Building a robust business means nothing if you cannot retain the best talent. You’ll spend your time spinning your wheels with your revolving door if your company cannot keep employees hired. While many businesses will blame their constant job posts on the employee who left, the most forward-facing companies will take a look at their company culture to discover if there is anything that can be fixed.
While your brand might be amazing at meeting client needs, is it also as good at meeting the diverse needs of its staff?
Here are some important considerations if you want to create an internal culture that’s as amazing as everyone outside the company thinks you are.
Focus on Employee Safety
We’ve all heard the stories from Amazon workers about their sometimes-dangerous work environments. While consumers love Amazon, not all their staff members share the same sentiments. And while the stories might be one-off examples due to poor management, they also highlight an important factor for employees to consider. If you want to create a great internal culture, work needs to be a safe place.
This means you need lights in the parking lot, secure and well-lit stairwells, a place for staff to secure their personal belongings, and perhaps even video surveillance in public spaces. It also means investing in tools that work properly and taking staff complaints about safety seriously. When employees feel safe, they are more likely to stay working for an employer instead of looking for their first ticket out the door.
Invite Feedback
The best leaders are so much more than managers. Anyone can be trained to manage people. But only those with humility and a willingness to learn and grow can become a leader. One of the things that the best leaders do is to invite feedback. This one thing separates a healthy work environment from a toxic one.
The best companies invite and consider feedback from their staff. They take concerns seriously and handle workplace issues with discretion. By inviting feedback, you express to your staff that their thoughts matter and that you are willing to take action when necessary.
Offer Modern Benefits
Some people may not be enticed by a 401K, a week of vacation time, and medical benefits the same way. There is a reason why some tech companies can hire and retain such incredible talent. They go out of their way to meet the needs of millennials and other younger employees. This is vital. Younger staff want to work for more than a 40-year plaque and a pension. They want their work to feel exciting, fun, and a place they want to be.
Modern benefits might include allowing for remote work. It might mean offering company retreats. It might mean offering flexible hours or not basing their pay on an hourly scale. It might mean offering extensive maternity benefits like 3 months with full pay. These benefits are crucial if you want to keep people employed with you.
Make Work Fun
No matter what kind of business you do, there is always room for fun. You may want to do fun Fridays with games and prizes throughout the day. It may sound silly and juvenile, but like it or not, people want to enjoy the place where they spend most of their time during the week.
You as the business owner have an incredible opportunity to create a place where work is done, and friendships can be made. But this can only happen if you give space for it. Creating a fun work environment means that you balance the need to get things done on a deadline, with exciting incentives regularly.
Create Unique Workstations
Working in a fully open office might look cool, but it can be distracting. There are many different types of office partitions that you can use to separate desks. Staff who feel like they have a space that works just for them are more likely to stick around.
Unique workstations also mean that you consider the types of work people do and create a spot that’s conducive to their role. Some graphic designers for instance are known for liking to work in dim light.
This helps them see the colors on their screens better and make better adjustments to their work. Phone reps often like having partitions between their desks so they can better hear the person on the other end of the phone.
Photo by Avel Chuklanov on Unsplash
