The Great Place to Work determines the 100 Best US Companies to Work For using quantitative and qualitative feedback about the organisation’s culture. 6 dimensions: Trust, respect, credibility, fairness, pride and camaraderie defines a great employee experience. Responses across demographic groups and roles within the organisation, measures the consistency of the employee experience. Each company also answers essay questions to provide further insight about people's practices (More about the methodology here: https://fortune.com/franchise-list-page/best-companies-2022-methodology/)
In 2020, key trends that inspired employee engagement was firstly that employees trusted their leaders and secondly, if they felt that their work positively impacts the greater good, (Michael Bush, CEO of the Great Place to Work).
The Great Place to Work also produces a World’s Best Workplace report where the world’s best workplace cultures are honoured. The 2022 Best Workplaces invested in well-being, flexibility and equity to set them apart from their peers, as employees re-evaluate their lives and what they want from a job.
Whether CEOs put their people first to drive productivity or to build resilience to help manage change and uncertainty - people are a core part of investing for sustainable growth.
In our consulting experience, worst performing organisations:
Has a low Net Promoter Score (NPS) - easy to measure; would you recommend your own company to family and friends to work for?
Low market sentiment - horrible reviews; disengaged staff that don’t care
Low shareholder and investment desire
Lost opportunity due to struggling/ suffering employees
High levels of absenteeism and corporate vandalism - it is not my money anyhow
Contrived employee value proposition - that does little to motivate or retain employees, the organisation is forever on the backfoot to deliver shareholder value
Limited investment in culture - the boss bought the staff a football machine in the canteen
Organisations that flourish share some of the following characteristics:
Has a high Net Promoter Score (NPS)
High market sentiment with a competitive market position - bad reviews are rapidly commented on; explained or apologised for
Engaging customer experience, loyalty and retention
Inclusive culture, human centred experience - culture studies with good results
Increased resilience/ change adaptability
Increase stock price through desirable investment
The organisation is a talent magnet - the talent management program is full and flourishing
Build PEOPLE-centred organisations for sustainable profit
If high performing workplaces where people thrive is your goal, where do you start?
How do you figure out where you are in the process and what do you need to do to link people interventions to a sustainable bottom line?
Do a sustainability audit. A sustainability audit is underpinned by:
Engagement measurement
Wellness measurement
Managing employee engagement AND wellbeing, together creates a high performance employee environment with less burnout and stress. Although engaged employees contribute more to bottom line performance, engagement on its own, is not sustainable without a well thought through wellbeing component.
Research from Gallup shows that if employees are engaged, but not thriving (read wellbeing), compared to those that are thriving, they are 61% more likely to experience burnout and 48% more likely to report daily stress, (Gallup 2023).
Remove risk and build resilience
If employees strongly agree that employers care for their wellbeing, they are 69% less likely to actively search for a new job, 71% less likely to report experiencing a lot of burnout, 36% more likely to be thriving in their overall lives and 5 times more likely to strongly advocate their company as a great place to work, as they trust the leadership of the organisation, (Gallup 2023). You notice the key here: Wellbeing
Well-designed and research-informed wellbeing initiatives and strategies provide organisational resilience and remove risk from organisations.
Commit to caring for your people and increase profitability
Employers who care for their overall wellbeing benefit from higher productivity and profitability, lower turnover and safety incidents.
During the Covid pandemic, the Great Place to Work index measured the highest overall employee experience scores, due to great leadership at all levels in organisations.
Michael Bush, CEO of the Great Place to Work, said: “The ability to perform work from home is not the common denominator among this year’s (2020) 100 Best Companies, instead they shared a widespread faith in leaders committed to making things better for people – all people.”
The top performer in the 2022 World’s Best Workplace was DHL. They scored high in diversity and inclusion, values and culture and good pay and benefits. They invest in their staff, work clothing, wellness programs, working conditions and building careers. DHL cares about their people and it shows on the bottom line.
Increase stock price with desirable investment value
Company stock price is of course not only driven by elements measured in the Great Place to Work Surveys, such as culture, leadership, engagement or wellbeing, but it offers a strong argument to address these strategically, as a critical part of an organisation’s sustainable investment strategy. How many top technology companies went under? Xerox? SCO? Nortel Networks? Winchip? What was missing in these companies and why did their technology not save them?
Similar studies used comparative methodologies and reported that the top 20 best places to work for (Glassdoor rankings) returned 2.1 times the S&P 500 gains over a period of 13 years (2019 to 2021) for every $1000 invested, with the best returns posted in 2009 (3.6 times the S&P 500) and at worst (2011), it returned 1.2 times the S&P 500 (Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4479505-top-stocks-not-to-miss-from-glassdoors-2022-rankings).
(Note: Glassdoor is a website where current and former employees anonymously review companies and their management along 9 attributes, as well as satisfaction with their CEO and whether they would recommend the organisation to a friend)
What type of investor are you?
We cannot link an organisation’s stock market value only to its culture and employee engagement, but the performance of the 100 Best Index, compared to the rest of the market, positions people and culture centrally to the core strategy of the organisation.
Both employee experience, as well as investor sentiment relies heavily on employer branding and company culture. Investing in people and culture has the potential to boost company stock performance significantly.
Is the purpose of a company to make money at all cost? Sustainability is also an overused and under defined word. Even the best technology is not safe without human custodianship. Who keeps watch of your valuables when you are remote and cannot see what is happening? The evidence is mounting that healthy companies that treat their profit motive sustainably, are like responsible citizens, they build healthy communities.
References:
Fortune. Methodology for 100 Best Companies to Work For (2022). URL; https://fortune.com/franchise-list-page/best-companies-2022-methodology/
Great place to work. World’s Best Workplaces. URL: https://www.greatplacetowork.com/worlds-best-workplaces
Harter, J. Percent Who Feel Employer Cares About Their Wellbeing Plummets. Workplace Magazine: March 18, 2022. URL: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/390776/percent-feel-employer-cares-wellbeing-plummets.aspx
Harter, J. Thriving Employees Create a Thriving Business. Workplace Magazine: June 26, 2020. URL: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/313067/employees-aren-thriving-business-struggling.aspx
Kitterman, T & Great Place to Work. The World’s Best Workplaces invest in well-being, flexibility, and equity. October 13, 2022. URL: https://fortune.com/2022/10/13/worlds-best-workplaces-2022-dhl-express-us-flexibility/
Seeking Alpha. Top Stocks Not To Miss From Glassdoor's 2022 Rankings. January 13, 2022. URL: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4479505-top-stocks-not-to-miss-from-glassdoors-2022-rankings
Yoshimoto, C & Frauenheim, E. The Best Companies to Work For Are Beating the Market. February 27, 2018. URL: https://fortune.com/2018/02/27/the-best-companies-to-work-for-are-beating-the-market/
