Employee Engagement

There are myriad reasons why your employee might be having a rough day at work; maybe their car broke down on their way to the office or maybe they've been struggling with a personal matter. But let's face it: as much as we'd like to check these things at the door when we log on to work, these external factors can affect employee engagement and concentration. We're only human after all.

But if you begin to notice recurring patterns of chronic absenteeism, listlessness, an inability to focus, or just a general disconnection from your employees, your team might be struggling with maintaining healthy employee engagement.

For companies to reverse, or better yet, prevent the damaging effects of actively disengaged employees, managers should keep a watchful eye on 10 employee engagement metrics, including the relationship between employees and managers, overall happiness, company alignment, relationship with colleagues, and personal growth.

What is employee disengagement?

Before we explore some of the more conspicuous employee engagement statistics we uncovered, let's define employee engagement, or lack thereof.

When a team experiences high employee engagement, their people feel connected emotionally and mentally to their jobs. They feel invested in their roles and the company and are motivated to perform to the best of their abilities. When your employees are not engaged at work, you'll notice a general lack of enthusiasm and interest in their day-to-day tasks.

Some early signs of disengagement can occur when:

• An employee consistently misses deadlines
• An employee no longer reaches out to their teammates
• An employee who used to share creative ideas in meetings begins to retreat

{emphasize}Take stock of your team and look out for other warning signs of disengagement so you can start boosting engagement and employee retention.{emphasize}

Causes of disengaged employees

There are many causes of employee disengagement, but it's important to note that as a manager, you can take steps towards helping your employees mend their fractured relationships with their work.

Some common causes of low employee engagement include:

• Lack of feedback and direction from their manager
• Lack of socializing with peers
• Lack of understanding or connection to the core mission and values of the company
• Feeling underappreciated and unrecognized for their work
• An incomplete onboarding
• Feeling that they are not properly compensated for their work
• Few career advancement opportunities

9 statistics on employee disengagement

In Officevibe's recent data report on the state of employee experience, we observed some thought-provoking employee engagement stats. While some of them may seem jarring at first, rest assured that there are ways to turn things around to support a team of highly engaged employees.

Job satisfaction needs to be improved

Job satisfaction is integral to maintaining high employee engagement. According to Officevibe statistics, 42% of employees don't feel like they're adequately compensated for their work, which can lead to resentment and a negative view of your organization.

If you don’t know how employees feel about your company, you can get a pretty good idea using the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) by asking them: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our organization as a place to work to others?”

Ultimately, you want to have your employees acting as promoters for your company – not neutrals, and certainly not detractors. This will help you both attract top talent and improve employee retention.

Focus on these areas to improve job satisfaction:

• Workload: Do your employees have too much work to complete in an unrealistic amount of time? Do they need to work on the weekends, stay long hours, and neglect a work-life balance?
• Benefits: Does your company offer perks and benefits that are desirable for your employees– enough that they are excited to come to work? Think beyond health benefits.
• Salary: Employees need to feel that they are properly compensated for their work, and if they don’t, then there is no doubt that the quality of their work will be affected.

{emphasize}💡Try these 12 tips to improve job satisfaction on your team.{emphasize}

Relationships with managers are unsteady

As a manager, the relationships you foster with your people can have a huge impact on your team's overall employee engagement. We found that 75% of employees who leave their jobs or display low levels of engagement say that it's due in part to their managers or broader company leadership.

It's also important to note that 70% of people wished they could actually spend more time with their managers to create a stronger connection with them and with the organization.

How to improve your employee-manager relationships:

While there's no one-size-fits all solution to building strong relationships with your teammates, the following strategies can help with improving employee engagement:

• Communicate constantly: Hold regular one-on-one meetings to go over your employee’s work and give them constructive ways in which they can improve. This is also a great opportunity to listen to your team and collect their honest feedback to see what you can do to keep your employees actively engaged.
• Bring some pzazz to the team: Who says work can't be fun? Strengthen your bonds with your teammates and get to know the people behind the screens through different employee engagement activities like innovation challenges, lunch and learns, and creative workshops.
• Recognize their hard work: And do this as often as possible. Recognition is one of the lowest-cost, but most important ways to keep employees engaged. By offering meaningful recognition messages, you're acknowledging their efforts and letting your employees know that you value them.
• Encourage work-life balance: It’s really important that your employees know that you value them as complete individuals, not just workers. Expecting them to stay late every day, reaching out after business hours, and not showing an interest in who they are outside of the office are all ways to disengage your employees and create a negative view of the company culture.

Insufficient recognition

We briefly touched on the importance of employee recognition, but it's worth noting that 1 in 4 employees don't feel like their organizations celebrate accomplishments or learnings. A thriving company culture is one that highlights employee achievements, but also recognizes efforts and small victories.

Recognition doesn't (and shouldn't) have to come in the form of a Starbucks gift card or even a very public praise wall.

Some ways to increase recognition in the workplace include:

• Advocating for regular virtual recognition
• Acknowledging work anniversaries and other milestones
• Carving out time for shout outs during team events

{emphasize}✨ When you highlight employee contributions, everyone shines. Officevibe's peer-to-peer recognition tool, Good Vibes, allows you to celebrate both the big wins and subtle triumphs.{emphasize}

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Misalignment with role expectations

It’s vital that your employees know exactly what is expected from them. This might seem obvious, but 75% of employees stated that their managers could define more precise goals.

Often lines get blurred and it can become anxiety-inducing to not know your exact job or role. Make sure to provide employees with clear goals and expectations. With tools like Officevibe, you can set individual and team objectives with an intuitive goal-setting framework

Make sure your team is aligned with company values and goals:

• For your team to move forward together as a united front and ensure company success, it's important for your team to be aligned with the company's values.
• When an employee feels connected to their organization's mission and business strategy, they are more likely to enjoy their work. When goals and values are both understood and aligned, and employees feel included in the progress of the company toward these goals, they are sure to be more engaged.

{emphasize}The first step in fixing the disconnect is to be transparent with your team. Let them know your goals and be open about sharing numbers and high-level communications. Including your team in every detail of the company’s value and purpose will make them feel part of something bigger.{emphasize}

Feedback is not frequent enough

Only 25% of employees feel like the feedback they receive from their managers is frequent enough to help them improve and reach their goals. If you notice that your employee is struggling with certain tasks, waiting to talk to them about it at a “TBD later date” won’t do much in helping inspire them or overcome the challenge.

Here are a few reminders on how to give effective employee feedback:

• Keep it constant: This includes everything from praise for good work to constructive criticism for projects that can use improvement. Monthly check-ins and annual reviews do serve a purpose, but details may fall through the cracks over time. Continuous dialogue creates an open channel of communication with your teammates.
• Remind them that feedback is for them: It’s important to let employees know that any feedback sessions are for them. That they are safe places to discuss anything that they feel concerned about or want to work on and improve. Making the feedback process positive makes receiving feedback (even negative) less daunting because employees know that you are both working towards the same goal of helping them feel and be the best they can be.
• Make feedback anonymous: Employees will be more inclined to share what's on their minds if they can speak freely. By making feedback anonymous, you're focusing on the message, not the messenger.
• Ask for feedback on your performance: It’s a universal truth that there is always room for growth, so ask your employees for feedback on your performance as a manager. You can boost employee engagement by checking in with your team to learn which areas you excel in, and which could be improved on.

{emphasize}There are no two ways about it: feedback is crucial to improving employee retention and engagement. Learn more in our comprehensive guide on employee feedback

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Employee wellness has taken a hit

The pandemic has brought about a whole new set of challenges for the workplace, with employee well-being and mental health at the top of the list of casualties. Officevibe data has shown that 47% of employees regularly feel overwhelmed, with an unfortunate 26% feeling like their managers aren't concerned with the state of their mental health. Nobody's well-being should be forgotten, or even an afterthought.

{emphasize}If your company has adopted a hybrid work model, make sure you continue to engage with your remote employees as you would if they were in the office. There are tons of ways to boost morale and nurture a team of engaged employees, in person or virtually, most of which won't set you back at all.

💡Keep things fresh and explore some of these 14 employee engagement ideas your team will love.{emphasize}

Touch base with your team and ensure they're feeling supported by asking them some of the following employee wellness survey questions:

• On a scale of 1 to 10, please rate your degree of work-related burnout.
• What wellness-promoting initiatives would you like to see in the workplace?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you agree with the following: “I enjoy an optimal work-life balance at my current job”?
• Does your workload leave you enough time to pursue hobbies, personal activities, or career development?

Too few career advancement opportunities

Employee expectations have shifted in recent years; most modern professionals are no longer content with staying static in their positions and are eager to grow at their companies. But 40% of employees note that they don't have a development plan to help them improve their skills and drive their growth.

As a manager, you can keep your employees engaged by helping them sharpen their skills or learn new industry trends. By offering your employees career development opportunities, you're letting them know that you're invested in them and want to keep them around for the long-haul.

{emphasize}💡Take on a mentorship role for your employees to help improve employee engagement with these seven techniques.{emphasize}

How to improve employee engagement on your team

Even if things seem a little bleak sometimes, it's never too late to turn things around and offer your team a great workplace experience and ensure your employees are engaged.

You can start improving employee engagement on your team by:

• Giving consistent employee feedback (and asking for it, too!)
• Conducting regular one-on-one meetings
• Focusing on employee well-being
• Implementing recognition programs

We know it can feel a little overwhelming at times, but employee engagement tools like Officevibe can help you build a positive company culture and increase employee engagement.

Get to know your team better and find out what works for them and what keeps them engaged.

I love TED talks. I’ve seen almost every video on their website, and I’m the kind of guy to share the video with friends, and include a message along the lines of “this is the greatest thing I’ve seen in a while.”

One of my favorite things to do while I’m working is listen to a TED talk in the background. They’re so inspirational and motivating, and you learn so much from them. There are so many good ones, but I thought since we’re all about company culture and employee engagement here at Officevibe, I’d compile a list of my favorite TED talks about work.

This list is in no particular order, but I recommend forwarding the videos (or this post) to everyone at your work. After watching these, you’ll learn how to work smarter.

1. Simon Sinek - How great leaders inspire action

I know I mentioned that this list is in no particular order, but if you only watch one video from this list, this should be the one.

It will completely change the way you do business. One of the reasons people like a company like Apple so much is because they connect with us on an emotional level. In this captivating talk, Simon explains how you should be telling your story.

You should be explaining to people why you’re doing what you’re doing, and not just telling them what you’re doing.

2. Jason Fried - Why work doesn’t happen at work

This is one of my favorite TED talks of all time, because it’s so true. I’m a huge fan of Jason, and everything he does. I’ve read all of his books, I’ve used all of his products, and I have a very deep respect for him.

Whenever he talks, I listen. I think more people are starting to understand this idea that it’s not necessarily about working from 9-5. It’s about getting stuff done. If you want to work from home one day, or you want to work from 11-7 instead of 9-5, that should be allowed.

3. Stefan Sagmeister - The power of time off

This is a really cool video, because the idea that he has seems so radical. Every seven years, Stefan takes a full year off. Not a 2 week vacation, a full year. He calls it a “mini-retirement”.

The point here is, you should give your employees the necessary time off, and you should encourage people to “recharge their batteries”. At Officevibe, we’re lucky enough to have unlimited vacations. It really just comes down to trusting your employees.

4. Shawn Achor - The happy secret to better work

Is success the secret to happiness? Or is happiness the secret to success? I think way too many people think that it’s the former, when in fact, it’s the latter. You need to do things that make you happy.

There’s an old expression, money doesn’t buy happiness, and it’s 100% true. Shawn is an incredibly smart guy, he’s a psychologist, and the talk is very entertaining.

5. Dan Pink - The puzzle of motivation

I’ve spoken a lot about this particular video in the past, mainly because I think it’s so important for people to understand. In this talk, Dan explains what most social scientists already know, that managers seem to not know, and he talks about how there is a huge disconnect there.

The way managers have been traditionally rewarding people is all wrong. Managers focus on what are called extrinsic motivators, basically external things like money, vacation time, etc… and what they should be focusing on is intrinsic motivators, basically things inside of you, like passion, autonomy, control.

This is in my top 3 favorite TED talks of all time.

6. Tim Ferriss - Smash Fear, learn anything

Anything by Tim Ferriss is worth checking out. Author of the famous “four hour work week”, this talk is great for understanding the importance of failure.

If you “smash fear”, and aren’t afraid to fail, or aren’t too afraid of being wrong, then the possibilities are endless. He does all this by asking one very simple question: “what’s the worst that could happen?”.

7. Yves Morieux - As work gets more complex, 6 rules to simplify

This is one of the newer talks posted on the TED website, and is so in line with what we do at Officevibe.

There have been so many advancements in technology, collaboration tools, etc...yet employees are more disengaged than ever. How come? He says that it’s because companies have become way too complex, and we need to simplify things.

He also says that management hierarchies are obsolete, and we need more of a flat, bottom-up type of approach. Remember, Keep It Simple Stupid!

8. Jane McGonigal - Gaming can make a better world

One of the more popular TED talks about gaming and enterprise gamification, with over 3 million views. It’s an incredible talk that encourages us to play more games, and learn more from the games that we play.

It seems weird to think about solving world hunger by playing videos (and she gets laughs from the crowd when she mentions this), but she explains why she thinks it’s true. She’s no idiot, she’s the director of R&D at the Institute For The Future, and created a multiplayer game called SuperBetter after suffering from a concussion, that helps you set a goal and let your friends and family encourage you to reach those goals.

9. Nigel Marsh - How to make work-life balance work

Having a good work-life balance is so important for your health, your productivity, and overall well-being. He says “so many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance”.

It’s an amazing talk, and he’s being brutally honest. He says things like flex time, casual Fridays, and other weird initiatives are not enough.

There needs to be a real discussion on how we can handle balancing our lives properly. He says that it’s up to us as individuals to make this change. It’s actually a pretty funny, but smart talk.

10. Stanley McChrystal - Listen, learn...then lead

For those of you who might not be familiar with Stanley McChrystal, he’s a four-star general, and the former commander of U.S. and International forces in Afghanistan.

He has decades of military experience, and based on that experience he shares what he’s learned about how to be a good leader. Look at the first word in the title of the video to figure out what the secret to being a great leader is.

E-commerce giant Shopify has one of the most amazing offices in the world. We had the opportunity to learn from their Chief Culture Officer, Daniel Weinand, about how they managed to become one of the greatest places to work.

If you're as freakishly obsessed with culture as we are, you'll enjoy reading this.

Quick Intro

Shopify is based in Ottawa, Canada, and recently announced a massive ^$100 Million round of financing. They've built an incredible platform and have some really big clients that they work with. Plus, they're hiring like crazy!

The perks that they offer employees are like no other company I've ever seen. Here are just a few of the benefits they offer employees:

• Apple Gear - Everyone gets the latest and greatest Apple gear on day 1.
• Health and Dental insurance - Full coverage.
• Catered lunches daily - Yummy.
• Share options - Making employees owners gives them a vested interest in their success.
• Maternity and Parental leave - Up to 17 weeks off!
• Conferences - They appreciate you wanting to learn. Conference ticket fully paid for!

We learned a few important lessons from our chat with Daniel, and it's pretty obvious that Shopify “gets” the importance of culture.

If you're having trouble building a good organizational culture, make sure to read these 6 lessons very carefully.

1. Only hire the best

If there's one thing we learned from Shopify, it's how hard it is to get a job there.

Barely 0.9% of people who apply get a job!

They've grown massively over the last few years, and now have over 350 employees. With their latest round of financing, they say that they have plans to grow the team even more, to more than 500 employees.

But trust me when I say those employees are the best of the best. They have a multi-step, really intense hiring process, and only a fraction of the people who apply make it into the company. The reason is simple: the founders believe that new hires should strengthen the office culture, not dilute it.

2. Remove the fear element

One of the most important lessons we learned from talking with Daniel was that the management team has fun as well.

Not only because they're fun guys, but because they want to instill that type of culture for their employees. If an employee sees the CEO playing a game of foosball, he'll be much more comfortable playing.

This is one of the most important lessons for any CEO or HR manager.

Make sure your employees aren't scared of getting fired, and can just relax. Once you remove that fear element, watch your productivity go through the roof.

3. Healthy workers are productive workers

Another great lesson we learned was about employee wellness.

It's something they take very seriously at Shopify, and they truly believe that healthy workers are more productive.

They offer to fully pay for your gym membership, and give you a ^$250 allowance for healthy equipment, like a new bike or yoga classes.

Hell, they even offer stand-up desks!

Also Shopify has their own soccer team! Another way to make sure the employees are active, and social.

4. Use tools to praise and give feedback continuously

The next lesson might not be for everybody, but personally I like it.

They implement a peer-review system, and it's actually how bonuses are earned throughout the company.

They called it “Unicorn”, and essentially it's a Twitter-like feed where employees can praise each other. Fast Company wrote a great article explaining Unicorn and its benefits.

5. Rallying around a cause gives employees a deeper sense of being on a team

I also found the fact that they were philanthropic was great.

It finally occurred to me that getting everyone involved in helping a local charity makes the team feel more connected. It also results in more donations. It's one thing to ask an employee to donate ^$50 to a charity, and it's another to ask the entire team to contribute ^$2. ^$2 is much easier to come up with, and collectively, they can raise so much money.

Shopify is involved in the community, helping to run workshops for local kids that run away from home.

Kudos to them for being so involved with charities, and giving back.

6. They focus on improving employee life

One thing I like about Shopify's culture is that they seem to have a good balance of initiatives to keep their employees happy.

They believe in establishing a great relationship between their colleagues and managers. Wellness, both mental and physical. They want to make sure that their employees are aligned with the companies core values. Not only that, but they want to make sure that their employees are growing and are great ambassadors for their company.

Basically, when it comes to the science of employee engagement they know exactly how to treat and get the most out of their employees.  Everybody wants to be there, and they're ecstatic about what they do and making things better.

This is the type of company that makes it into those "best places to work" lists. And their satisfied employees are a testament to their hard work and dedication, when it comes to keeping employees happy.

What are your thoughts?

Do you know of any other companies with great culture? Let me know your thoughts on twitter @Officevibe.

We know that making mistakes at work can feel frustrating or even embarrassing. Whether you make an honest mistake on a project or lead your team astray, making a mistake happens to the best of us. This is especially true when you’re pressed for time and juggling priorities.

Before jumping into fix-it mode, it’s important to recognize that no individual mistake is created equal, and the way to recover from them varies. We’re here to give you the information you need to recover from the different types of mistakes managers make.

To make mistakes or be wrong is human. To admit those mistakes shows you have the ability to learn, and are growing wiser.

Donald L. Hicks

{emphasize}

• 7 tips to get you back on track from making mistakes at work
• Types of mistakes that managers make

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7 tips to recover from making mistakes at work

Mistakes make us human and are part of our growth process. When a misstep happens, it’s an opportunity to learn different skills. The tricky part is knowing how to recover from making mistakes at work.

No one mistake is created equal, which means there are different ways to recover from each one. Learning important traits like accountability, collaboration, and knowing how to ask for help are part of overcoming a mistake.

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“Be mindful that your team members are watching. Your reaction sets the tone for future behaviors within the team. Owning your part and taking accountability for your mistake sets the stage for how employees will behave in the future. It’s in these moments, remember to lead by example and have a positive influence on your team’s culture.”

Julie Jeannotte, Culture & Engagement Expert at Officevibe

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We’ve outlined seven steps to help you recover from making mistakes at work. Each one can be used individually or as a step-by-step guide.

1. Take ownership

Depending on the magnitude of your mistake, you may feel the need to react quickly or breeze past it. Taking ownership of making mistakes gives you the opportunity to solve them. Ask yourself what you can do to make it right. Being accountable and humble helps you prevent a downward spiral to blame culture.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Pause and understand the scope of your mistake. Identify your role in what happened instead of rushing past it. Once you understand what went wrong, you can work proactively to solve it.{highlight}

2. Inform the right people

Once you’ve identified the root cause of your mistake, inform everyone who it might impact so they have visibility. To avoid a trickle-down effect, be sure to do this promptly.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Let those impacted know you’re open to suggestions about finding a solution. Speak to mentors, a boss, or colleagues who can lend a helping hand.{highlight}

3. Separate facts from feelings

It’s normal to feel embarrassed when you make mistakes at work. Rather than reacting, take a pause to separate facts from emotions. Doing this is a sign of leadership, maturity, and pragmatism. Your team recognizes that they can fail forward and trust you to support them when you lead by example.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Think about your mistake in terms of cause and effect: what happened and what is the effect of what happened. Let go of emotions that cloud your judgment. Stick to the facts to recover from your mistake while maintaining the trust of your team.{highlight}

4. Be solution-oriented

All aboard the road to recovery! solution-oriented mindset encourages levelheadedness and prevents overthinking. This prevents fewer mistakes from happening in the future. As you progress towards a solution, you'll solve the mistake and you may even prevent the same one from happening again.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Keep calm and identify a resolution that will have positive lasting effects. Maintain a solution-oriented mindset to demonstrate your leadership ability while learning something new in the process.{highlight}

5. Keep a learner's mindset

Remember that you’re still learning. You're a person who occasionally makes an honest mistake. Failing forward nurtures your leadership development, and equips you with the thick skin you need to grow.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Recognize that learning from making mistakes at work is a process. Break down possible solutions into small steps to digest each learning.{highlight}

6. Apply the solution

Put your solution into action. As you begin to calmly navigate the road to recovery, you’ll notice how solutions fall into place. Be intentional about the steps you take. This will prevent future downfalls and cast a safety net for you and your team.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Log the progress you make as you recover from a mistake. Keep a note of the skills and information you’ve learned along the way.{highlight}

7. Be open and transparent

When you’ve applied the solution to your mistake, take the time to run through what went wrong. Alternatively, register how you made things right. Leading by example teaches your team how making a mistake at work happens and there are ways of recovering from them.

{highlight}💡 Tip: Host a postmortem as it applies to the mistake that you made. Discuss how you came up with the solution and how the mistake was resolved. Share your learnings and make them accessible to teammates.{highlight}

Spot the types of mistakes managers make

Let’s face it, you’re not only doing the work you’re also looking after a team. That means managers who make mistakes at work have a wider margin of error for repeated mistakes.

When it comes to making a mistake at work, we noticed two main areas of focus for managers:

• Technical mistakes related to skills, projects, and tasks
• Relational mistakes related to interpersonal dynamics

Technical mistakes

Technical mistakes pop up when you’re pressed for time. They're related to tasks, projects, and fine details. They’re not always easy to spot and are finicky to fix. But, making this type of mistake doesn’t mean that you’re bad at your job. On the contrary, it demonstrates room for your own growth.

Here are examples of technical mistakes you might make:

• Underestimating or overestimating project bandwidth timelines
• Sharing information that includes typos or obvious miscalculations
• Publicly sharing information that was meant for internal use

Think about what it's like for you to be in crunch time for an important project. The stakes are high and there are many moving parts. Adding to that, your team relies on you to cast an eye over their work, before hitting submit. Not to mention, your boss has high expectations. Naturally, you make a few tweaks and feel confident the project has come together to meet the criteria of its stakeholders.

The satisfaction of submitting your team’s project quickly fades into stress as you notice a typo in the first sentence, and another one, and another one. Gulp. Glancing at the clock, there's still time to fix these careless mistakes. Let's apply some of our tips:

Take ownership

Acknowledge that your edits had typos of their own, and now you need to fix them.

Inform the right people

Let stakeholders know that you’re working on a fix and will be sending an updated version shortly.

Separate facts from feelings

Let go of lingering anxiety or embarrassment and follow the facts: what needs to be addressed, and how you can address it.

Stay solution-oriented

You got this. Stay in-the-zone to get work done quickly, with focus and precision.

Take note

Moving quickly can result in tripping over your own shoelaces. How can this be prevented in the future? Jot it down as you go.

Wrap it up

Once you’ve corrected your mistakes and properly combed through the project with an eagle eye, hit that submit button and take a deep breath.

Be transparent with your team

Host a project post mortem, let them know that mistakes happen, especially when you’re pressed for time. Let them know that the goal is to prevent this from happening again. Provide examples about how. For example: collaborate on last-minute edits or ask a third party to review your project with fresh eyes.

When you apply these steps, your team will thank you for teaching them something new. It's ideal since they’ll learn by example, paving the way for a collaborative workplace dynamic.

Relational mistakes: interpersonal dynamics

Making mistakes at work related to interpersonal dynamics is a grey area. After all, no one team dynamic is the same. If you find yourself in a situation where you’ve mismanaged an employee, don’t panic. Having the ability to remain human throughout the recovery process maintains the trust you’ve built with your team.

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"A few months ago, I got caught up in being focused on task management and it resulted in a bit of micro-managing. I hit a wall because there are only so many hours in the day! It's tough but, through some much needed conversations with my team, I learned that they needed me more as their coach and leader.

Now, I focus on management responsibilities because I trust my team to deliver higher quality work without my constant involvement. I think they appreciate the opportunity to learn and explore. Win win win."

Myles Carter, Content Manager at Sharegate

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Picture this: You deliver critical feedback to a teammate but the words aren't coming out quite right. You realize you aren't as prepared as you should be. Your teammate lets you know they’re confused since next steps and action items aren’t clearly defined. You don’t have a close relationship with this person and worry that being overly frank could offend them.

Time for a pause. Ask yourself if psychological safety is at the heart of your conversation. When teams can express how they feel, they'll trust that you have their professional interest at heart. Let’s apply some of our tips:

Speak up

Let your teammate know that you’re working on delivering better feedback.

Ask them to clarify what they heard

Ask what they’ve taken away from your initial conversation. Level the playing field by emphasizing that this isn’t a test, it’s a collaborative conversation to get you both on the same page.

Remember not to take things personally

Distinguishing work-related topics from emotions enables both parties to work through a given stressor. Identify the objective of your conversation. Remember that this is an opportunity to connect with your teammate. You can do this by encouraging each other to say things like “when X happens, I feel Y.”

Break these down

Define next steps and follow up in an email so that it stays top of mind.

Following these steps will nurture your own managerial growth and develop a closer relationship with your team.

If a teammate doesn’t feel comfortable expressing themselves fully, Officevibe can help with that. Our anonymous feedback tool is built with your manager-to-team relationship in mind. We know that value comes from hard conversations. This way, employees can open up and share their insights anonymously.

The next time you make a mistake at work, know that it’s possible to come back from it. Equipping yourself to recover quickly and efficiently will help your own growth and your team’s dynamic. The key resides in taking accountability and maintaining a growth mindset.

Did you know that the average person will spend upward of 81,000 hours in their lifetime working? When you take this colossal number into consideration, it should be a no-brainer for leaders to foster a positive work environment for all their employees.

Extending far beyond pizza lunches and casual Fridays, the employee experience (EX) encompasses every touchpoint in the employee lifecycle, from the time a person applies for a job, to even after they part ways with an organization. Employee engagement is considered one of the top factors when assessing whether your company offers a healthy employee experience. It measures how people feel about their physical environment, co-workers, managers, and more.

Studies confirm that creating an exceptional employee experience enables exceptional employees. According to Gallup, companies that foster great employee experience and support employee engagement see 59% less employee turnover than companies with an actively disengaged workforce. Focusing on employee experience results in better work performance, higher employee retention levels, and remarkably higher levels of discretionary effort.

But the 10 million-dollar question remains: what makes a great employee experience?

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14 Factors of a great employee experience

Knowing how to improve the employee experience requires understanding the key factors that affect the employee life cycle at your organization. Simply focusing on one or two of these factors isn't enough, and any employee experience strategy worth its salt will require a holistic view of how employees perceive and experience their work environment and their interactions within it.

1. Celebrating employee efforts

In a fast-paced work environment, taking the time to acknowledge your employees' work can sometimes fall by the wayside. According to Officevibe data, 72% of employees say that they receive kudos less than once a week, it may be high time to rethink your employee recognition strategies.

Recognition leads to retention

It's important to note that recognition goes beyond a pat on the back for a job well done after making a sale or nailing a big presentation. Recognition should be given regularly and should highlight strong efforts in a genuine way. Showing appreciation and gratitude can go a long way in keeping your employees engaged and adds to a more authentic employee experience.

🌟Read on for more ways to increase recognition in the workplace.

2. Fostering healthy employee-manager relationships

One of the most important bonds in the workplace is between an employee and their manager. If nurtured, employees can feel more empowered, motivated, and creative. But according to Officevibe data, 70% of employees surveyed wished they could spend more time with their managers. Make time to get to know your team members individually and discuss with them things like their preferred communication styles and check-in methods. Holding regular one-on-one meetings is a great way to connect with your people at get to the heart of what matters most to them.

💪 Start building better relationships with your employees with these four simple but effective steps.

3. Building strong relationships with peers

According to Officevibe's data report, 96% of employees believe they collaborate well with peers, but remote work has made the hiring process and developing strong workplace relationships more challenging.

Manager relationships are central to employees' experience

Since strong interpersonal relationships are the cornerstone of effective collaboration, managers should encourage more open channels of communication and make time for team building regardless of location. Some ways managers can build connections across their remote teams include:  

• Scheduling time for casual conversation
• Assigning a buddy or mentor
• Set communication norms and boundaries
• Organize in-person activities (if possible)

4. Receiving meaningful feedback

According to Gallup, employees that receive frequent feedback — at least once a week — are more likely to be engaged and motivated than those that receive irregular feedback.

Employee feedback is fundamental for a number of reasons; not only does it helps identify and remove blockers to reach broader targets and objectives, but it enables ongoing development opportunities and makes employees feel supported in their roles.

Provide frequent feedback

Instead of waiting "for the right time" in a performance management meeting, managers should focus on providing meaningful and timely feedback when necessary as part of an ongoing dialogue. By offering constructive feedback in a timely manner, employees can more easily and efficiently integrate these comments into their daily tasks to boost productivity and performance.

🤝 An employee feedback system describes a setup that helps you take the pulse of employee sentiment to gauge factors such as employee engagement and job satisfaction. Read on to learn why and how you should implement an employee feedback system into your employee engagement strategies.

5. Feeling respected

Respect is the cornerstone of any relationship and those in the workplace are no different. Managers should seek to actively incorporate empathy, kindness, and compassion into their leadership styles and employee engagement strategies. One of the most important ways to show your employees you care about them is by listening to and acknowledging their thoughts, opinions, and concerns.

However, employee feedback only works if a team feels that managers respect their views. Employees will only give their genuine opinion if they see that the company puts them and their experiences first. Paying lip service and ignoring employee feedback can backfire dramatically and completely derail any employee experience strategy. If a manager has asked for employee feedback, it's paramount that they respond to these comments in a professional and respectful manner regardless of whether the feedback is negative or constructive.

Not sure where to start gathering your employees' thoughts? Try these five ways to collect honest employee feedback (and don't forget to respond!).

6. Focusing on psychological safety

Companies that encourage collaboration and honest communication between business leaders, employees, and managers must create a safe psychological space. This means creating environments where employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas, owning up to mistakes, and asking for help without fear of repercussion or rejection.

Understand how and why your employees feel the way they do

Hostile work environments can increase employee stress, affect happiness, and create antagonistic relationships between teams and even between employees themselves, all of which affect productivity and performance. By creating psychologically safe spaces, an organization can make employees feel valued, respected, and comfortable enough to pursue creative ideas and learn from mistakes.

7. Improving diversity and inclusion

It's undeniable that a diverse workforce strengthens the fabric of any organization and contributes to a healthy employee experience. However, diversity and inclusion must be embodied fully by the corporate culture and company values to be truly considered inclusive.

Many organizations are actively revising their recruitment strategies to attract a more diverse workforce, but it’s the experience created for employees that will ultimately drive their success. Creating a safe space for employees of all backgrounds to share their thoughts, feelings, and creative ideas without fear will foster a better employee journey for all.

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8. Offering continuous training and learning

A creatively engaged and motivated employee may begin to feel restless if they no longer feel challenged in their role. To foster employee engagement and create a more positive experience for remote workers, leaders should periodically check in with their employees to see if there are certain skills they would like to sharpen or develop. Offering workshops, language courses, and professional development classes all go a long way in keeping your employees ahead of the curve on the latest industry trends.

9. Create opportunities for career development

Employees want to have a clear idea of their professional journeys and want to know that they can grow within their organization. Managers who are in tune with their employees' aspirations and goals can help identify prospective career paths and help them develop strategic plans to achieve their long-term goals.

The career development talk may not always be the easiest to approach. Use this free template to get the discussion going on how you can help your team members grow.

10. Aligning values with organizational mission and purpose

Organizations with a clear mission and purpose are more likely to attract employees whose values align with that mission. But company and team alignment extends beyond bottom-line objectives; employees must all be on the same wavelength when it comes to achieving and building sustainable business practices.

But according to Officevibe data, only 73% of respondents feel like the leaders of their organization have communicated a vision that motivates them. Managers must ensure that their employees are kept in the loop and relay executive communications in a clear and accessible fashion. Employees that believe in what they're doing are more likely to work harder to achieve organizational goals, resulting in better business performance and outcomes across the board.

11. Promoting autonomy

Autonomy can mean different things to different employees; it can range from letting a person do their job with minimal managerial intervention to respecting an employee's creative decisions on projects.

Autonomy is important for a positive experience because it gives the employee control and decision-making over their tasks. This control is often a powerful motivator and can improve performance and engagement, as employees feel they own their decisions (and consequences).

💪 Check out these seven tips to master employee autonomy in the workplace.

12. Prioritizing work-life balance

While the employee experience focuses on what happens at work, it's important to understand how employees feel outside of  the physical work environment will affect their work experience. A healthy and stable work-life balance provides opportunities for employees to address external factors, leading to a more positive employee experience in the workplace. It also gives team members time to de-stress and return to work with a renewed focus on their tasks. According to recent studies, happier employees also perform better (by 12% to be exact!)

And with only 72% of Officevibe respondents agreeing that they have a manageable workload, leaders need to invest in different wellness programs and strategies to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Show your employees that you are investing in their well-being and open the channels of communication in team meetings and one-on-ones. If you’re unsure how to start the conversation, use a wellness survey to ask the right questions to get the core of what your people need from their leaders.

13. Promoting health and wellness

According to Officevibe data, a full quarter of employees feel that their organization doesn't care about their mental health and well-being. Wellness programs and a focus on maintaining a healthy work-life balance are key to creating a positive employee experience. Initiatives like these show employees that their organization genuinely cares for their health while also helping them deal with stress and health concerns. Incorporating holistic wellness programs into company culture will do wonders in increasing employee engagement and fostering a great employee experience.

Check out these wellness programs to start promoting health and well-being on your teams.

14. Developing an employee-focused company culture

People are the beating heart of any organization. Employees that feel they are part of a community are more likely to have a positive experience and feel strongly about their work. By creating mutually beneficial communities instead of rigid hierarchies, organizations will have invested employees who will offer support and collaborate in more meaningful ways.

Fostering this type of corporate culture and employee experience takes time, but the benefits and competitive advantage are well worth the effort.

A thriving, genuine culture is not something you can create. But with the right mindset — and help from your team — you can curate it and watch it become the best version of itself. Read the first edition of VIBE: Human-generated culture to foster and create a positive workplace culture worthy of raving about.

Building a positive employee experience action plan

Creating a great employee experience can give your organization a competitive edge, but knowing how to actually improve the employee experience can be significantly harder. In some companies, it may require a complete overhaul of how executives and managers interact with employees, while in others, it may require tweaking an already positive employee experience.

The best way forward is to define an employee experience strategy involving employees, HR professionals, leaders, and managers at every stage of the process. Doing so will provide a positive impression, increase employee and manager enthusiasm and buy-in, and create a better work environment for the entire organization.

Seek feedback on employee experience

It may seem obvious, but the best way to develop an employee experience plan is to ask employees what they think. The more information you gather about every part of the employee lifecycle, the more meaningful the changes will be to everyone involved.

We recommend using a variety of methods to collect feedback. Some employees may feel uncomfortable providing honest opinions or feel unqualified to comment on a particular topic. Using several different strategies will ensure you get a holistic view across all areas of the organization. Common feedback tools include:

• Employee experience surveys: These surveys will often be your primary source of employee experience data. They tend to be comprehensive, covering all of the factors we discussed above. If your organization has trouble with low survey response rates, be sure to inform team members about the purpose of the survey to increase participation rates. Also, be sure to highlight the fact that these surveys are anonymous, as this knowledge will have a significant impact on the quality and honesty of the feedback you get.

• Pulse surveys: Not all surveys need to be extensive and exhaustive. Pulse surveys are short (five questions or fewer), frequent surveys that gauge the current workplace mood and outlook. They're also perfect for tracking trends in the employee experience, especially after implementing a new initiative.
• Onboarding surveys: New hires can provide a valuable source of information about their onboarding experience and overall impressions of the company. Many organizations conduct these surveys as part of the hiring and onboarding process. However, you can also tie these surveys to aspects around company culture, hiring managers, and previously-identified trouble spots.
• Anonymous feedback: Employee feedback is essential to the functioning of any workplace experience. Some team members may feel totally comfortable expressing themselves directly to managers, others may prefer to provide comments more anonymously. Anonymous feedback encourages employees to bring up tough topics in a safe environment, allows people to share new ideas or convey anxieties in a judgment-free zone, and builds trust between team members.
• One-on-one meetings: These meetings can be part of a broader feedback scheme, but they should incorporate feedback from employees to their managers and employers. Formal meetings offer a more structured approach, but managers should also pursue less formal feedback during their interactions with their teams.
• Team meetings: Some employees may be reluctant to speak up in a one-on-one meeting but may feel more empowered in a team setting. Team meetings are ideal spaces to identify the department or organization-wide problems that affect multiple individuals. Having several employees share the same concern lends urgency to the problem and how it affects the employee experience.
• Exit interviews: These surveys are exceptionally useful for organizations with high employee turnover. An exit interview can provide valuable information about critical aspects of the employee experience. Remember that exit interviews may be emotionally fraught, and it's vital to distinguish between genuine complaints and ruffled feathers.

Understanding the correlation between employee satisfaction and financial gain can be a game-changer for your organization. Learn about the ROI of focusing on the employee experience

Identify areas of improvement

A large part of defining an employee experience strategy is analyzing feedback and identifying the most important areas of improvement. Some key things to look out for include:

• Recurring comments in employees’ responses
• Differing concerns between demographics
• Varying responses between departments and teams

Remember that changing the employee experience is a bottom-up process, where it's vital to take employee feedback seriously, which may include asking them to rate the most important changes they'd like to see. Analyzing your survey results will give you key insights into the current state of employee engagement within your organization. But the work doesn’t stop there!

Implement changes

After you've analyzed employee data and feedback, it's time to start implementing changes or doubling down on what is going well. It's also good practice to inform your team members of feedback and survey results. Start creating realistic action items and strategies based on discussions and data. From your own interpretation and your discussion with your team, decide on 1 to 3 key areas or metrics to prioritize setting goals for including employee satisfaction.

Measure employee engagement

Measuring the performance of your initiatives is key to creating a sustainable employee experience. If you have already run employee surveys before or have collected feedback on a certain topic, comparing the current results with previous answers can show you changes in important metrics. If certain strategies have not yielded desired results or even ended up creating more work for your team members, there is no shame in backtracking or adapting your methods. Remember: being adaptable is a key characteristic of a strong leader. At the end of the day, the initiatives you implement must serve your team members and contribute to the larger employee experience.

Working together to create a great employee experience

Creating a strong, positive, engaged employee experience has numerous benefits, both for business productivity and your employees' well-being. Engaged employees are more productive, contribute to workplace safety more, and have higher company loyalty.

Not all the benefits of a positive employee experience are obviously tangible, but they will still have a clear impact on your company’s success. A positive workplace experience will also affect your reputation and employer branding, making you more attractive to high-quality talent. Learn more about how an employee experience platform like Officevibe can help you foster a great employee experience for your entire team.

It's impossible to overstate the role that employee experience (EX) plays in productivity, workplace culture, and overall business success. Happy, engaged employees perform better, stay in the organization longer, and are more likely to recommend your company to other talents in your industry.

Employee journey mapping allows you to assess employee experience throughout an employee's tenure: identifying pain points and developing a plan for improvement. Learn how to glean valuable insights throughout the employee journey mapping process and use your knowledge to boost employee engagement and enhance the entire employee experience.

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What is the employee journey?

The employee journey, also known as the employee lifecycle, comprises the employee's entire relationship with the company, from the initial application at a career fair to the moment the employee leaves the organization.

Whether the employee spent decades or only months at the company, the typical employee journey includes the following stages:

• Recruiting: The hiring process includes all the steps from resume screening to job interviews and signing a work contract.
• Onboarding: The onboarding process introduces employees to the organization's values, culture, vision, and structure.
• Engaging: This phase covers an employee's integration into their new team, connecting with their direct manager, and setting initial goals.
• Development: During the development phase, an employee settles into a work routine, has their first performance review, and performs future performance planning.
• Progress: The employee's upward progress within the organization includes promotions, professional career development, and assuming additional responsibilities. Some employees never reach this stage but pass directly from development to offboarding.
• Offboarding: The employee's resignation, dismissal, or retirement.

The employee's entire journey includes major events like the first job interview, important moments in career advancement, performance reviews, and more. Employee experiences during those key moments often determine the employee's level of engagement, job satisfaction, and loyalty to the organization.

What is employee journey mapping?

Most business strategists and entrepreneurs know the term "customer journey mapping," which describes the stages from initial interest to becoming a loyal customer for an archetypal customer persona. Although the customer journey varies, the typical customer journey map includes motivation, search, evaluation, conversion, and loyalty.

Just as a customer's journey map can offer valuable insights for improving customer satisfaction, an employee journey map can benefit both the employee and the company. Employee journey mapping helps HR teams and company managers improve the employee experience by identifying the strong and weak points throughout the typical employee's lifecycle. A great way to identify these strengths and challenges in the employee experience journey is to check in on your team with employee experience survey questions.

For example, if company data points out that many employees run into difficulties during their first weeks in the company, HR can create a work plan that focuses on new employees and helps them achieve a smoother onboarding experience.

On a practical level, the employee journey map is a table that gives leaders and managers a bird's-eye view of the core stages a typical employee goes through, points out moments that matter, and highlights the expectations and difficulties of each step in the journey.

💡Need help getting your new employees started at your company? We're here to help with our employee onboarding complete guide!

Why employee journey mapping is so important

In a large organization, an individual employee's experience may fall through the cracks simply because managers and team leaders are too busy or unaware of the potential problems that may crop up during key moments in the employee's career. For instance, a direct manager might not realize that a specific new team member needs a little extra support at the start of their employee journey.

Employee journey mapping helps circumvent these difficulties by increasing awareness of what each employee needs throughout their journey within the organization.

Learn more about what matters to your team by implementing an invaluable employee feedback system.

The many benefits of employee engagement make it a pillar of business success. Engaged employees are happier, more productive, and more loyal to the company. Employee journey maps help keep employees engaged by zeroing in on steps that require attention, like onboarding or transitioning to a new department.

Additionally, an employee journey map can:

• Help managers visualize employee experience by presenting the employee journey in a clear, easily viewable format.
• Highlight pain points like an inattentive onboarding process or inefficient performance management.
• Save your organization time and money by improving communication, productivity, and employee retention.

The 5 steps for creating efficient employee journey maps

So how do you create an accurate and helpful employee journey map? Let's look into the stages in the employee experience journey mapping process.

1. Gathering data

Start with statistics that you already have, like turnover rates, the average length of employee tenure in your company, or the most common reasons for resignation that employees share in their exit interviews.

Clue in to topline insights on the state of the employee experience to learn how companies and leaders can shape this new landscape.

Next, study your employees' opinions on their work goals, needs, expectations, and challenges. The best and most efficient way to gather this information is through employee surveys. A streamlined, people-oriented platform like Officevibe can help you run quick custom surveys to evaluate EX in your company.

2. Creating employee personas

Employee personas are fictional but believable archetypes of employees in your organization. This concept derives from the user experience (UX): just as you have "John Smith, 42, lives in California, tech-savvy and loyal to brands he trusts," you can have "Mary Moore, 30, started at Accounts 6 months ago, excited to work with us."

Employee personas may include:

• Adam, 24, fresh out of college. Entry-level data analyst with motivation to boot but minimal experience. Thrives with ongoing learning and constant communication.
• Steve, 38, IT support. Married with young children. A highly efficient, results-driven employee who prioritizes flexibility and independence.
• Victoria, 50, CMO. A senior manager who recently joined the organization as head of the marketing team. Organized, communicative, and focused on problem-solving.

3. Identifying moments that matter for each persona

Understandably, Adam, Steve, and Victoria each have different goals, expectations, and potential obstacles within the company, which will influence their journey mapping.

Adam may require additional training and will work hard toward a promotion. His level of engagement may drop, and he may start looking at job postings if his advancement within the company is slower than he expects.

Steve will appreciate flexible hours that allow him to spend more time with his children. An adaptable work schedule and generous health insurance coverage for the whole family will cement his loyalty to the company.

Victoria is a go-getter who values the freedom to make bold decisions. She thrives on recognition and will work even harder if the organization applauds her efforts during performance reviews.

4. Creating an employee experience journey map

Once you have created the personas, you can proceed to the employee mapping process, leaning on your statistics and experience within the organization. Focus on crucial moments like onboarding, performance reviews, progressing to new positions, or the exit interview. For example:

• Adam has a positive onboarding experience and shows a lot of promise. However, a year later, he accepts a job offer with a different company, citing a lack of opportunities for professional advancement as his main reason for quitting.
• Steve leaves the company after five years when he moves to a different state. His exit takes place on friendly terms and he remains an enthusiastic advocate for the company.
• Victoria considers resigning when some of the senior management criticizes her strategies. Acknowledging her accomplishments during a company-wide meeting helps avoid the loss of a valuable employee.

Make your team members' day by sending them a heartfelt employee recognition message!

5. Taking action

Look at each employee journey map and try to come up with solutions to improve EX at each crucial point. For example, more open communication during Adam's first performance review could have helped align expectations and a career development program may have boosted his job satisfaction.

Ask yourself:

• What can we do to give promising candidates the support they need during online and offline recruitment?
• How can we improve performance management to foster transparency, accountability, and healthy team culture?
• How can we ensure that our offboarding process helps us stay on friendly terms with exiting employees?

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How to measure employee experience

To improve EX during moments that matter, you need quantitative data. While employee experience is highly complex and personal, focusing on the following core KPIs can help you assess how happy employees are in your company and what you can do to improve employee satisfaction.

1. Employee satisfaction index (ESI). This metric measures overall employee happiness and fulfillment at work.
2. Employee net promoter score (eNPS). ENPS helps you find out how many of your team members would recommend your organization as a workplace to a friend or colleague.
3. Employee turnover rate, both across the organization and in different departments. Low employee engagement strongly correlates with high turnover rates.
4. Worker absenteeism. Absenteeism ties in with employee wellness and engagement. Happy and engaged employees are less likely to miss work days.
5. Successful hires. This stat helps assess the hiring process and onboarding procedures in your company. A high number of workers who leave the organization after a short time may mean that your company needs to pay more attention to integrating new employees.
6. Internal promotion rate. Employees who have sufficient growth opportunities within the organization are less likely to start looking at job listings.

Employee satisfaction is key to the long-term success of your company. Learn how you can measure employee satisfaction to improve it on your team.

Strategies for enhancing employee experience in your company

You've gathered your data and mapped out your typical employee journeys. Now what? Employee journey mapping is only a means of improving employee experience during the entire time an employee spends with your company. Depending on the strengths and weaknesses you have learned from internal data, you may consider the following strategies to make your organization a better workplace.

• Invest in your employees' onboarding experience. Onboarding is a crucial step that can make or break the employee journey. New team members may need extra attention and help long beyond their second or third day at work.
• Support ongoing learning. Always encourage your teams to adopt new methods, practices, or software that boost efficiency and growth.
• Promote employee recognition. Employees who get timely, meaningful recognition at work are happier, more engaged, and likelier to go the extra mile for the company.
• Identify what matters to employees at each stage of their ongoing journey in your company. Is it payroll and benefits policies, flexible schedules, or professional growth? Knowing what makes your workers tick will help you keep them happier and more productive. Send your people an employee satisfaction survey to gauge how they're feeling.
• Foster connections. Encourage employees to join company social networks, participate in team events, and promote a workplace culture that makes everyone feel welcome.

It's crucial to actively promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace. Try these five activities with your team to get the conversation going.

How Officevibe helps improve the employee experience

Officevibe is an engaging, streamlined, easy-to-use platform that helps companies measure employee experience and engagement through pulse surveys and feedback tools. We help you access business-critical information that makes it easier to answer questions like:

• Do your employees have a positive relationship with their direct manager?
• Does your organization have healthy inter-team relationships and company culture?
• Do your team members feel that their work is meaningful, motivating, and exciting?
• Do employees feel that your organization recognizes and celebrates their accomplishments?
• Do your employees have access to critical health and wellness resources?
• How well do your employees understand your organization's values and vision?
• Do your team members feel generally happy and satisfied with their work?
• How many of your employees would tell a colleague, "You should apply for a position with our company"?

Regular surveys can help you build a more accurate employee experience journey map and improve EX. Making meaningful changes based on employee feedback fosters a more productive employment lifecycle, improves employee retention, and sets your business up for success.

Once your team has completed their surveys, it's important to review your employee survey results and take appropriate action from there. Give your employees a safe space to offer feedback and suggestions and start improving your overall employee experience.

It’s no surprise that Google has topped the list of Fortune 100’s “Best Companies to Work for” yet again this year for a grand total of four times.

Their jaw-dropping company campus Googleplex is enough to make any professional drool for an opportunity to work for the world’s largest search engine.

Subsidized massages, afternoon volleyball breaks, bowling alleys and basketball courts – personally, free chef-prepared food is the best perk of them all, but I wouldn’t complain for cut-rate haircuts as well.

But as much as Google’s headquarters brim with on-site benefits, the true formula behind their success lies in the intangible: an organizational culture that is the paragon for every company across all industries.

It is one of the key factors that make it all the more impressive for a company of this magnitude (more than 40,000 employees!) to become a pioneer for corporate culture and stay true to its founding philosophy.

So what’s their secret? Well, I’m sure countless arguments could be made for the answer with varying elements, but regardless, let’s take a look at some of the things that Google’s offices can teach us: the 7 secrets of Google’s great organizational culture.

1. Thorough hiring process for the brightest and the best

Google receives over 1 million resumes each year, with less than 0.5% of all applicants actually being hired.

The surprising thing is how meticulous they are with one as the other, assessing not only a candidate’s technical skills and intellect, but also his creative thought process and quick thinking abilities (see how thorough Google is with each applicant, as explained by Google’s own Don Dodge).

Interviews at Google consist of curveball questions like “How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?” or “You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density.

You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?”

Their hiring process allows Google to filter the flood of applications for extraordinary people who will best contribute to their innovative officevibe.

The best companies are very much conscientious of the recruitment process to find those who will be best suited to continue or even initiate a more vibrant culture.

And while it may be a slow process, careful consideration of your candidates can build a stronger foundation for your company to grow on.
Pool table? Check. Massages? Check. Fantastic organizational culture? Check.

2. Making HR into a science

Using numbers to maximize the potential of their employees is one of the things that Google does best.

The People Operations department (fancy way of saying Human Resources) strictly uses data and analytics to make the most accurate people management decisions that they could make.

From retention algorithms that predict which employees are most likely to leave the company, to studies revealing the optimal size and shape of cafeteria tables, Google knows how to gauge its personnel’s efficiency with hard, rounded numbers.

Take, for example, how they solved its retention problem with female employees.

When they found that women were leaving the company at twice the rate, their HR department identified the main issue to be the maternity leave plan for new mothers.

When they changed the plan so new mothers could get 5 months paid time off instead of 12 weeks, Google’s attrition rate for women dropped by 50%!

Making Human Resources into a science in such ways exemplifies how Google has become the country’s best employer.

While companies like Google are innately data-oriented, the fact that they focus so much energy on identifying even the slightest nuances attests to their mission to instill the best corporate culture they can.

3. Casual, democratic atmosphere

Afternoon volleyball breaks are just one of many assets of Google’s great corporate culture

Google is what one would call a “flat” company, with smaller number of middle managers and an upper management that is too hands-on to be categorized as separate, authority figures.

This lack of top-down hierarchy cultivates a more open atmosphere for employees to voice their opinions and new ideas in various ways like employee engagement surveys.

In essence, they know how to avoid the “monkey effect”, providing opportunities for thoughtful discussions of decisions made about the company.

Of course, while it may seem that enabling employees with such loud voice will make unanimity impossible to achieve, there’s a greater value in recognizing the difference in people rather than stifling the diversity.

As Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of People Operations, puts it:

“Managed properly, the result of these approaches is not some transcendent moment of unanimity.

Rather, it is a robust, data-driven discussion that brings the best ideas to light, so that when a decision is made it leaves the dissenters with enough context to understand and respect the rationale for the decision, even if they disagree with the outcome.”

4. Clear Mission and values: why you do what you do

At the company’s infancy, Google’s founders wrote “ten things we know to be true” that would serve as the grounding values for their future.

The list includes basic tenets like “It’s best do one thing really, really well” and “Fast is better than slow” that have all shaped the core of its company culture, providing principles that Googlers can rally around as a compass for day to day behavior.

It is pretty much in Google’s DNA to experiment: innovation is in their blood.

Larry Page, the CEO of Google, have said that it is “unsatisfying” to have so much resource and yet feel as though they are not doing more things (even though with the likes of driverless cars and Project Glass, they seem to be doing just fine).

That hunger for innovation is what provides purpose in the office, aligning every employee’s decisions with a simple, collective vision.

Having a clearly articulated mission that is prominently communicated to all employees cultivates an intentional culture – an environment where people know why they do what they do, and love their work all the more for it.

Mission statements, however, are much easier to write than to make into reality. You need to realize that a company’s culture will hinge on its ability to make the words on paper meaningful, translating the intangible into something that has real worth and impact.

5. Practicing transparency and open-door environment

Bock uses the phrase “Default to open” to describe one of the components that constitute Google’s great office culture.

Sharing information through weekly meeting called TGIF establishes transparency in the office, creating an environment where everything is up for debate.

Founders Larry and Sergey host the event, where employees from around the world are encouraged to ask, then vote online on questions they most want answered.

Of course, there is an underlying level of trust that employees will keep all the information shared, including product roadmaps and launch plans, confidential.

Keeping the employees updated about where the company is headed and why it’s going in the direction it’s going in will help the employees feel like a part of something greater than just a conglomerate of anonymous individual.

Companies that value collaboration and encourage transparency will develop a positive atmosphere in the office that can only make its people more productive.

6. Employee Recognition for small and big contributions

Google recognizes that appreciation is the best way to reward employees for their contributions.

Recognition like The Founders’ Award provides incentives for employees to do the best work they can do, the rewards from which, paid in the form of Google Stock Units that vest over time, are pretty enticing.

But as much as Google likes to seize opportunities to acknowledge strong performances, the company is equally willing to celebrate failure as well.

Google products are known to always be in Beta – mistakes are praised. Before she became the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg was a vice president at Google whose responsibilities included managing their automated advertising system.

When she made a mistake that cost Google several million dollars, she admitted her error to co-founder Larry Page, whose response sums up the company’s attitude on failure: “I’m so glad you made this mistake,” he said. “Because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re just not taking enough risk.”

Employee appreciation leads to a fearless office culture, where people are more willing to take risks.

More risk, while daunting, means more fresh ideas that may be what a company needs rise to the next level.

7. Organizational Culture Boosted By Community Engagement Outside of Work

Commitment to community is one of the leading indicators of a great corporate culture.

Google has contributed $1.2 billion to the Berkeley County data center facility as a long-term investment, along with close to $1 million for charitable causes in South Carolina.

Events like Googlefest provide opportunities for employees to become involved in community building and training.

Participation in such events adds another social dimension for the employees, strengthening relationships and paving way for a more enjoyable work environment.

Promoting social gatherings in general will allow co-workers to find different ways to connect with each other aside from the work setting.

You may be thinking that Google naturally has the luxury to practice these secrets due to their high business margins and seemingly endless resources.

But the fact of the matter is that passion does not stem from profit or perks. It is their philosophy of providing meaning to their people’s work that brings out the best in the employees, and by focusing on setting up a corporate paradigm that capitalizes on such a mindset, Google has and will continue to find success as one of the best employers across all industries.

So focus on the intangibles, on ways to improve the culture of your company; we're able to obtain data to find out what employees want by giving them quick surveys to get feedback.

A great organizational culture will help maintain high productivity and improve the bottom line.

What other companies do you think practice these secrets?