Work Culture: More Than Good Benefits & Salaries

By Lauren | October 20, 2015 | 0 Comment

 

When employers think of work culture, the dated ones think that a decent salary, good benefits, and vacation days is what will satisfy their employees and make them want to stay. The few employers that are up with the times, realize that gone are the days that these things are the most important to employees.

Some organizations are still stuck in the Baby Boomer era of cubicles, crappy technology, and the type of workplace that you walk into everyday and just settle for—much like the Baby Boomer era did, they found a job, and they kept it… for the rest of their lives. Other organizations are adapting and acknowledging that the atmosphere of a workplace can drastically affect the way that their employees work and feel when they are at work.

The truth is, there are people in every generation that will be okay with the corporate, sea of cubicles, and there are others that are praying for their workplace and more workplaces to adapt to the times, and the numbers support this fact. 64% of employees say they do not feel their workplace has a strong workplace, and more than 1 in 4 people say that they don’t have the tools to be successful in their jobs. Senior leaders often seem to feel that their organization is succeeding so that must mean they’re employees are working hard, and are passionate enough to make things happen—but that doesn’t necessarily mean their employees are happy. In fact, only 21% of employees feel they are valued at work. Can you imagine what could happen if all your employees felt they were valued and were provided with a workplace that cared about what they needed to succeed?

One of my favourite quotes that I’ve seen all over LinkedIn before, but I’m not sure who said it is: “What if we spend all this time and money to train them and they leave?” Response: “What if we don’t and they stay?” Employers seem to be so hesitant of change and taking risks, despite the fact that it can be even riskier to stay the same just because “it works.” They say that $11 billion is lost annually due to employee turnover. So maybe you lose employees in changing your culture initially but in the long run, won’t it be for the better?

Employees don’t always want or need more money and better benefits—they want to be able to WANT to get up every day and go to work. You spend 50% of your total waking hours a day at work, which seems like a lot of days wasted if you don’t love what you do and where you do it. Millennials are the next generation of employees and their priorities have shown employers that they care about much more than money. They want to make the world a better place (64%), to be their own boss (72%), or to have their boss act as more of a coach/mentor (79%) then be a person of authority. Millennials prefer to be in a collaborative work-culture rather than a competitive one (88%), and 74% want flexible work schedules (I mean, who actually does their best work between 9-5pm?).

As a business, what can you do to begin to change your broken and dated work culture? For starters, listen to your employees and look at what organizations with low turnover and great employee engagement like G Adventures or Google. Figure out what you can do that will make your employees happy and build a strategy to actually do it. By showing your organization that there is a strategy and a plan to implement it, you can already reduce attrition from 48% to 13%.

Last but not least, don’t be afraid to let go of the people that are harming your culture. If you have managers that aren’t strong or that you can’t train, there is guaranteed someone out there that can do the job in a way that will benefit the organization. Don’t be so afraid to change, change is good, and change is needed if you want to attract and retain the best of the best and watch your business succeed.

0 Comments