When you hear the phrase “Best Place to Work,” what companies come to mind? Does your company make that list? If not, you may want to reconsider your company culture to attract top talent who are looking to work at Best Place to Work companies.
We’ve been fortunate enough to witness our company, Springworks, to be named “the Best Place to Work In India” by Glassdoor. It has a 4.9 rating on Glassdoor. Not bad for a company founded in 2014 :D
In this article, we'll share a few ways and how we implement these at our company. These ideas will help you take your company on the list or higher on the list if you’re already on it.
1. Make your employees feel appreciated
We’ve all heard the horror stories where someone is underappreciated and undervalued. Right?
As an employer, you have to make sure that your people feel appreciated and valued in their workplace. Show your employees how much you value them and their contribution any day of the year.
If someone on your team hits their monthly or quarterly goal, make it a win for your department or the whole company. Celebrate personal wins. Announce it to the rest of the team.
We give employees recognition certificates and Amazon gift vouchers. When employees do a great job, they receive kudos on the company's slack channel. It shows that the company cares about its employees and that their daily efforts and contributions are truly appreciated.
2. Value your employees and their feedbacks
If you want to make your company the best place to work, make sure that you value your employees. Remember that your employees are the backbone of your organization, which is why you must encourage them to share their feedback.
Why not have a suggestion box in a common area where anyone can propose ideas? Or an anonymous survey where people can submit their opinions?
We regularly conduct remote employee pulse surveys to understand how our employees are feeling and coping.
3. Appoint mentors, not managers
As a leader, it might feel very tempting to go by the conventional organizational structure and assign a manager to every team. While there is nothing wrong with it, a manager's title sends across a message of authority.
Instead, appoint a mentor for your team so that your team members feel comfortable in approaching and discussing their problems. A mentor will also guide their team and help them improve in the areas they are lacking.
In a joint survey by Oxford Economics and Harvard, 1400 millennials confirmed they want more feedback from their managers —in particular, they want it on a monthly basis.
4. Flexible working hours (promote work-life balance)
Work hours are one of the biggest reasons most employees are annoyed with their organizations. This is because the employees are required to invest more than the office's stipulated work hours, due to which they face burnout.
Ninety percent of employees say that flexibility in their work arrangements contributes to their morale.
Instead of micromanaging, ensure that you respect your employees' work-life balance and provide them with flexible work hours.
You should also encourage them to take regular breaks to stretch, walk around, spend time with family, or get a healthy snack.
5. Work on bad reviews and change accordingly
When you ask your employees for their feedback, make sure to work on the negative ones. This will make them feel valued and help your organization become the best version of itself. And because your employees deal with your organization's day-to-day proceedings, it is still a good idea to know what needs to be improved from them.
Getting bad reviews on Glassdoor? We recommend that you reply to all of the reviews, both positive and negative. Take the time to respond to reviews on Glassdoor in a calm and thoughtful way.
6. Invest in employees’ professional development
If you want your organization to be the best place to work, you must focus on empowering your employees. Invest in their professional development by helping them with the necessary resources.
You could provide them with free access to a professional course that can help them do their job better. Alternatively, you can also organize workshops and seminars to help them stay aware of the industry's latest technologies and trends.
Our company provides a budget for learning for employees (capped at USD 300 annually) to make them better, smarter, quicker, and enable them to grow.
7. Create a great onboarding process
The most important time to focus on the employee experience is during onboarding.
Make your onboarding process fun and introduce your culture and vision clearly to new employees. A great onboarding process starts at the beginning of your hiring process and ends when your new hire is fully settled into their role.
We have a buddy system for new hirings at our company. Springbuddy guides you through your onboarding process and to make sure that your transition is seamless.
Never make new employees feel left out, focus on providing an inclusive onboarding experience. Set the tone for their tenure from day one.
8. Take care of their physical and mental health!
Mentally and physically healthy employees bring an array of benefits to the businesses they work for. The employer can offer compulsory employee training, staff seminars, or even work with a third-party provider offering various programs.
Conduct meditation and mindfulness sessions once a week to take care of employees’ mental wellness. You can also invite experts to take sessions on different social topics and issues.
9. Have fun with your team
At Springworks, we firmly believe that our team is our greatest asset. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today. And we want our team to be happy and feel fulfilled in their jobs.
We play fun games virtually to keep our team spirit high and team camaraderie intact. We even built our own app to play remote games, called Trivia.
10. Create a culture of peer recognition
Peer to peer recognition is one of the great ways of building a great company culture, and It helps to improve employee engagement.
Team members work together and spend most of their time with each other – they have more interpersonal contact than their manager. So recognizing your team member is a more authentic approach.
Our company uses software called EngageWith - It’s an employee recognition and rewards platform that enriches your company culture. Employees can recognize peers, juniors, or managers by giving them Kudos or Shoutouts for a job well done.