To create a great place to work, you need intention and commitment

Wavelength, Australia’s largest medical recruitment agency, is in the Top 20 of the Best Places to Work under 100 employees for 2017, and I’m absolutely wrapt.

It always feels fabulous to find out that a business we’re partnering with is being recognised for the effort and investment they’ve made in their people – I am a big believer in keeping your team engaged and happy while they’re on the journey to success. And just to prove they’re genuinely committed to this, it isn’t even Wavelength’s first time on the Best Places to Work list, but the seventh!

In response to The Great Places to Work nomination, Wavelength’s CEO, Chris Riley shared his thoughts:

“The workplace culture at Wavelength is extremely unique and we’re thrilled to be recognised in this way by such a well-respected independent study,” he said. “We’re proud to be able to maintain the balance between a high performing sales and service culture, while at the same time working collaboratively as a team to make a real difference to the wider community. We continue to thrive both personally and as an organisation by embracing a generous and supportive workplace culture.”

GM People & Culture Emma Trehy agrees, explaining that Wavelength’s hiring process is focused on long-term employee engagement by setting each new employee (affectionately known as a “Wavie”) up for success.

“Employee retention is at the heart of our business model and the effort we put into finding the right people is reflected around the office,” She said. “We’re a very diverse group of individuals and yet we all have a similar essence; each team has its own personality; yet we all get together as a group. We’re a truly cohesive and genuinely passionate organisation.”

Wavelength’s passion and commitment to their people is evident in their partnership with Redii.com, who launched their employee recognition and reward program, “Thank Bank”, on the Redii.com platform in October 2016.

From the very beginning, Wavelength was committed to the people-led process – their people (affectionately known as “Wavies”) came up with the name, and their Culture Club was actively involved in generating ideas for the program awards and badges.

In just the first ten months of their program launching, Wavelength have set some pretty high benchmarks:

99% of Wavies have logged into the Thank Bank recognition program
94% of Wavies have received recognition
85% of Wavies have sent recognition
The company has generated over 750 moments of recognition
There have been over 1500 interactions on the Thank Bank Recognition Wall

In the last financial year, staff turnover decreased by 5%, which is no small achievement for a company in an industry renowned for its high-pressure work environment and high staff turnover. A quarter of Wavies have been with the company for 5-10 years, and over a third have been there for 5 or more years.

Partnering with Redii allows Wavelength to reinforce the benefits of their other cultural initiatives; people can be recognised (and rewarded) when they reach their individual goals and company goals, and for living out the Wavelength values of excellence, ingenuity, integrity and heart. They use the platform to celebrate (something I think is very important!), and build on the already strong social network amongst their diverse and driven teams.

When you consider all these efforts, it doesn’t surprise me that 92% of Wavies said “Taking everything into account, this is a great place to work.” Their achievement with Best Places to Work is no small feat, and proves just how much can be achieved with and through people, even if a business is going through significant change.

How great is it that 90% of their people feel they make a difference, that 94% are proud to tell others they work there, and 95% believe they’re treated as full members of the company, regardless of their position. These are fantastic responses from Wavelength’s team, and I am so pleased that Redii is able to support them in their success.

If you are an employer keen to learn how to engage your people, and transform the culture in your business from “ok” to “award-winning”, watch the next video and discover how easy is to become a people first organisation.

Building a great workplace

How to build and budget an employee recognition program.

When someone says “great place to work”, the first things people often think of are stunning offices with high ceilings, bright feature walls, sleep pods, free food and ping-pong tables. But more research shows that while those things are nice and often do make people happy, on their own, they won’t make a positive, long-term impact on your company’s culture and effectiveness.

Perks might attract people and provide short-term boosts in productivity and morale, but on their own, are not enough to transform the culture of a workplace and create an environment where people are thriving.

Perks can also come with a big price-tag; enough to turn off even the most enlightened or enthusiastic of CFOs. So how do you create an environment where people are both equipped and motivated to do their best work every day without running your budget into the red?

We have prepared a fantastic workbook that covers how to tap into one often overlooked but effective lever when it comes to cultural change – employee recognition.

We’ll go through the step-by-step process of how and why to design an employee recognition program that provides two critical things to achieve sustained happiness and fulfilment for your people: acknowledgement when people have contributed to meaningful work, and continuous, relevant feedback from both peers and leaders.

Download this FREE workbook and follow these easy principles for building and budgeting effective employee recognition, and you – and your people – will be well on your journey to positive cultural change and sustained excellence.

How to Nurture Employees

Six ways to nurture outstanding employees

Earlier this week I came across Liz Ryan’s column on Forbes.com, which outlined ten qualities of an outstanding employee. It’s a great list; I recognised plenty of those qualities in the people I’ve worked with and the teams I’ve led. And while it would be awesome if all these great qualities were present in every single person in every single business, the truth is, truly engaged and top-performing employees account for less than a quarter of the Australian workforce.

So what’s a boss to do?

First of all, don’t just sit around hoping that an outstanding candidate will turn up at your doorstep, asking for a job. Chances are they’ve already been head-hunted, or (because they’ve got initiative and take their careers into their own hands), have already sussed out which companies are on the “best places to work” list that will best suit their professional goals and skillset.

Instead of waiting for the unlikely, look inwardly at your current team. Consider the great qualities your people already have that you can recognise and encourage. Where there are gaps consider the things that you can be doing to nurture a work environment where excellence and engagement are the norms.

1. Start with “why?”

As Liz suggests, “outstanding employees know more than just the procedures their job requires. They know the reason their job exists, and that knowledge lets them suggest tweaks and innovations that let them work more effectively.” Knowing why their job exists, and where it fits in the bigger picture (in their department, as well as within the business) is important for motivation, and provides a framework that allows people to prioritise tasks and work autonomously.

2. Facilitate relationships across the business

For your business to grow, you don’t just need the right people doing the right jobs; you need those people to be able to work and achieve greatness together. As the African proverb goes, “If you wanna go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.”

If silos are an issue, encourage cross-team relationships by creating spaces and opportunities for those teams to come together in both formal and informal settings. For example, we’ve recently repurposed one of the areas in the office as a communal breakout space to use for meetings, solo work and one-to-one conversations. While you might not have the real-estate available in your office to do this, consider other ways to use the space and time you have to bridge the divide between teams. Make the kitchen the type of place worth spending a lunch break in, host cross-departmental lunch-and-learns or skills-sharing sessions, or use tools like Redii to highlight key projects and achievements from different areas of the business.

3. Make it easy to communicate quickly

Another way to break down silos and facilitate productivity is to create channels so employees can easily find the information they need to do their job and get quick answers to their questions. Where possible, replace slower, formal communications channels (like email) with company notice-boards/screens or chat tools like Slack or Workplace, so you can share information and get questions answered quickly, while still having the option to turn off notifications and minimise distractions. Set a rhythm for company-wide updates and use these to provide visibility of how each team is tracking against their priorities for that quarter or year.

4. Make it easy to provide both good and bad feedback

It takes practice and encouragement to seek and receive feedback for the work you’re currently doing, and it’s important leaders consistently welcome and act on the feedback from their employees. That includes encouraging qualitative feedback openly during conversations (like at meetings and one-to-ones) and also providing channels to submit specific, actionable and data-driven feedback on specific projects or pieces of work.

5. Make mistakes ok

If you want to encourage growth and innovation, it’s time to stop fearing failure. Daniel Coyle, author of The Little Book of Talent points out that the most successful athletes go out of their way to fail during practice. They deliberately push their physical and mental boundaries – and land flat on their face in the process – so they can improve. Expecting growth without failure is a recipe for disaster – the most successful companies (think Google, Apple and Atlassian) are willing to try and fail because, in the end, it’s a numbers game: the more times you try, the more likely you are to succeed. But if an employee is too afraid of being reprimanded for making a mistake, they aren’t in a position to think outside the box, come up with new solutions, or innovate.

As chairman of Google’s Alphabet, Eric Schmidt, said in 2010, “We celebrate our failures. This is a company where it is absolutely OK to try something that is very hard, have it not be successful, take the learning and apply it to something new.”

6.Foster gratitude as a workplace habit

Appreciating things that are going right is a basic requirement for sustained happiness; the more we feel like we’re making progress, the more engaged we become in the activity we’re doing. Apply that principle in your daily work, and make it your business to provide your team members with constant feedback and recognition for the achievements they’ve made. One of the managers I know has an appointment in his calendar each Friday and uses the time to review what went well and recognise each of his team members. Get your people to do the same – not just for their direct reports, but for their peers in other teams too. The more you encourage spontaneous but continual recognition, the more you reinforce good work and create an environment that fosters great results.

What are some of the things you do to nurture excellence in your people?