Tag Archives: Camaraderie

November 18, 2014 · 4:30 am

Peer Recognition, Culture and Going the Extra Mile

Data Point TuesdayWhat motivates employees? It is money? Feeling valued at work? Connecting with a company’s social mission? All these are good answers, but a new study from TINYpulse that analyzed over 200,000 employee responses relating to organizational culture found that peers and camaraderie are the #1 reason employees go the extra mile. While peer recognition and camaraderie might seem like two aspects of company culture that happen (or need to happen) organically, there are ways organizations can promote a culture that fosters peer recognition and camaraderie. As a potentially overlooked area of focus for organizations, peer recognition is a valuable way to foster a positive culture and create one where employees regularly “go the extra mile.” 44% of employees surveyed report that when they are provided a simple tool to do so, they will provide peer recognition on an ongoing basis. The happier the employee, the bigger the praise: 58% of “happy” employees report giving regular peer recognition, compared to 18% of the least happy employees. As TINYpulse states, “Professional happiness encourages 3X more recognition!”Nov 18 2014 HappinessThinking that money motivates employees seems an antiquated line of thought when looking at TINYpulse’s data. In fact, money isn’t even among the top 5 factors that motivate employees to go the extra mile. Out of 10, “money and benefits” ranks #8. The top 3 motivators for employees to go the extra mile are:

  • Camaraderie/peer motivation
  • Intrinsic desire to do a good job, and
  • Feeling encouraged and recognized

Motivation ChartFeeling encouraged and recognized at work can stem from a number of different sources, but regardless of where recognition most often occurs, TINYpulse’s data show that employees feel significantly undervalued overall. On a 1-10 scale, just 21% of all employees gave a score of nine or ten for feeling valued at work, meaning that 79% of employees feel undervalued, or not valued at all.

Value ChartCamaraderie and recognition have broader implications than just creating a more motivated workforce. Workplace cultures that embrace these are no longer expected to be just the few and far between: job seekers expect this of organizations, and they are ways to not only attract talent, but to retain it. Millennials especially (as I’ve discussed in past posts) place a high value on camaraderie and actively seek out such work environments. TINYpulse sites a recent report by Bersin and Associates, which found that employee engagement, productivity, and customer service, are about 14% better in organizations where recognition occurs.

Consider how your organization recognizes its employees – how do you recognize peers? Do employees at your organization feel valued – do you? Maybe it’s time to institute some formal recognition programs, which we here at Great Place to Work consistently see as best practices at organizations on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For list. “Ramping up” recognition programs doesn’t need to mean excessive time or investment either. It could be as simple as instituting a gold star program, installing a white board in the break room for “biggest save of the week” comments, or having an employee mentor another for an hour on a specific skill. Our advice is to start small, and build on positive outcomes.

But by all means, provide formal and informal ways for your employees to recognize the contributions of their peers – that is, if you’d like more of your employees to go the extra mile for your customers!

Leave a comment

Filed under China Gorman, Company Culture, Data Point Tuesday, TINYpulse, Workplace Studies

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 21, 2014 · 4:30 am

2014 World’s Best Multinational Workplaces: Trends for Thought

Data Point TuesdayHere at Great Place to Work we’re getting ready to reveal the 2014 World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list, so there seems like no better a time to talk about a positive organizational trend that’s been occurring among many of the less encouraging trends we consistently hear about (for example, the war on talent, low levels of employee engagement, or no work/life integration). The positive trend that I’m speaking, to be exact, is that levels of trust, camaraderie and pride are rising at the best workplaces – essentially, the world’s best workplaces are getting better. In recent years we’ve seen “the best” companies get better in the majority of the ~50 countries where we measure workplaces using our Trust Index© employee survey. Additionally, we have seen increasing trust at the companies that make up Great Place to Work®’s annual World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list.
trustindexchange2009-2014

The good news is that while this increase in trust trend is mostly notable within “best companies,” such positive culture changes are influencing other companies as well and helping to create a push towards a higher standard for organizations. The data discussed here comes from the decision to examine trust trends in individual countries and among the world’s best multinationals as we prepared our 4th annual World’s Best Multinational Workplaces list. In particular, we studied the Trust Index© scores of all the national Best Workplaces lists during the past five years. The Trust Index© is Great Place to Work®’s 58-statement employee survey that measures trust, pride and camaraderie in organizations.

Our research highlights seven reasons why trust is rising in great workplaces: awareness, evidence, Generation Y, employee gratitude, wellbeing, momentum, and transparency. Globally, company leaders have been demonstrating an increased awareness towards the importance of a high-trust workplace culture. Furthermore, we’re seeing increasingly more evidence published that great workplaces lead to better business results. For example, publicly traded companies on the U.S. Best Companies to Work For list have nearly doubled the performance of the stock market overall from 1997 to 2013 and a paper published earlier this year by the European Corporate Governance Institute which studied data from 14 countries, concluded that higher levels of employee satisfaction (reflected by earning a spot on a best workplaces list generated by Great Place to Work®) corresponded to stock market outperformance in countries with high levels of labor market flexibility, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Millennial generation is also an influencer. Globally, this generation is demanding better workplaces and pushing employers to place more focus on both social responsibility and work/life integration. Employee gratitude also plays a big role in high-trust cultures. Best workplace environments reflect employee gratitude and reciprocation and aren’t solely about what management is doing for employees. This is especially true during trying times for companies. When one company’s culture may take a turn for the worse during economic hardships, organizations that take care of their employees amid such a time can create higher levels of trust. We can also point to the ‘wellbeing’ movement as an influencer of high trust levels at organizations. With people placing more and more emphasis on mental and physical wellness, in part due to high stress work environments at many organizations, great workplaces are embracing the wellbeing trend. Among the three Trust Index© scores that have risen most among the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces is this statement: “People are encouraged to balance their work life and their personal life.”

Momentum and transparency are the last of the seven key trends we have noted as influencers of high-trust at organizations. Momentum refers to the positive upward spiral that seems to occur (owing to both management and employees) once an organization develops a trust-based workplace culture. This is logical as a more trust-based culture often sees employees that are more active participants in culture related activities and hold a greater appreciate for their workplace. With the amount of new technologies (like social media) and personal mobile devices available, organizations are faced with an amount of unprecedented transparency. This transparency works in favor of organizations with great cultures and rewards them while providing a “public eye” and ample incentive for less than great organizations to step up. Another of the three Trust Index© scores that have risen most among the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces is this statement: “Management keeps me informed about important issues and changes.”

Check out a few “Fast Facts” about the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces 2014 below, and be sure to check back here on Thursday to see which companies made the list!

Fast Facts: The World’s Best Multinational Workplaces 2014

  • Since last year, industry distribution has changed significantly on the World’s Best list. IT and Telecommunications now makes up 40% of the industries, replacing Manufacturing and Production (28%) as the dominating industry. The variety of industries represented has shrunk from 8 industries in 2013 to just 6 this year:industrydistribution2014
  • Among the 2014 World’s Best Multinational Companies to Work For in 2014, “Pride” is distinguished as the main strength. “Camaraderie” ranks stronger than “Respect” in the Top 10 and the Top 5, while “Fairness” continues to be biggest opportunity area:2014 Dimension Scores
  • Since 2011, the main improvements made by the best multinationals in the world are:
    • Encouraging work-life balance,
    • Management keeping employees informed
    • Promotions based on merit.

2 Comments

Filed under China Gorman, Company Culture, Data Point Tuesday, Employee Satisfaction, Great Place to Work, World's Best Multinational Workplaces

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 12, 2014 · 4:30 am

It’s all About: Trust, Honesty, and Transparency

Data Point TuesdayCompany cultures, the good, the bad, and – well in the interest of being nice we’ll leave it at that – have been the focus at Great Place to Work® for the last 25 years, since Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz researched their book The 100 Best Workplaces in America. What their research revealed is that the key to creating a great workplace revolves not around the building of a certain set of benefits and practices, but through the building of high-quality relationships in the workplace, relationships characterized by trust, pride, and camaraderie. What we call a great company culture. As Erin Osterhaus, researcher for HR technology reviewer Software Advice, points out in her blog about a recent survey, the term “company culture” has seen an astronomical rise in use since 1980, due in part to publications like The 100 Best Workplaces in America, as well as companies’ recognition that culture has a direct impact on how happy, and healthy employees are– and, how well they perform. With the rise in attention to the topic of company culture, enter the adoption of roles created specifically to focus on company culture. As Osterhaus points out, Google, #1 on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For List for the last three years, was one of the first companies to adopt such a position (Chief Culture Officer) in 2006.

company culture over timeConsidering all the research and data that surround the term “company culture” today, Software Advice surveyed 886 U.S. adults to learn how they define company culture, and to better understand what culture means to the group it impacts the most: employees and job seekers. What did they discover? Most survey takers described “company culture” as a value, belief, or habit of employees that worked at an organization, or the overall feeling of the environment at that company. The majority of respondents listed their ideal company culture as “casual or relaxed” followed by “family oriented,” “fun,” “friendly,” and “honest and transparent.” However, when asked which of these five attributes would most likely convince them to apply at company, respondents stated that “honesty and transparency” would be the biggest influencer.

So while “casual/relaxed” and “fun” ranked over honesty as the most common definition of an ideal company culture, the fact that “honesty and transparency” are the bigger influencers on whether a prospective candidate actually applies at a company highlights what we’ve known about company cultures all along… that trust and values matter most.

ideal company cultureSoftware Advice’s data prove once again that it is fostering trust and building honesty and transparency that ultimately create a sense of camaraderie amongst employees and the fun, family feel environments that respondents report as their “ideal company culture.” As Leslie Caccamese and Katie Popp state in Great Place to Work’s recent whitepaper, Five Lessons for Leaders as they Build a Great Workplace, “What people often think makes a great workplace isn’t actually what makes it so.” While great amenities like workout facilities, foosball tables, and 4 star catered meals may initially come to mind when people think “great company culture,” it’s ultimately evidence of trust-based interactions between leaders and their employees that Great Place to Work looks for when evaluating companies for our Best Companies to Work For lists in nearly 50 countries around the world.

I’ll leave you with another quote from our recent whitepaper: “…by all means, install slides and fi­reman poles; scatter about lava lamps and bean bag chairs. Bring in the manicurist and the barista, and cater to people’s pets. Just make sure these things aren’t happening in lieu of deeper, more substantial practices like involving employees in workplace decisions, keeping them informed of important issues, tending to their ongoing professional development, and sharing profi­ts fairly. These types of practices will go much further in helping employees feel that theirs is a great workplace.”

11 Comments

Filed under 100 Best Companies to Work For, Business Success, China Gorman, Culture, Data Point Tuesday, Great Place to Work, Great Place to Work Institute, Great Rated!, Relationships, Trust

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,