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![Across your Culture Audit, we’re wondering….
Do your people really think so?
Is there real substance here? Or is it jargon/empty claim?
How does this choice reflect an understanding of your
people?
Does everyone get [it]?
How does [it] meaningfully impact your business?](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/finalcultureucertificationandlists2020-200414004804/75/Culture-U-certification-and-lists-2020-44-2048.jpg)
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Culture U certification and lists 2020
- 1. Connect.Innovate.Lead. From Great toBest: The Science Behind Certification & Ranking the Best Workplaces Sarah Lewis-Kulin Culture Coach Eliot Bush VP, Best Workplace List Research
- 2. How long haveyou been working with Great Place to Work? How many employees do you have in the United States?
- 3. What is a greatplace to work? How do we measure them? What’s the model & methodology? How can you improve your results?
- 4. What’s the bestplace you ever worked – and why?
- 5. 60% 65% 70%75% 80% 85% 90% 95% Executive/C-Suite Mid-level Manager Frontline Manager Individual Contributor Taking everything into account, I would say that this is a great place to work. 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% Executive/C-Suite Mid-level Manager Frontline Manager Individual Contributor Taking everything into account, I would say that this is a great place to work. Which is the better company? Average: 83% Average: 80% Company A Company B
- 6. Which is thebetter PTO policy? Company A • Unlimited time off • Available immediately upon hire • No approval required Company B • 2 weeks year 1 • +1 week, up to 4 weeks for every year • Supervisor approval required “People who take PTO aren’t promoted.” “I’m too busy to use PTO.” “It depends on your manager/team/corporate.” 50% say they can take time off when they need to “My boss shares pictures of her vacation when she gets back to encourage us all to take time to recharge.” “We schedule in advance so we can cover each other and ensure everyone gets time off.” “My company is flexible with me … so I am flexible with them.” 91% say people are encouraged to balance their lives Before you answer….
- 7. How do youdetermine Certification and List Rankings?
- 9. The Largest GlobalStudy 11.5 Million Employees Represented 90 Countries Surveyed 10,000 Companies Represented 92 Languages
- 10. The Largest GlobalStudy 11.5 Million Employees Represented 90 Countries Surveyed 10,000 Companies Represented 92 Languages
- 11.
- 12. Trust Leaders arecredible, show respect, and treat people fairly, driving company pride and camaraderie. Average of all statements, by all employees All survey statements
- 14.
- 15. Trust Leaders arecredible, show respect, and treat people fairly, driving company pride and camaraderie. Average of all statements, by all employees All survey statements
- 16. Maximizing Human Potential It’s agreat workplace for everyone, regardless of who you are or what you do in your company. Consistency of results between all people and positions All survey statements 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% Executive/C-Suite Mid-level Manager Frontline Manager Individual Contributor Taking everything into account, I would say that this is a great place to work. Average: 80%
- 17. Values How leaders makedecisions and behave, and what employees actually experience day-to-day. 3 Distinguishing Survey Statements: Exhibit best characteristics of business Actions match words Delivers on promises Consistency of results between all people and positions
- 18. An emotional connectionwith company culture and people. Coherent & effective strategy at every level of the business. Leadership Effectiveness 5 Distinguishing Survey Statements: Clear view Competent Approachable, easy to talk with Sincere interest as a person, not just an employee Confidence in executive judgement Consistency of results between all people and positions
- 19. Innovation Everyone’s intelligence,skills and passion generate more high-quality ideas, greater implementation speed, and stronger organizational agility. 4 Distinguishing Survey Statements: Involvement in decisions Seek ideas and suggestions. Celebrate new and better ways of doing things Meaningful opportunities to develop new and better ways Consistency of results between all people and positions
- 20. We know these metrics matter. Innovation ByAll Drives Revenue Growth Bottom Quartile 3rd Quartile 2nd Quartile Top Quartile Year-over-YearRevenueGrowth
- 21.
- 22. Financial growth is anoutcome of great workplaces.
- 23. How Do WeScore Best Workplace Lists?
- 24. Best Workplace ListsTrust Index Culture Brief Best Small Workplaces, Best Medium Workplaces, Best Workplaces in INDUSTRY All employees Survey result context Best Workplaces in REGION Employees in that region Survey result context Best Workplaces for Millennials Employees in that demographic Survey result context Best Workplaces for Women, Best Workplaces for Diversity Employees in that demographic Survey result context PLUS: Representation Best Workplaces for Parents Employees in that demographic Survey result context PLUS: Programs PEOPLE Companies that Care All employees, focused on caring survey statements Survey result context PLUS: Programs and essay question FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For All employees Survey result context PLUS: Everything in CB AND CA essays Data Focus Varies Slightly by List
- 25. Meet survey distributionrequirements Provide relevant Culture Brief information Understand & improve your employees’ experiences Understand gaps: Trust & Maximizing Human Potential (85%) How do you do well?
- 26.
- 27.
- 28. • Incremental toCulture Brief (not a superset of questions) • Available immediately to 1,000+ ees
- 29. Change for RepeatParticipants: Culture Audit Focuses on For All Model 15* Essay Questions Practice Areas All practices in company 5* Essay Questions For All Model Differentiating practices
- 30. Why aren’t youasking me about everything anymore? Got what we need: • 3 years of For All Trust Index data • Prioritize employee feedback on the impact your policies have Focus on: • What do you do best? • What distinguishes you? • Why & how do you do it? So we can: • Understand what drives your results • Share with media
- 31. Trust Culture AuditQuestion
- 32. Where do Istart?Trust
- 33. Trust DON’T: • Listall your benefits & perks. • Do: Most impactful programs to YOUR culture. • Do: Share your personality. Your story. DO HIGHLIGHT: • How your culture/programs benefit your business. • Ways you include everyone. • How you make programs personal and human – not transactions. • Ways your values and philosophy shape key programs. • Data showcasing program use and impact. To Stand Out:
- 34.
- 35. • Ensure baselineequity. • Eg. Create accountability & measure success: hiring, pay, promotions, allocation of development & coaching resources, etc. • Help different people feel they fully belong. • Intentionally value – and leverage – individuals’ uniqueness. • Hold leaders accountable to creating great workplaces for all. • Benefits & programs address unique needs. Show not tell. (Share evidence and data.) Maximizing Human Potential To Stand Out:
- 36. Values Culture AuditQuestion
- 37. Values What’s unique?How fit your culture? DON’T: (Just) Tell us WHAT your values are. DO: Real examples that bring them to life. • How did you choose your values? How do employees engage with them? • Put in practice day-to-day • Affect the design of programs/policies? Hiring and onboarding? Set priorities or strategy? Promotions? Leadership development? Leader accountability? • Influence decision-making – especially when it’s hard • Examples make it specific to your organization’s business or culture To Stand Out:
- 38.
- 39. To Stand Out: Leadership Effectiveness Understandhow ALL your people connect to and deliver on direction. (Not: Critiquing your strategy.) • Context on how your strategy, direction and goals were developed. • Who is included? • How do you implement your strategy/direction/goals all levels of the organization? • How do you equip leaders at all levels to communicate the strategy? • How do individuals connect the larger strategy to their daily work? • What resources do you provide to meet expectations? • Call out any fundamental principles that tie your business decisions and strategy together. • What’s your “true north,” your purpose, why do you do what you do? • How does your people and business strategy connect?
- 40.
- 41. To Stand Out:Innovation Innovationis intentional. It works. It’s For All. • Broad definition of innovation • “New ideas & better ways of doing things” • “real improvement to your business performance” • Intentional systems • Clear strategy – generate tons of ideas – come from anyone • Was it luck or was it strategy? • Diverse examples of involvement • Motivate & reward • Impact metrics
- 42. Extra Credit: MovementLeadership Believe & take action: “Everyone should work for a great place to work for all.” Who are you impacting? Why? Quantify your impact. Describe your investment/risk. Show your commitment. Yes, you CAN make the list without answering this question!
- 43. • Only ifalready available • Change for Previous Participants: No other types of materials. Optional Supplemental Materials
- 44. Across your CultureAudit, we’re wondering…. Do your people really think so? Is there real substance here? Or is it jargon/empty claim? How does this choice reflect an understanding of your people? Does everyone get [it]? How does [it] meaningfully impact your business?
- 45.
- 46. Tweetable Takeaways @GPTW_US Companieswith consistently #inclusive workplaces thrived before, during, and after the Great Recession, earning a 4x annualized return. via @GPTW_US #GPTW4All Perks & bennies won’t trick your people into putting you on #BestWorkplaces list. You need great leaders who treat ALL people with respect and fairness. #GPTW4All @GPTW_US Less than half (49%) of the US workforce have trustworthy leaders who treat people with respect and fairly. #GPTW4All @GPTW_US
Editor's Notes
- #5 sarah
- #6 sarah
- #7 sarah
- #9 KIM
- #14 30% Fair share of profits 37% Managers avoid favoritism 43% Avoid politicking & backstabbing 45% Celebrate new and better ideas 46% Psychologically & emotionally healthy 48% Managers interested in employees as people
- #18 Executives exhibit the best characteristics of the business. Management’s actions match its words. Management delivers on its promises.
- #19 Management has a clear view of where the business is going and how to get there. Management is competent at running the business. Management is approachable, easy to talk with. Management shows a sincere interest in me as a person, not just an employee. How much confidence do you have in your executive team’s judgement?
- #20 Everyone creates, is connected and contributes, which leads to more high-quality ideas, faster implementation and greater agility.” Management involves people in decisions that affect their job or work environment. Management genuinely seeks ideas and suggestions. We celebrate people who try new and better ways of doing things, regardless of the outcome. Over the last year, how many meaningful opportunities have you had to develop new and better ways of doing things at work?
- #26 THIS IS THE DEMO BY MATT or ELIOT; need to check schedules (about 5 min) Emprising (make sure to explain how you can have a high average but not make list bc looking at consistency – relative to peers)
- #30 The employee experience has ALWAYS drive Great Place to Work rankings. The original Culture Audit collected All the companies’ programs and practices and was truly an audit. Now, because our algorithm can pinpoint how effectively each company is creating a great place to work experience for all, no matter who you are or what you do, we use the culture audit essay questions to see how you are differentiating your workplace from others. And so we’ve been able to focus the questions to match the For All model and to shorten it considerably.
- #31 “Our analysis focuses on employees’ feedback on the impact and experience your policies have on them, so we don’t need an exhaustive list of every program you provide. Instead, we want to know what you do best. What really distinguishes your workplace. Why and how do you do that. We use that information to distinguish among the very best companies and tell the media and others your story and standout practices.”
- #32 Poor answer: generic claims (we’re caring) without showing it to us in action (benefit programs, employee crises) Poor answer: programs with no context (we have an ee helpline and crisi program) Best answer – blend both – we have this BECAUSE this is who we are – AND this is how it looks in action – anecdote & data – impact ot bsiness
- #33 f you’re not sure where to focus, start here: Analyze your Trust Index© survey results. Take to your reports and the analysis capabilities of Emprising. What do your people say you are best at? Is it how caring leaders are? How well you develop people? How proud they are of your products or impact on the community? Your people will tell you what makes you unique – use this as a guide to tell us what strategy your leaders have used to make those experiences happen. Review your Employer Value Proposition. Have your leadership, communications or people teams articulated your employer brand or value proposition? What are the programs that best deliver on it? See #1 to check whether it aligns with your people’s actual experience – otherwise it might not be aligned to what your employees believe you do best. Focus on differentiation. Think about what you know of other organizations. What makes you stand out? Maybe your industry tends to have a revolving door with low wage-earners, but you offer atypical development and promotions paths. Or maybe you are in an industry where it’s standard to have extensive learning and development programs, but you’ve figured out atypical ways to support people’s lives outside work. Think about the employee life cycle. Great Place to Work has identified key management practice areas that great workplaces focus on when creating a robust employee experience. You can use this to evaluate whether your organization has a strategy for all these influential areas and to trigger ideas for yourself about which programs you might describe to us and how they fit into your overall workplace strategy. Remember, please don’t tell us about all the practice areas. We want you to focus just on the highlights that will explain your employee feedback – see #1. For more tips on how to make your answer stand out, check out this article on highlighting key qualities.
- #34 Thirty years ago, we set out to answer a question: What do great workplaces have in common and how do they create them? We expected the best workplaces might be employee-owned, pay above market rate, or perhaps they would share a common organizational structure — Maybe we could find a baseline PTO, parental leave or compensation requirement. Shockingly we found that none of these tangible programs and perks matter. For every company with a 20-week parental leave policy, there’s another one with a 4-week policy that employees vouch is a far better place to work. Is there a magic bullet to being a best workplace? The data tells us that it is never what companies do that makes them great workplaces, it is how they do it. To be effective, the how has to build employee trust - this is the defining characteristic of all great workplaces: Employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy their colleagues. The best workplaces go a step beyond: Ensuring the company’s values and leadership are used together to build and enhance trust across all employees, unleashing the maximum potential of everyone in the organization, driving innovation, and realizing the outsized financial results that trust-based companies are known for. How does Great Place to Work measure Trust? When we evaluate companies for Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For® list, our primary consideration is whether employees themselves say it is a great workplace. We use the Trust Index© survey to ask current employees to rate their organizations confidentially on over 60 trust-building behaviors. For example, they tell us whether managers consistently follow through on their promises, treat people with respect, and avoid favoritism. To round out our analysis, we want to understand from the company’s point of view what they have done to create the environment that employees are describing in the survey. So, we ask you to tell us (in less than 4,000 words): What key qualities make your organization a great place to work? How do you create this unique environment -- and why do you do it? What is Great Place to Work looking for in a response? In response, companies may be tempted to provide a comprehensive list of their benefits and perks, or fear that we have an undisclosed list of specific programs we’re looking for and that they can make a mistake by focusing on professional development, rather than community service. Neither is helpful or true. Through our research, we know that there is nothing magical about the specific benefits you offer – it’s the culture you create through them and through your people that has the impact. In 80% of the cases, your competitors will describe substantively the same programs, but they can never have the same culture. Set your answer apart by sharing the big picture of the core attributes that define your culture - and the context, strategy and effectiveness of the programs that drive this culture. Bring your culture to life by showing it to us in action, illustrating your answer with the programs that show you at your best. For example, is your culture one of ambitious globetrotters driven by world-class-excellence? Maybe you want to highlight the exceptional professional development programs that push your employees to excel, the recognition programs that reward them, and the work-life balance programs that sustain them? Or maybe your culture centers around caring – for your own people, your customers and your community. Then tell us about the exceptional benefits that meet the needs of your people in crises, how you reward people for going above and beyond with customers, and how integrated community service is in every aspect of your employee life-cycle, from onboarding through retirement. (Still not sure where to start? Here are some tips.) Here are some other ways you can make your answer stand out from others: Communicate your company’s unique culture. This bears repeating. Think about how your competitors are going to describe their cultures – what is different about people’s day-to-day experiences at your company that could never be mistaken for working for your competitor across town? Draw attention to the ways you’ve intentionally included everyone. Maybe you’ve made sure that a particular program that would typically only be offered to the day shift is offered to the night shift too. Or, maybe the same programs don’t work for everyone, so you’ve developed unique programs for a subset of your workforce so regardless of role or background everyone has a way their needs are met. Be explicit about how you include everyone in your programs, benefits, and the best of your culture. Call out ways you make your programs personal and human, instead of transactional and commoditized. For example, maybe your anniversary program spends fewer dollars per employee, but each person receives a personalized note from their manager and a token that relates to a personal hobby or interest. Connect the dots for us on when your values and philosophy drive key programs. You stand out when you are clear about who your company is, what your strengths are, and how your programs build these strengths and strategically support the business itself. For example, your pro bono program takes on more meaning when you share that your people value development and community impact, so in addition to using it to do well in the community and inspiring your people, you also intentionally take on projects that build the skills and resumes of junior professionals in areas they are passionate about – and that that ultimately has increased retention of key talent and expanded your business by 20%. Show us the data. To be honest, nothing makes our eyes glaze over more than grand aspirational claims to greatness without evidence. Answers that share hard numbers (or at least specific examples) describing the utilization and impact of your programs really stand out from the pack. For example, how many of your new managers use that professional development program and then go on to be promoted from within? What kind of positive impacts are your programs having on your people – and your business? This question is meant to give us the big picture story about who your company is in action and how you’ve intentionally created the culture you have. We look forward to getting to know you better through it – and sharing who you are with the world.
- #36 If there’s any magic to best workplaces, it’s their ability to bring out the best of all their people’s talent with an extraordinarily high degree of consistency. This ability to “maximize human potential” is what turns a great place to work a best workplace – and reaps rewards not just for their people, but for the business. While great workplaces do an excellent job building trust with their typical employee, the best ones raise the bar by consciously ensuring that they bring out the best in a range of employees. Regardless of whether their next best hire is an extrovert or introvert, from Atlanta or Dubai, a post-doc or working on a GED, a single mom in corporate or a widower working the night shift – that person knows they have a fair chance to progress in the organization and that the unique talents they bring are desired and make a difference to the success of the organization. How does Great Place to Work analyze a company’s abilities to maximize human potential? We primarily look at each company’s Trust Index® survey results to understand the degree of consistency employees experience in the workplace. We aren’t looking for one group to have a better experience than another – we’re examining each demographic group (job role, tenure, race/ethnicity, gender, etc.) to see how similar or different the people within it report access to information, camaraderie with colleagues, the respect with which they are treated – and comparing those trends to that of other similar organizations. To round out our analysis, we also look to understand your company’s point of view on what you have done systematically to ensure a consistently great work experience for all your people. We focus the question to understand your company’s approach to common critical barriers to employees’ full engagement in your workplace. So, we ask you to tell us (in less than 4,000 words): How do you ensure everyone - regardless of who they are or what job they do - is a full member of your organization and can reach their highest potential? What is Great Place to Work looking for in a response? We recommend you focus on the areas we’ve found set the best companies apart. Share specific examples of ways your organization has created an experience of full inclusion by systemically ensuring equity, building belonging, and valuing and leveraging your people's uniqueness. Great answers will typically tell us: As a baseline, what you do to make sure people can count on being treated equitably by the organization. For example, what strategies do you have in place to create organizational accountability and measurable success in areas like equitable hiring, pay, promotions, and allocation of development & coaching resources? How you systemically ensure different people feel they fully belong in your organization. In what ways do you proactively help different people feel central to and full participants in your business and culture? For example, some companies have a regular interpreter in staff meetings so hearing-impaired or non-English speakers can fully participate. How you systemically show that you value – and leverage – individuals’ uniqueness. What strategies do you have to identify the talents, needs and perspectives that make your people unique? What ways have you found to meet these unique needs and leverage different experiences and talents for the betterment of the business? For example, some companies have a structured way to take people’s talents, backgrounds and experiences into account when designing project teams or getting feedback on business decisions. Describe how you engage with leaders to ensure they are inclusive in their approaches to creating a great place to work for all. For example, does your organization have a clear stance on what an inclusive, “For All” leader looks like in your company? Is there an intentional system to hire, develop and hold a range of great leaders accountable to this standard? Share highlights of how your benefits/programs address any unique needs specific to things like employees’ tenure, position, work shift, educational background, pay status, gender, age, ability, race/ethnicity, etc. Programs related to hiring, onboarding and training. As with all the questions in the Culture Audit, evidence and specific examples will make your answers stand out. Most companies tell us compelling aspirational statements they try to live up to – but actual examples, evidence and data bring these claims to life in a more convincing way. Don’t avoid telling us if you are not where you want to be yet in your results. Tell us about your progress, what you’ve learned along the way, what you’re doing next, and how it’s impacting your business. We look forward to learning your strategy for including everyone in your great workplace!
- #38 Great responses to this question stand out because you: Avoid simply reporting a list of your values and instead bring to life how your values capture what’s unique about your company. How are they specific to your organization’s particular business, market, and culture? How do your employees connect to these values? Help us see why your values aren’t just words on a wall, but something your people actively engage with. For example, you could share how you selected them. Perhaps you developed your values collaboratively, conducting focus groups and employee surveys, tapping into the insights of groups like high potential employees, ERGs, senior leaders and front-line employees, so that everyone had direct input into defining what the company stands for. Regardless of how you determined them, understanding why and how you picked them can illustrate how connect to your specific business. Explain how your values play out day-to-day in the workplace. For example, how do they factor into things like hiring and onboarding, employee recognition, decision-making, leadership development, setting priorities or strategy, how employees are promoted, or other key programs and decisions? The examples you share might demonstrate how you live your values in big ways and small, such as special recognition given to employees for demonstrating your values, or how managers are accountable for leading with values. Answers will stand out when they share specific examples that help us see how your values are relevant in everyday work situations and are actually utilized. Share specific examples about how your values were used to make difficult decisions. We want to see what happens when values are really put to the test — when push comes to shove, will an organization rely on its values to shape how they handle a situation? For example, how do your values influence what happens when mistakes occur by an individual, team or the organization? Have you ever taken a risk to live by your values? Perhaps you’ve taken a stand because of your values that’s risked negative public or shareholder response, or you’ve invested time or money to do what you think is right. How have your values applied when your workforce has faced difficult circumstances like a recession or layoff? How do your values apply to your customers and broader community when it might cost the company something? Certified companies have told us about times they have taken public stances on sensitive political issues despite potential backlash from their shareholders or market because of their value for caring for their people and doing the right thing. They’ve even told us about calling competitors during layoffs to help their top talent get placed in their next positions. In short, great answers to this question help us understand more about what your organization’s values are, why you developed them, how they shape your strategies and actions, and how they impact your employees’ day-to-day experiences.
- #40 How were your strategy/direction/goals developed and communicated -- at all levels? How well-equipped are leaders to connect to and communicate strategy? (Not critiquing your strategy.) Articulate their “true north” and why they do what they do; make it universal/accessible Integrate & connect their business and culture strategies Create a “line of sight” from each individual to the organizational goals, in part through including many voices in strategy development Provide resources to meet expectations What is Great Place to Work looking for in a response? We are not evaluating or critiquing your organization’s short and long-term strategy and philosophy through this question. Rather, we are seeking to understand how your strategy, direction and goals were developed and communicated with employees at all levels of the organization, and how well-equipped leaders at all levels are to connect to and communicate the strategy. Answers stand out when they: Share how your strategy, direction and goals were developed. It’s particularly useful to describe who was included across the business and anything you did to ensure great ideas could rise to the top. While we do not believe there is one “correct” way to develop a strategy, we do want to understand your particular approach and why it works for your business and people. Provide examples for how you implement that strategy, direction and goals through people at all levels of your organization. We want to get a picture not only how compellingly your executive team can speak to the company’s overall strategy, but how you equip leaders at every level down to frontline supervisors to be the torch bearers of your mission, vision and strategy. For example, what communication, resources, training and accountability do you provide so leaders can confidently speak to your strategies in every corner of the business? Are there special ways you support individuals who are not leaders to connect their daily work to the strategy, direction and goals? What feedback loops do you have so that employees can provide input or suggest how the organization can make updates and adjustments? Call out any fundamental principle that ties your business decisions and strategy together. For example, perhaps your retail organization’s business and people strategy centers around sharing your love of the outdoors and protecting the earth. Or your customer-driven organization commits to always putting people first. In some companies this principle might be your mission, vision, values, purpose, brand identity or some other key philosophy that forms your organization’s “true north.” Making this guiding principle explicit helps us understand how clearly your business and people strategies integrate together and align your people in this direction. Engaging individual contributors and leaders at every level of the organization in a clear and coherent strategy is a powerful indicator of great workplaces and driver of their outsized success. We look forward to learning more about the approach that drives your people and business forward.
- #42 Believe that the next great idea can come from anyone. Put systems in place to catch and act on these ideas. The strategy is crystal clear, large numbers of ideas are good, and companies act on many of them. TIP: Show that you were intentional. Show that it worked. Great answers to this question: Don’t get hung up on the word “innovation.” Best companies are distinguished by having a unique ability to engage all their talent in fueling new ideas and better ways of doing things that drive their business success. Whether you call this empowerment, continuous improvement, innovation, or something else entirely doesn’t matter. Regardless of whether your people are engineers or cashiers, whether you are in technology or banking, you need your people to help you be agile and improve. We understand that you don’t want accountants to invent new tax code – but what do you want them to improve? Help us understand any systems you have to drive innovation. Perhaps you have programs to enable employee collaboration and idea-sharing? Maybe you dedicate resources like a physical space for collaboration or time for training sessions that promote employee ideas? Perhaps you equip leaders at all levels of your organization to respond to people’s ideas and create a clear path to move them forward? How do your programs work together to reach all corners of the business and positions within the organization? Your answers will make more sense to us if you clearly communicate the intent and desired outcomes of these practices - we want to understand whether innovation happens intentionally or by chance. Explain how you motivate and reward innovation. Real examples are particularly useful to help bring this to life. They help us understand the complete life cycle of innovation at your organization. For example, how do you recognize and reward successful innovations? What happens when you try something new but the outcome isn’t a success? What happens to ideas that do not get implemented? Is there a feedback loop for those ideas? Is there a sense of appreciation for the effort it took to come up with the idea? Reflect a diverse set of examples of employees sharing new ideas and better ways of doing things and how those ideas have benefited your business. Innovation from any corner of the business is great. Your examples stand out even more if you can share examples that are not limited to a specific group of individuals – for example, just from management or just from your R&D team. Examples from people in roles where innovation is not considered part of their daily job are particularly interesting because it shows that innovation is part of your culture at large, and not just part of discrete individuals’ job descriptions. Include metrics. Any place you can tell us how many employees participate in your programs or quantify the business impact of the innovations your people have driven is an opportunity to set your company apart. Many organizations may have similar approaches to innovation. Evidence that your people are highly engaged in your programs and that they have a quantifiably positive business impact will stand out.
- #43 Maybe your company is committed to creating equitable access to job opportunities in your own organization and your larger community and industry. So you’ve gone beyond ensuring that your own pipeline and hiring is diverse, to figuring out a systemic way to create healthier, more inclusive talent pipelines in your community or industry. Make sure we know that the donations and volunteer time you are investing in your local school system are done with a larger intention than simply being a great community member and inspiring your employees to make a difference. Help us understand how deep your partnership with your local school system is, and the time and money you are investing. How big of a risk was it for your CEO to pitch this investment to your shareholders? If your strategy aims to improve outcomes for at-risk teens, those with learning differences, girls in STEM, veterans needing post-military careers – what metrics do you have that show how many people’s lives you are impacting and the success rates of people who then go on to be hired by your organization or others in your industry or community? Maybe your program doesn’t impact a lot of people – but is targeted to folks that are otherwise not focused on – why did you focus there? How do you know your investments are actually creating better workplaces for all? How many years have you been engaged in this work? What kind of lessons have you learned and year-over-year improvements are you making? What is Great Place to Work looking for in a response? We are looking for a demonstration of your organization achieving its purpose, having a powerful impact on the world, or creating a source of employee pride that goes beyond your products and services. Essentially, how are you sharing in and magnifying our vision to create great workplaces for all across the globe? How are you taking a stand on behalf of this movement? To be frank – we expect that many companies won’t have an answer to this. This question is optional extra credit and organizations won’t need to answer it to qualify for and make the 100 Best list. But the 100 Best have always represented leadership and best-in-class employers at the vanguard of business culture. We expect that just as the market has followed the 100 Best’s winning practices in the past – no doubt chasing the 3x stock out-performance their cultures are so famous for – future employers will soon be following these leaders as they take a more thoughtful approach to strengthening the social and economic ecosystems their businesses require to thrive. If your company is already acting on the vision that every organization should be a great place to work for all, let us know how you’re doing it! (And if you’re not, keep an eye out for the inspiring examples we’ll be sharing next year of those leading the way.) Whatever your vision for addressing the fundamental challenges to creating great workplaces for all in your own organization or the community at large looks like to you, excellent responses to this question will stand out when they: Connect the dots for us. Help us understand why the example you are sharing will help create great workplaces for all. Quantify the impact you are having. How much of what you’re doing are fine words – and how much evidence do you have that leads to measurable results? Please focus on providing examples and evidence rather than aspirational claims. Help us understand the scope of who you are impacting. Are your actions focused on particular needs of your own people? How many of them? Why those folks? Are you supporting people beyond your own walls? What kind of broader influence are you having? Provide perspective on how significant an investment this is for your company. Your work may cost your organization money, time, or even a risk to your brand or social capital when you do what you feel is right. Show your commitment. How persistently are you chasing your goal? Is this a one-time event, or part of a multi-year commitment?
- #45 Do your people think so? (low ti scores won’t be in running no matter how well you describe) Does everyone get it? How does your choice reflect an understanding of your people? (most of our people are gluten intolerant) How does it impact your business? Have you explained it in an intelligible way? (don’t say artisan blah blah blah) How does it fit your culture? Maybe you are a salad company? (don’t waste time telling us about bread – tell us about salad and why you picked that instead – we don’t care WHAT you’re giving your people – we care that it IMPACTS their experience) Back it up with data – X% come to the bread and cheese dinners. We’ve found Y% improvement in retention rates for people who eat bread and cheese. We’ve also started actively recruiting vegans to bring more diversity to our talent pool and have made z% yoy improvement in internal promotions rates. Make it unique/your own. Cornbread in STATE. Vs. cheese head in STATE. Clear that it wouldn’t appear anywhere else How do you provide it? Personal & human vs transaction and commoditicized.