Best Workplaces – 2021 Style
So many people tire of hearing about Best Places to Work contests. Are they rigged? Do the same companies cycle through year after year?
One firm that ranks top workplaces is Energage. According to its CEO, Eric Rubino, the firm conducts scientific surveys of employees who rate their workplace culture. Those surveys are the sole basis for determining best places to work.
This year’s awards and employee feedback based on 2020 experiences is unique—a test of how employers responded during the pandemic. According to Rubino, “If COVID taught us anything, it’s that asking questions and listening to employees is critical to navigating this new world of work. More than ever, you need to be more intentional about your culture.”
Here’s how some organizations responded and adapted to the pandemic:
We predicted what the pandemic would do to our employees — not just their work life, but their personal life.
We showed grace — reminding employees they may be talking to a coworker with a young child sitting in the background working on homework, or a cat that may want to participate. Then we embraced it and had employees sharing their home offices or their pets.
We created creative benefits to address the challenges that our employees were experiencing. For example, with schools and day care centers closed, we established flexible schedules to accommodate having children in the workplace.
We offered supplemental benefits such as financial assistance for child care for our employees, or student loan repayment.
With good technology, good connectivity, and good internet, we were able to send everybody home to work, even though we weren’t in the habit of embracing remote work.
We provided more than what employees needed while working from home. If they had two monitors in the office and were now working from a laptop, we made sure they had the monitor visuals they had in the office so they could work productively.
We listened to the science and employees were glad that we were listening and taking steps to proactively make sure people were safe.
We had team or department leads establish a meeting rhythm to check in every day, in the morning and then in the afternoon, so people didn’t stay isolated and alone all day. It kept communication going well.
We made afternoon meetings about personal issues and not business, so that employees could interact with each other like they probably would during lunch.
There is still uncertainty about the future of the workplace resulting from the delta variant. Leaders, it’s important to continue to listen to your employees and to listen to the science. Be proactive. Build on the positive cultures you’ve worked so hard to cultivate.