Best Workplaces = Big Profits!

An email popped into my inbox on Friday from a past participant on one of my People and Culture Accelerator Programs. Luke, the owner of Ashley-Cooper Constructions, had written to tell me that he’d placed in the Australian newspaper’s Best Places to Work 2024 competition. As he said, ‘We did pretty well. Finalist in the Top 50 in Australia and top 3 for best place to work for women.’

I was so happy for Luke, who’d been battling to stop competitors poaching his quality tradies during a massive labour shortage. I knew he’d put on an HR Coordinator to develop better employee engagement strategies, and it appeared to have paid off. Not only had he created a better workplace and more engaged staff, but Luke could now use his Best Employer status to attract even more high achievers.

My entire consulting ethos centres on creating these kinds of people-centric organisations. Yet to many business owners this all sounds a bit warm and fuzzy. Why should they change what they do when people should just be happy to have a job and get paid? Work every weekend if they must, what’s the problem? Need a day off to look after a sick child – not their issue!  Which sounds fair enough, but this kind of thinking is about as relevant to successful modern workplaces as a floppy disk is to a 21st century worker.

The world of work has morphed since the days of glass-boxed supervision. Good employees have choices, many, many choices, so building better workplaces means that you’ll attract and keep a greater share of these high achievers. The challenge of course, is how to successfully implement such policies without getting caught up in a gobbledegook of well-meaning but useless actions that eat up profits.

After googling the article on the best workplaces review, I saw that the winners all scored 70% or more in employee happiness and engagement. The awards focussed on six key areas: rewards and recognition; information-sharing; empowerment; wellbeing; instilling pride, and job satisfaction. Many business owners pay lip service to these ideals, splattering their websites with these kinds of platitudes. The key difference between the winners and the rest, is that great workplaces can point to specific actioned policies that support every one of their claims. And the key KPIs that flow on from all this people engagement – reduced staff turnover and sick days – directly produce higher growth and profits.

No warm and fuzzy there, my friends. But don’t just take it from me. Mountains of empirical evidence show that Best Employer companies achieve on average four times the profit growth of other organisations. They perform three times better when it comes to comparative stock market returns. The reality is that profits don’t create great workplaces – it’s the other way around.

There is a real bounty on offer then, for those prepared to adapt to this way of work. But where to start?  With 50 businesses to summarise, most of the article stuck to general plaudits, but I went drilling for specifics and found some repeat features across the spectrum of winners.

Family. As author of the book Family Village Tribe, I was quite excited to see the term ‘family’ coming up often, detailing close-knit working environments, with regular social events, staff bonding, fun and annual gatherings. Evidence shows that the more that teams socialise together, the more productively they work.

Clear company vision and purpose. There are some unsexy industries on the best employer list, from financial services to aged care, logistics to real estate. Yet the good ones understand who they are, why they do what they do, and what they stand for. They express a clear and believable vision that instils pride in their activities, focusing on their people, product and customers, and their positive impact on society.

An annual and long-term team plan. Where are we going this year and how are we going to get there? What are we going to change? I’ve implemented these in a diverse range of businesses with many doubling their profits in just a few months. It appears that when the team creates the plan, they all make it happen.

A clear set of values. I always find this a tricky one, given that just about every company claims to have amazing values. Again, it’s the ones that live by their claims that count. You can’t purport to be a great employer when you have a staff turnover rate of 40 plus percent. Or when you outsource key services to third party companies to avoid the hassle of dealing with people. Trust, openness and honesty falls into the waste-bin when you’re caught defrauding your people by paying incorrect award wages. (That list is long and now includes some of Australia’s biggest, and once most-trusted, brand names.) I’ve attached a free online course to this newsletter if you need to define your own core values and weave them throughout your business.

Tailored employee packages. Seriously, if your workplace is not implementing policies such as flexibility, work from home, parent-friendly, part-time and casual, or other systems and benefits to align with individual employee wants, you will always struggle to attract and keep the best people. Notably, the past popularity of playrooms, ping pong and foosball tables, day couches, barista coffee machines and free fruit was only mentioned by one of the fifty winners. Nice-to-haves, for sure, but no-one’s hanging around for free slushies if they are expected to work every weekend.

Upskilling. Core skills, training programs, team building, leadership courses. These days, good employees seek professional development and growth opportunities so upskilling is an essential win-win strategy. As the labour market shrinks and HR moves from talent acquisition to talent progression, quality upskilling will be the best way to provide a flow of future leaders too.

Diversity. Many businesses I see stuck in their ways also remain stuck in a monoculture from the past. Luke’s construction business, traditionally male-centric, transformed its staffing policies to target women, and the results have been outstanding, with his company winning Master-Builder’s awards every year for the last four years. Research shows that the most diverse teams are the most profitable, as everyone brings a new way of thinking to the business.

Wellbeing. I already hear the warning bells ringing, as we slide towards the warm and fuzzy. Yet the focus on staff wellbeing has surged since 2020 and is now considered a major strategy of best employer companies. They offer wellbeing programs, health and physical restoration programs, mental rest days, flexible time off, stress leave without pay, and other support services, often discounted through company negotiations. Many of the companies laud the high number of employees who have remained with them for over ten years, due to the flexible nature of wellbeing support on offer. Sometimes, like an elite footballer, we all need a spell on the bench.

Transparent and regular communication. Celebrate success and reduce the need for people to gossip as to what might be going on. By simply creating a monthly newsletter plus an intra-workplace tool such as WhatsApp groups, people stay in the loop, and feel valued.

One-on-one chats. Anyone who has attended one of my masterclasses will know I bang on about leaders having monthly check-ins with every member of their team. This is the single most effective weapon in a business owner’s armoury to stay in tune with your people, their wants and needs, the reasons they may leave, and their fantastic ideas from the floor that create innovation. Best of all, it’s free! But first you need to promote the right leaders – check out this great 2-minute video by Simon Sinek on this topic.

Ultimately, some of you may look at this list and agree in principle but not know where to start. Asking your people how you could fix endemic business problems, or what you could do to improve productivity is a great opener (and if they come up with the strategies, they are much more likely to implement them too).  One of my masterclass participants who ran an industrial pump business was plagued by faulty product returns. When the team came up with a plan to address this, his defective goods fell to less than 1% within 3 months.

Or do what Luke did – employ a People Champion to raise people practices above bureaucratic HR policies so they become a key business strategy alongside finance, marketing and product – in effect, grow your own success.  And with a bunch of happier people around, you are destined to have more fun along the way.

I feel warm and fuzzy just writing this. Which all goes to show – no matter what business you’re in, you’re now also in the people business.

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