employee retention Archives - SearchWide Global

Are Work Perks Enough for Top Talent?

3.13.2019 by jsl_web_admin

In today’s ultra-competitive job market with a low unemployment rate and high demand for the best talent, how can companies keep the best and brightest? Sue Shellenbarger’s Wall Street Journal article “Why Perks No Longer Cut it for Workers” from December 2018 explains how the most successful companies are doing this by providing employees with a sense of belonging.

Sue shares that the companies offering growth potential, trust, motivation and career planning are more likely to retain top talent and post higher per employee profits than companies that don’t. Creating a cohesive work environment, promoting from within and continued training account for high employee satisfaction and lead to employee loyalty.

Sue’s article shares that; “psychological safety: the freedom from the fear of being shamed or ostracized by others for voicing criticism or tossing out a crazy idea” encourages higher employee performance by allowing team members to take risks, innovate and solve problems.

The creation of cross-discipline and multi-generational teams that foster collaboration and a free exchange of ideas can provide employees an increased sense of ownership and pride within their organization.

According to Atlassian’s article “Have tech perks gone too far?” the top six traits that make for a stand-out workplace include a sense of purpose, risk taking, rituals that drive innovation and create a culture of discovery, transparency and autonomy, flexibility and the idea of “working open.” These cultural imperatives, not perks, are what current and potential employees are taking into account when deciding to join, stay or leave an organization.

The WSJ article was shared on LinkedIn and gained quite a few comments with people offering their opinions. Among the many, there were comments such as “never underestimate the significance of a company’s culture” and “the most successful companies give employees a sense of belonging,” showing us that this is both a desired and important attribute for employees.

It seems as though the tech industry and large companies are paving the way when it comes to creating innovative company cultures. For the travel, tourism and hospitality industries, it is more important now than ever before to create a culture that team members can relate to and be proud of. Community involvement, open or alternative workspaces, the inclusion of team members at all levels in idea generation, accessibility to leadership, and fostering collaboration across the organization are just a few ideas to enhance your organization’s culture.

How does a company create a culture that attracts and retains the best and brightest?

We found there are many free resources online. The recent Forbes article, “Defining Company Culture: It’s About Business Performance, Not Free Meals And Game Rooms” dives deeper into creating a desirable culture. The author, Natalie Baumgartner suggests that employee perks can often be confused with company culture, or “…being used as a Band-Aid solution to cover up a lack of defined culture.”

In fact, research shows employees value culture and career growth almost twice as much as they value compensation and benefits when selecting an employer.

Company Culture: A Complete Guide for 2019 offers specific elements to achieving a positive culture such as company values and employee engagement. It states, “To put it more simply, culture is the way things work in your company – engagement is how people feel about it.”

An astonishing 87 percent of organizations cite culture and engagement as their main challenges, according to a report by Deloitte.

While there is no “right” answer for every organization, creating an inclusive and empowering workplace culture is highly more likely to attract and retain top talent.

SearchWide Global is a full-service executive search firm primarily for companies in Destination Organizations / Hotels & Resorts / Venue Management / Experiential Marketing, Tradeshow & Exhibition / Industry Associations / Sports & Entertainment. Specializing in C-Level and Director level executive searches for companies ranging in size from Fortune 500 corporations to mid-sized public and private companies and associations. Founded in 1999, SearchWide Global headquartered in St. Paul, MN, USA and operates worldwide.

Why Creating a Diverse Workplace Will Help Companies Thrive

2.5.2019 by jsl_web_admin

Written by: Kellie Henderson

It’s important to understand why a diverse workplace will impact your bottom line and, why the diversity discussion is at the forefront of recruiting. The hospitality/tourism industry is a melting pot of people working in destination management, lodging, restaurants, attractions, events, transportation and other fields that serve a wide and culturally diverse population of visitors and travelers.

Our global industry creates opportunities for people from all walks of life and workplace diversity offers personnel an opportunity to better understand and appreciate different cultural backgrounds and lifestyles. A diverse workforce also creates a positive image for businesses and shows they are inclusive and offer equal employment opportunities. As we seek to recruit top talent, diversity is a top priority. Not only for SearchWide Global, but also the companies we serve.

Organizations with a diverse staff are more creative, innovative, retain staff longer and companies earn more money by capturing greater market share by marketing to a wide range of consumers; races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations. Diversity of thought, skillset, experiences, and education also round out a workforce.

A 2015 study from Bersin by Deloitte, showed that diverse companies had 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee over a three-year period than non-diverse companies did.

According to Forbes, “companies in the top quartile for gender diversity outperform their competitors by 15% and those in the top quartile for ethnic diversity outperform their competitors by 35%.”

Gallup studied 800 business units from the retail and hospitality industries in 2014. They found that gender-diverse business units had better financial outcomes, including revenue and net profit, than those dominated by one gender. Financial performance was dramatically better for gender-diverse business units that were also highly engaged.

Below are a few ways to create a diverse workforce:

Make diversity a part of your brand and company culture – It’s important to show that your company is one that respects and embraces differences, and is welcoming to everyone.

Provide diversity training in your workplace for employees to fully understand the benefits of a diverse workplace. Training people at all levels on topics like unconscious bias.

Be open to accommodating cultural and religious holidays and diversity-friendly apparel choices.

Diversify the boardroom in order to leverage your company’s full potential. According to Pew Research, by 2050 there will be no racial or ethnic majority in the United States, and our nation’s boardrooms need to represent these changing demographics.

MSCI Inc. studied the financial performance of U.S. companies from 2011-2016 and found that those with at least three women on the board had median gains in return on equity 11% higher, and earnings per share 45% higher, than companies with no women directors.

Create an inclusive environment – teamwork and collaboration and a work environment of trust and involvement. Diverse and inclusive teams have been shown to help employees feel more engaged. Read more.

According to studies cited by Scientific American, organizations with inclusive cultures have greater innovation, creativity, and bottom line results.

Make representation of diversity at all levels of your organization a priority.

There’s a huge benefit to bringing people together from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, lifestyles and belief systems. Not only will this create a well-rounded and inclusive workforce, but it will also bring creativity, different perspectives, and new thought processes, which will impact your bottom line, improve efficiencies, land more customers, and you’ll be giving yourself one of today’s biggest competitive advantages.

What Every Company Should Be Doing to Keep Their Employees Happy

7.20.2017 by jsl_web_admin

According to Glassdoor, top companies like Twitter, Edelman, Google and Facebook were named the top places to work based on company culture and values.

Twitter offers core values that drive the company to always be better. Meetings on the roof, teamwork, a friendly atmosphere, and an open dialogue with the executives is what employees like most about working there.

1. Physical space does matter:

Whether you work in a corporate office or remotely, physical space does matter.

The feeling of psychological privacy that comes with individual offices can enhance job performance. Open office layouts (cube farms) tend to have high noise levels. Studies have shown that even a small amount of background noise increases mental workload, which further contributes to employee stress and lowered productivity. Offering spaces where people can close the door and put their heads down to work without noise is what employees are looking for.

Physical enhancements such as:

Natural light – creativity depends on natural light. Integrating sunlight into office design, and making sure it shines on all employees is vital to creating the environments where creative ideas grow.

Plants – plants have been proven to lower workplace stress and increase productivity. Add them through the office space for all employees to see.

2. Work atmosphere and healthy well-being

Employers are now using decor to entice top talent, and as the lines between work and home are becoming blurred, many workplaces now feature treadmill desks, standing desks and lounge areas. Companies are even offering more opportunities for play. Dropbox has a music studio at its headquarters in San Francisco (take a peek at their headquarters here). YouTube’s office in San Bruno, California, has an indoor slide and putting green (see video tour below).

Healthier employees are happier and more productive, and companies with the best benefits packages recognize this.

At Salesforce, a cloud-computing company in San Francisco, employees receive a monthly reimbursement of $100 for nutrition counseling, yoga classes or massages. At the organic food producer Clif Bar & Company, employees receive 2 1/2 hours of paid workout time each week. Finding the space to work out is even easier for Clif Bar’s staff, since the company headquarters in Emeryville, California, has a dance studio, gym and rock-climbing wall (see video tour below).

Small and midsize companies have started to give their staff Fitbits and Apple Watches (SearchWide Global does!) or started programs to encourage their employees to become more active.

3. Perks vs. culture:

Top companies like Facebook, Google and LinkedIn offer an array of perks including on-site gym’s, car washes, free laundry, rock climbing walls, running trails and afternoon yoga (see Facebook’s video tour below). Other perks including flexible time off, competitive retirement and medical benefits can attract top talent. The employee perks are there to take the daily stress off employee’s lives so they can concentrate on doing their job. Glass Door did a recent blog on unique company perks in 2017 by some top companies. Here they are.

However, the company culture is what employees are most happy with. Having things does not define the organizational culture. Supportive management, good ideas, work that is appreciated and a company that makes decisions based on good principles is what defines the culture and what’s appreciated by staff.

Glass Door did a recent blog on unique company perks in 2017 by some top companies, we hope they are setting the stage for some of the smaller companies out there that might be looking for perks to include for their employees.

“Being able to be truly happy at work is one of the keys to being happy in life”, says Heidi Golledge, the CEO and co-founder of CareerBliss.

What are some factors that make you happy at work?

Why Millennials Matter in the Workplace and How to Embrace Them

8.15.2016 by jsl_web_admin

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center,

By 2020, Millennials will form 50 percent of the global workforce.

That’s right, in four short years, half of the workforce will be those born from 1982 onward. Part of the generation of text messages and social media, and the world at immediate fingertips. With the number of Millennials in the workforce, it will certainly reshape the way both leaders and the workplace culture will be in the future. Baby Boomer and Gen X leaders will need to learn to embrace Millennials’ fast-moving, entrepreneurial spirit.

Here are a few ways Millennials will reform the workplace in a positive way.

Millennials want a revamp on organizational charts.

“Millennials don’t work for you; they work with you.” – Forbes.

Millennials want to work in an environment of mutual interest, rather than structured hierarchies. Unstructured hierarchies provide the opportunity for open and more frequent communication from people of different ages, experiences and walks of life. They believe in order to be successful there must be a true collaboration of thoughts and ideas over generational borders. Millennials seek training and development from those their senior in the workforce, but also want opportunities to take on challenging and important assignments. Sounds like a win-win.

Millennials want open communication.

“Unlike their professional predecessors, millennials display more socially tolerant attitudes and a preference for close, personal relationships. Although many view the millennial generation as only tech savvy micro-bloggers (who speak only through social networks), millennials actually value genuine and personal communications.” – Daily Business Review.

We’ve learned that Millennials would rather be given constructive criticism on a more frequent, causal basis, rather than during a quarterly review. Having mastered the short and concise texting dialect (LOL, G2G, TTYL) for years, Millennials like straightforwardness and directness.

Millennials want genuine relationships with coworkers. Millennials enjoy genuine relationships with coworkers. Happy hours, work retreats and team building activities have become more and more popular over the years, and Millennials don’t want that to change. They enjoy getting to know colleagues on a more personal level, so they can understand each other better on the professional level.

Millennials get connectedness and networking.

“When it comes to engagement, millennials have the advantage over previous generations. Millennials have grown up in a connected world. From the use of mobile and social technologies, immediately communicating, engaging and connecting is second nature for them.” – Daily Business Review.

Millennials have relationships with people through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, blogs, emails, in-person encounters – you name it, they’re on it. The core principles of networking and business development are more or less innate to Millennials.

Work-Life balance is important to Millennials.

“We’re becoming a workforce where the amount of time you spend in the [office] chair is not the issue, it’s the results of the work. It’s about what’s been achieved.” – U.S. News & World Report.

With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, Millennials prefer and see the benefits of fluid workweeks. And if employees work better in the early morning hours rather than the evenings, it can be mutually beneficial.

As Millennials become the dominant force in the workplace, companies will need to begin reevaluating and embracing this new generation of individuals. Soon, Millennials will be the majority of clients, customers and decision makers. We believe the future holds a mutually beneficial exchange of work experience and knowledge with communication and collaboration to create a fresh workplace intertwining generational borders.

Tag: employee retention