How to Become a “Best Places to Work” Company

I recently had the opportunity to moderate a panel of Vistage International members whose companies had been recognized as a Best Places to Work Company.

The leaders of these companies all agreed that creating a workplace where employees enjoyed working started with the company culture. As leaders, they were in the position to significantly influence the culture.  These leaders learned that they have to:

1. Live and breathe the values of the company
2. Be transparent even when it is difficult
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate

This list probably isn’t new to many of you, but it isn’t easy to accomplish.

The Best Places to Work survey and other employee engagement surveys are a snap shot in time. It measures how employees perceive the company they work for at the time they answer the questions.

But for a great workplace to be sustainable, leaders need to take the role of a movie director making sure that their actors and actresses have a great environment to be inspired to create Oscar winning performances day in and day out.

So what do you as a leader need to do to improve the perceptions of employees?

First, you need to understand that as a leader you need to personify the values of your company. Values are only values if you and the people around you practice them day in and day out.

As a leader, you need to be demonstrating company values in a way that is visible to others around you.  People can interpret your values by:

1. The decisions you make
2. Behaviors you show externally
3. Organizational goals
4. Interpersonal interactions
5. Performance feedback

You need to insure that all of these are aligned with your company values.

Second, ask these questions at the end of each day to determine if you are living company values on a daily basis:

1. What decisions did I make today and how do they reinforce specific company values?
2. Which people did I interact with that demonstrated one of the company values?  And, how did I provide feedback to them to reinforce company values?
3. Who made a decision or acted in a way that was not aligned with company values? And, how did I coach the person into alignment?
4. On a scale of 1-10, how well was I aligned with company values today?

And third, plan for the next day.  Who will you be interacting with and what potential decisions will you be making.

In the next article on becoming an employer of choice, I’ll explore transparency as a leader.

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