Becoming an Employer of Choice
People choose to work where they are treated well, they go to work at other places.
In America it has become fashionable for organizations to vie to be on the list of the Best Places to Work. Organizations that win these awards do many impressive things to make the work life of their employees the best. They are doing an excellent job and we applaud their efforts and success. If only we all were as lucky. It is a reality that not everyone can have on-site child care; give stock options, flexible work days and in house gyms.
Our envy can be abated however by understanding our ability to create an environment that will make us an Employer of Choice.
What’s the difference? In an Employer of Choice environment the organization follows some very simple steps to make the work, communications, and interactions come alive for the employee. Among other things you will find that they are absolutely passionate about how people are treated, by everyone. They are passionate about the “experience” each employee has, every day. It is isn’t about the things available to them to make life easier or pay and benefits, but what is in place to make work life manageable when things aren’t that easy, which can be a lot of the time.
In this discussion we are going to walk you through some very simple steps, five to be exact that can help your organization be just that, an Employer of Choice. THESE DON’T COST MONEY. When this happens in your workplace the word spreads and the people who will fit right in with your organization will be attracted to you and produce great results.
Step One – The Treatise
Yes, the expression, “it starts at the top,” applies here. The top however, is a broad group. The Executive and Management teams must make a decision from the start that they will model, instruct and counsel people about the core principles they choose for the organization around people. They literally vow to not only model these things, but take them to the next level whenever possible. They agree to be rated and even paid on how well they uphold what they determine drives an employer of choice organization. How is this done?
The treatise
a. In an open and supportive manner the Executives and Managers determine the communication norms for the organization. These norms then cover all communications between each of them. This includes, but is not limited to employees, colleagues, clients/customers and vendors. Any public relations will be driven by these.
b. The norms they set cover things people typically include in a mission or values statement, but never have been made an actual “condition of employment.”
c. They enter a pact among themselves to be open with feedback if one of the team seems to be out of step with what they all agreed upon.
What could some of these be? Here are a few examples from the book “Office Peace”;
Trust - This is put out on the table and talked about from the first day of employment and at every incident where it is threatened. Managers learn to engage new employees about this subject from the first day by telling them they would not have been hired if they could not be trusted. If there is ever a time when someone feels they cannot trust someone they are obligated to have that discussion and resolve trust issues. Any trust issues that are plaguing current employees are ferreted out and resolved.
Diminishment – Simply put the teams know that the words coming out of their mouth, even about someone outside the company or not in the room create difficulty if they are diminishing. A conscious and determined skill of utilizing language that excludes these types of comments creates an environment where employees feel safe from disparagement. Persons who find themselves angry and unable to speak appropriately are counseled within minutes about what has happened and supported in finding a better way to deal with their thoughts.
Judgment – Matching what was decided above, they openly discuss what is and is not appropriate for others to judge in the workplace. An agreement to avoid judging too soon is also a part of this. Openness is encouraged and modeled.
Health – The group looks at every way they model this for employees and employees for each other. Besides the typical physical health initiatives they look at where they are expanding their minds with new ideas and idea groups. They look at their morale; particularly in rough spots and see what they can create that will energize people with humor and activity. They fully understand the business value in utilizing the gift of play. One of the best examples I ever saw of this was an organization that had become financially strapped and was seeking an infusion of capital to bring their product to fruition. On the day the decision was to be made about a possible investor, the CEO took his team to the lobby of the building and had them engage in a friendly game that involved flying rubber frogs. A lot of laughter took the edge off the nerves of everyone. On that day they did not get their funding, but their energy to keep going was stimulated by these few moments of play with a CEO who was determined to stay on and make this dream come true. Six months later they got a substantial capital infusion from another investor and went on to build a solid organization that is very successful today. Helping people see the many “dire” times of an organization as part of the whole, that can be survived, is what healthy employers can do.
Contribution – At any time an employee should be able to say what they contributed today, and the management team is charged with helping those who cannot see this in the routine of their day to day. Employees learn to point out the contributions of their co-workers and celebrate them in “mini-moments.”
Honor, Respect, Appreciation – In every way possible the aspects of honoring others contributions, respecting their opinions and appreciating their efforts are part of the day to day, even when not all is well.
What this is not!
This is not a mission statement, values exercise or the like. This is a way of behaving in all communications that makes this a place to work, succeed, fail, grow, meet challenges and create the future and keep respect always in place.
Step Two - How is it integrated into the day to day of the organization?
The organizations that have done this successfully have done it very simply.
First, you will see this on their website. They talk about the factors that allow them to work together successfully. You won’t see, “open, friendly environment” lots of people have those.
What you will see is statements that challenge anyone interested in being part of this team to live up to a higher standard and thus language like;
“Our people not only respect one another, but show this in every interaction, even the tough ones. “
“Our managers will give you open, honest feedback at every turn to help you succeed in your job; likewise they expect open, honest feedback from you.”
“We believe that communication will make our organization or break us. Since we are on a mission to succeed, to model and instruct one another and ourselves, we do things others don’t believe possible.
In the beginning days of Innovative Services, a Colorado based company; the CEO made it a policy to be what he wanted everyone else to be. He smiled, a lot. He talked with any and every employee, any chance he could get. His executives were all people that others could easily talk to, ask questions and get good structured feedback from at any time. He was relentless in his pursuit of an environment that was supportive, instructive and led to success for each individual, no matter what their position. Now the more interesting thing about all of this is that most of his employees were making a nominal hourly wage, yet 80% of all new hires were referred by people working in the organization already.
Second, the entire on-boarding process from setting up the interview to the job description and orientation include these principles that the organization lives by. The words are not just said, but modeled and demonstrated by tours, encounters, question and answer sessions and even T-shirts that say why this is so important. (The front of the T-Shirt could say, “You can trust me,” the back of the T-shirt, “I trust you.”)
Third, every piece of communication is thoroughly screened before it is sent by the sender to check for violations of the norms. This makes that quick response to an email not so quick, but worth every extra second it takes to check the language. PDA notes, meetings, phone calls, text messages, all abide by the norms.
Fourth, the organization has a team that works on this issue of communications, at least once a month. If all is well, it is the world’s shortest meeting. However, if things are occurring that violate the norms, the group is charged with delving into them and resolving them. Who you put on the team is part of the creativity of an employer of choice. It may be an executive, a member of the team from finance, customer service, etc. The more varied in position and area, the better the chances of hearing the truth.
Step Three – Dealing with Violators
Employers of choice have an unusual characteristic that separates them from the pack. They utilize the system of “self-correction” whenever possible to keep their environment on track. They also make all supervisory and management positions and above accountable, via their performance management system. This is an accountability in the same way they are held accountable for managing expenses, maintaining quality and customer service, generating revenue, staying on budget, product development, etc.. It carries a weight or value in the review at an equal or even higher level than their technical responsibilities.
The employee evaluation and bonus system also have these norms as something that will be rated and potentially require attention and improvement.
In the situation of an employee who is struggling with these issues; the employer of choice has a system of “Performance Enhancement.” This system lets the supervisor/manager of the individual do three things to keep the “trust” in the employee’s ability to fix these problems;
-tell the employee everything they are doing right and well in their position at the moment
-tell the employee exactly where they are astray relative to their performance at this time
-ask the employee to write a plan to correct the issues and then do it
Honoring the norm of trust, it is used whenever performance issues come up. The feedback is immediate, honest, and the employee is trusted to correct the behavior per their own plan for action.
Step Four – ASK
An employer of choice is asking questions of their employees ALL THE TIME. They do not do annual surveys, they do whenever surveys, frequently, keeping them short (5 questions or less), easily answered, (typically rating scales or yes or no), and they make them RELEVANT to what is happening in the business today. The employees see an IMMEDIATE discussion about the survey results, even in the same week.
Employees are asked to volunteer to work on solutions. This isn’t always left to management or human resources. Employees are appreciated appropriately when they do volunteer.
Employees are asked for their ideas. Idea and innovation lunches are a common phenomenon and everyone is invited. These are high energy gatherings where the group works on making things better with innovative ideas.
Employees are asked about what hasn’t been thought about before that might be considered by the organization. Employees trust that what can be done will be done, knowing not all things are possible.
Step Five – Where the Rubber Meets the Road
The true Employer of Choice is one where the employees know that when the going gets tough, they will be counted on to make things happen. This is the time when you, as an employee, know that everyone will share in the problem, the solution and the resolution. No secrets and no surprises.
The following is a true story that explains how this works in real life.
This company had over 2000 employees when things went south. Their finances were devastated by a series of events that can only be described as “asteroids” coming from the sky. Despite their excellent services and systems these things were compelling enough that the CFO calculated that they would need to lay off 400 employees immediately to get through the next year.
This was an employer of choice. People lined up to work at this organization, just for the experience of how people worked together. The company did not pay more, have better benefits or perquisites, they were normal in most ways except for the experience of how they were treated.
After a week of the eight executive team members looking at this problem one hundred different ways, sixty five directors and managers were summoned to hear the bad news and pass along the layoff news.
Now, being an employer of choice they broke two key rules that we have already discussed.
#1 ASK
#2 Stay healthy
On the day of the announcement, not knowing at this point why they had been summoned, one of the executives slipped into the meeting room in advance and handed something “playful” to each person asking them to keep it hidden until just before the CEO began his presentation.
When he entered the room he greeted everyone and went to the front to arrange his presentation materials. When he finally looked out at the audience, sixty five people were staring back at him in red clown noses.
Now as disrespectful as this may seem at the time, it had the effect of making this very sad CEO laugh. This broke the barrier of the duress and attendant stress from what had happened to the organization and allowed him to approach this group, under the principles of the employer of choice. (In other words get healthy in an unhealthy situation.)
He shared all that he knew about what had happened. He told them that this could be resolved, but it would take some time, possibly six months to a year, and then he ASKED for their help. The group responded by saying they needed one week to see how many of the four hundred jobs could be saved by other methods.
One week later the group met with the CEO and every penny needed to get through the next six months had been found somewhere else.
The real end to this story is not that the layoffs that didn’t happen, but the value of the organization. It not only continued to be an employer of choice but tripled its value in the next three years.
The Icing on the Cake
An employer of choice knows that business is always about the bottom line, and the bottom line is controlled to a great extent by the people in the organization. You will find in employers of choice an APPRECIATION program that works every day, in every way possible. There will be typical rewards programs, but more importantly there will be programs that involve almost no expense. These will be run by the employees, don’t have forms, rules and prizes, but have lots of heart. People doing the right thing, because it is the right thing to do. The norms drive every action and interaction making work fun, because of the people. In other words, an employer of choice.
Want to become an employer of choice? Call us to help you create a process that will start you on your way. 303-984-9271
Learn more about Experience Leadership at www.barbarabrannen.com
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