Great Place to Work” – work out what is ‘Great’!


The definition of a great workplace from an employee’s viewpoint is one you trust the people you work with, you have great pride in what you do and you enjoy the people you work with.

I have to say when I first came across the Great Place To Work Institute’s description of what makes a great place to work its simplicity and insightfulness resonated with me strongly and from the start of our journey in autumn 2011 these simple principles have been at the core of everything we've tried to achieve. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when it was announced that we were chosen as one of the Great Workplaces in Ireland 2013 by the Institute. It was the official stamp of approval on what has been a very rewarding journey for all staff at Hays in Ireland. Our employee survey comments suggest that Hays is a very enjoyable place to work, with high levels of camaraderie and pride and also a place where people are encouraged to perform to the peak of their abilities and progress in their careers.

One of the biggest learns for me has been the opportunity to see the impact of the many initiatives we've undertaken over the last number of years and to see which of these have made a really defining difference to how people feel about work. We've introduced lots of improvements and changes - big and small - and it seems that while staff are happy with tangible improvements to their workplace, what they really want is a place where they can give their best performance. If we can provide an environment that makes them successful at their jobs, then there is a greater sense of satisfaction long term.

So the real challenge is to have a culture that promotes and supports high performance opportunities for everyone and that also gives people space to develop and flourish individually. At the outset we tried to strike a balance between the commercial realities of a business - profits, KPIs and targets etc with a workplace that people enjoy, trust and have pride in. A place where they feel that can make real and valued contribution, putting them at the heart of the business. We found that the two were inextricably linked.
Everything seems easy in hindsight but there were quite a few lessons learned along the way. Believe me, we did all sort s of things, everyone had lots of ideas, lots of enthusiasm and wanting to be the best of the best within the first month. It’s very easy to get carried away.

I also attended quite a few Great Place to Work events and listened to successful companies give their views. I personally filled several notebooks full of great sounding ideas. While you can pick up some relevant ideas and insights you need to be careful that they don’t lead you away from what’s going to make real and lasting impact. It’s much more important to take time to get to the essence of what’s important for your business – what ‘Great’ means to you.

What we found really worked for us at Hays was focusing on the “3 C’s” Communication, Caring and CSR with a special focus on recognition and thanking And this was the results:

High Impact Initiatives
  • Considerable increase in CSR participation
  • Broader recognition programmes for all Hays staff
  • Improvements in communications including more regular Town Halls and sharing views and suggestions though the ‘bottom up’ teams
  • Flexible working hours 
Other Good Stuff
  • Enhanced maternity benefit, educational grant, new voluntary benefit schemes
  • Improvements to office facilities
What the journey has taught me is that it’s not about the badge of honour, but the journey to find out what ‘Great’ really means to your staff and then ensuring you consistently imbed those values.
My Top Tips on the journey to becoming a great place to work.
  • Engage with all staff: make the message loud and clear that everyone has to do their bit to help a company become a great workplace
  • Be realistic on what you can do, don’t try and be too ambitious and end up not delivering due to cost, time or complexity
  • Keep it simple, don’t try to do everything, pick around three subjects to tackle
  • Don’t get too distracted by what makes other companies great
  • Get managers on board & have a consistent message
  • Communication – use a variety of approaches – bottom up emails through to MD town halls
  • Use & share survey feedback in a timely fashion
  • Be prepared for the work and time that it takes – get commitment from your GPTW team(s).
  • Celebrate and promote the value that your business brings to society
  • Patience and persistence – it can take time for initiatives to embed but once they do, you see the impact
  • Embed a culture of high performance
www.hays.ie/great-place-to-work

Michelle Waters
HR, Hays Recruitment
Dublin 

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