When speaking to new recruits what do you tell them about your company? While you may talk through structure, history, clients, products and services during your interview process, one of the main sections that seems to be left out is the discussion on culture. If someone is willing to make your business part of their lives, and spend the majority of their time in your offices, what can they expect to be walking in to?
The idea of all work and no play is best left to scary movies while the thought behind what makes your organization unique, attractive to new prospects and a great place to work for your current teams is something that should be addressed if not already.
Flexibility
One of the most competitive factors for recruitment in the past few years has been flexibility. Things like summer hours or working from home have been around for years but the bar has risen once again. The most recent example of flexibility has come from companies like Netflix with regards to maternity and paternity leave. Aside from making huge splashes in the media and garnering new recruits through no additional costs, the company also made a large statement about what it means to work at the company and how they value their employees and their families. With collaboration services, like the ones offered here at Evolve Collaboration, one of the Wish Group companies, joining calls from the road, vacation, or home are a no brainer and where required video conferencing is also available. Offering the right tools to allow for increased flexibility can work together to create a very distinct cultural change for an organization.
Professional Development
I remember about ten or so years ago when getting your company to pay for your MBA or professional accreditation was a huge incentive to join an organization. In today’s environment there are a number of other ways to also build professional development into your culture. Showing the importance of developing your teams speaks volumes both internally and externally and can create a powerful team of loyal team members in the company. Some great ways to do this include lunch and learn series’, employee presentations, paid external workshops and also taking advantage of membership perks from associations the company is part of that may be offering up similar learning opportunities.
Social Responsibility
One of the main reasons for anyone staying with an organization is the personal pride they feel when telling others where they work. Social responsibility is huge here at Wish Group and plays a big role in bringing the team together outside of work related projects. I had posted about our Holiday Wish initiative in December which is just one example of how employees can get involved in something bigger that ends in a positive feeling that is created from working together. You can go as small as organizing a day of volunteering at a local food bank or not for profit event, to raising funds as a team for an upcoming marathon to building out a full not-for-profit arm of the business.
Your organization is like a country and your employees its citizens. We’re proud to be Canadian for number of reasons and unique for those same reasons. Similarly in your companies, I think that it is critical to foster the same identity allowing for not only a balanced environment that encourages growth, competition and rewards but also one that provides an additional level of personal pride for coming in and contributing to the vision day in and day out.
Until next week.
Frank.