Workplace Wellness: Creating a Company Culture that Retains Top Talent
Posted by Amelia K. on Thursday, November 6th, 2014 with 6 Comments
Keeping great employees on your payroll is a lot harder than many people think. Between defending against lucrative offers from other companies, providing great healthcare benefits, and keeping employees engaged and feeling valued, your plate is full. But one of the things that many employees cited as the main reason they stay on board with the brand they currently work for goes beyond the individual benefits they receive each year – and it all relates back to your company culture.
Being the company that offers a great work environment makes your staff the envy of all of their friends. You know you’re doing something right when your employees actually enjoy coming to work every day. And there’s definitely been a shift over the past ten years in terms of employee mentality, knocking salary and benefits out of the number one spot for reasons why employees stay loyal to one employer. It has everything to do with creating a great company culture. So if you want to up the enthusiasm and morale within your business, but aren’t sure where to start, we’ve come up with a great of ways to help instill a stronger bond between company and employee.
Creating an environment that fosters creative collaboration can help your staff feel more connected to the company and positive about their role in the business.
Photo Credit: Flickr user eschipul
Collaboration
Companies that offer a more collaborative environment are naturally rated higher by employees than businesses who offer fewer opportunities to work as a team. Not only does collaboration help your staff create stronger bonds with each other, it’s a great way for them to start to understand how they contribute to the company’s growth – and to it’s bottom line. Knowing that they’re working towards a purpose is something that’s proven to keep your employees happier and more engaged. So look for lots of opportunities for your team to collaborate and share their successes with each other, like weekly team meetings and lunchtime brainstorming sessions, complete with a catered healthy lunch.
Workplace Flexibility
Companies that offer a lot of flexibility in terms of when, where and how employees work show their staff that they have a lot of trust in their ability to self-manage and get things done well. When your staff feels more trusted by upper management, they’re happier in their roles – because they feel like they’re doing a great job. Offering the ability to work remotely, collaborate through digital software and not requiring a standard 9 – 5 schedule, so long as your staff is getting their work done, is a great way to create a team that makes their job work best for their lifestyle. Plus, offering a flexible workplace is seen a huge employee benefit by your staff!
Training Opportunities
Offering your employees the opportunity to learn new skills, hone in on ways to do their job better, and just generally expand their horizons helps them to take on new, exciting roles – preventing them from getting bored with their jobs. Coupled with internal advancement opportunities, this is a great way to spark your staff to always do better and know that you’re helping them grow as individuals, which can support the business’s long-term goals. To do this effectively, consider the types of topics that would appeal to different departments of your company, and schedule a monthly lunch and learn where someone on the team – or someone from a different department – comes in to lead an interactive training session. Not only will this strengthen the bond between your staff, it will help them feel more valued and engaged with what’s going on at the company. Just don’t forget to bring in a yummy lunch to help keep everyone engaged during the session – our virtual cafeteria service can help you easily do just that!
Positive Environment
While not every interaction can be perfect, having an environment that encourages positivity – finding great solutions for problems, people who engage with each other, focusing on how to consistently make things better instead of focusing on the flaws – goes beyond just helping employees to enjoy their job. It helps to spark passion for what you do and helps everyone to feel more engaged and accountable for their role in the business. Positivity starts at the management level and works it’s way down the chain, so make sure you’re teaching your leaders the best ways to encourage positive engagement with their team by bringing in motivational speakers and offering training specific to this topic.
Retaining Top Talent
Keeping the best employees happy can help keep them around for a long time – and as you likely already know, keeping top talent working at your company is a huge driver of future success. Creating a company culture that embraces your staff, offers a lot of engaging opportunities and shows your employees how much you value them is becoming a much more popular – not to mention vital – way to keep the best people from departing.
One thing that employees always love is when you pair a collaborative meeting or training session with delicious, healthy food. And that’s where Waiter.com can help you out! Between our tasty catered lunches and convenient virtual cafe service, we’ve got a quick and easy solution that will keep your staff full and impressed by how well you take care of them. Place your first order today!
When it comes to feeding employees and coworkers, make your company's food program really count! If your workplace dining plan needs to take it up a notch — or if you don't have one at all — Waiter.com is here to help. From Virtual Cafeteria Service to diverse menus to local takeout & delivery, Waiter.com offers customizable dining solutions for every business and budget. Contact us today to get started!
If you have a job that you look forward to going to in the morning then you’re a lucky person, more companies need to be more focused on keeping their employees satisfied.
i agree, having an enjoyable work place would help production and make everyone a lot happier. i wish more jobs did these kinds of things.
The good thing is that more employers are starting to implement them – and it’s doing wonders for making employees happier!
It’s true – and it’s becoming more of a reality – many employers are getting very concerned about retaining great talent as the job seeker pool shrinks!
Having worked in several large organizations myself, it’s true that the corporate culture and the environment that it creates makes a world of difference. While the article brings up a few good points like the importance of allowing collaboration (which does in fact foster a sense of belonging) , and permitting workplace flexibility (which really does illustrate trust in the employee and works best in a project/deadline oriented field), the most valuable aspect of a company’s attitude towards it’s employees is appreciation. To a hardworking employee, appreciation is everything. And, of course, frequent catering always helps 🙂
This is very true, Su Anne – thanks for sharing!