The world of work is changing rapidly, and attracting people with the right skills and experience is proving a challenge in our region and beyond.  Therefore, it’s never been more important for businesses to stand out as an ‘employer of choice’ to attract and retain great people.  Your people are your competitive advantage, and your culture and what your people experience at work is what sets you apart in the eyes of your employees, candidates and even customers.  So, how do you become an employer of choice?  Put people at the centre of everything you do and make their work experience awesome – the profits will follow.  Here are some ideas on where you can start.

• Be Deliberate about your Culture

Culture is the values, behaviours, and ways of working that unite and motivate employees to achieve company goals.  It’s ‘how it feels to be at work’ and it defines how you go about your work, what you do, and informs how you treat your employees, customers, and stakeholders.  Designing a human centred culture will positively impact your business by engaging your people, enabling them to do their best work, and in turn, enable you to retain great talent and improve profitability.  To begin to define your culture, understand your purpose and values and bring these to life.

You will already have a culture, so ask your people what is working and what isn’t at work, and build from there. 

• Build your Employee Experience

Your culture comes to life through how your people experience work every day.  This is called the “employee experience”, and is made up of various touchpoints throughout their employment, such as what they observe and experience during attraction, recruitment and onboarding, all the way through to their exit and beyond.  This is coupled with the “moments that matter” – moments that employees will remember most during their employment with you.  For example, their first promotion, when they take parental leave or how they are given feedback.

A positive employee experience can see dramatic business benefits, it can increase engagement, collaboration, innovation, productivity, reinforce inclusivity, and make people feel safe.  A study cited on Avande.com, found when organisations get employee experience right, they can achieve twice the customer satisfaction and innovation and generate 25% higher profits than those who don’t.   It can also can have an impact on employees quality of life at work and at home, their wellbeing and mental health.

To build your employee experience, start by understanding the journey and moments that matter, designing the experience around what your employees and potential candidates value most.

• Create Simple and Impactful People Initiatives

Being clear about your culture and your employee experience means that you can implement targeted people initiatives that reinforce and embed these in your business.  Initiatives may include how you communicate to people about their performance, how you grow and develop them and how and what you reward and recognise.

Your culture is unique to your business.  Once you have clarity, ensure that you communicate what sets you apart as an employer, with your engaged employees helping you tell the story.  Then, it makes solving the challenge easier –  who wouldn’t want to be a part of an awesome place to work?

Your HR Partners are Corporate Partners of Enterprise Angels.  They specialise in creating awesome places to work, taking an innovative, agile and human centred approach to HR and working with businesses of any size. They are channel partners for MyTeamPulse, a tool that measures your employee engagement, gathering data so that you and your people can take intentional action to create positive cultural change.

If you would like to get in touch, please email Morwenna or Megan at info@yourhrpartners.co.nz.