The Australian Center for Industrial Relations, Research and Training at the University of Sydney undertook a study on the best workplaces in Australia. From the results, the center compiled a list of 15 key drivers for achieving workplace excellence.

How does your own company measure up on these?
1. Quality working relationships
The way people relate as friends and co-workers, support each other and get the job done.

2. Workplace leadership
How the immediate supervisor, team leader, manager or coordinator presents to their subordinates – focus on leadership and energy, rather than on management and administration.

3. Having a say
The way people participate in decisions affecting the day-to-day business of the workplace.

4. Clear values
The extent to which people can see and understand the overall purpose and individual behavior expected at work.

5. Being safe
The level of personal safety people feel, both physically and psychologically – a sense of stability and of being protected by the system.

6. The built environment
The quality of the physical work environment – comfortable, user-friendly, with visual appeal and a high standard of accommodation.

7. Recruitment
Getting the right people to work in the location, people who share the same values and work ethic as the rest of the group.

8. Pay and conditions
Levels of income and physical working conditions (hours, access, travel, etc.) – met to a standard employees perceive as reasonable.

9. Obtaining feedback
Always knowing what people think of each other, their contribution to the success of the place and their individual performance over time.

10. Autonomy and uniqueness
The organization’s capacity to tolerate and encourage differences – people have the sense they’re the best at what they do.

11. Sense of ownership and identity
People take pride in the workplace and in their contribution to it, feeling they know the business and control the technology.

12. Learning
Ability to learn on the job, acquire skills and knowledge from everywhere, and develop a greater understanding of the entire workplace.

13. Passion
Energy and commitment to the workplace, high levels of volunteering, excitement and a sense of well-being – people actually want to come to work.

14. Having fun
A pleasant, psychologically secure workplace where people can relax with each other and enjoy social interaction.

15. Community connections
Being part of the local community and feeling the workplace is a valuable element in local affairs.
Looking at your own company, how does it measure out in terms of these 15 categories? What areas is it strongest in? Weakest in? Give some thought to your three weakest excellence areas. Brainstorm four or five things you might do for each weak category to shore up that sagging sector.

Circle the best ideas you came up with. Then the most important question: what you will do to implement them?

Think about that for a second. Better yet, take a moment to jot down the answers that come to mind.

 
What did you write? Chances are that making money wasn’t the only thing on your list. Job challenge, work relationships, the appreciation of peers and supervisors – those provide satisfaction that can’t be measured in dollars.

What do you think is important to the people who work for you? Are the reasons they come to work likely to be very different from your own? Whatever the job rank, all people desire similar things from employment. Grasping that fact, and making decisions accordingly, puts you paces ahead of employers who just don’t get it.
 
Employee retention depends on this understanding. Accenture conducted a study of 500 full-time middle managers in the United States and found them all either looking, or planning to look, for another job. That tells us business is failing to meet the needs of the people it depends on. Business itself suffers the brunt of the consequences.

As Generations X and Y move up and into the workforce, the interpersonal and spiritual aspects of employment will rise in importance. Younger people tend to base job decisions on factors other than money. Respect, expressed appreciation for a job well done, shared values, a homey work environment, flexibility in hours and scheduling, joviality and emotional security in the workplace – such are the factors that increasingly drive the movement or secure the stability of our younger human resources.
 
Think about what you want from your job, then think how to give the same to your people. The more you understand the similarities between you and your employees, the better you’ll relate to their needs. That will pay off in better productivity, reduced absenteeism, and fewer losses of valued staff. It won’t hurt your reputation with the home team either.

Kerry Larkan

At one time, brain drain equated with the emigration of talented people out of the poorer nations where they were needed, into countries offering better opportunities. Today the term has expanded to include the phenomenon of businesses and professions losing their best staff over failure to provide attractive work options.

The term has expanded because the phenomenon has expanded. Modern workers insist on a more people-centered workplace, an environment where they receive the same respect they give their bosses, where they exert influence in the company and can make decisions about their own work. They want flexible scheduling; decent benefits; a fun, pleasant, uplifting and homelike atmosphere.

Becoming sensitive to the changing demands of the workforce means your business will retain its best people, rather than lose them to self-employment or to competitors who better understand what top performers are looking for.

In his book, “Love and Profit: the Art of Caring Leadership,” James A. Autry writes: “Work can provide the opportunity for spiritual and personal, as well as financial growth. If it doesn’t, then we’re wasting far too much of our lives on it.”

That’s the new thinking of the new workforce. Whether or not we like it, we have to accept it. If we want to keep our most valuable people, we have to adapt to it.

Kerry Larkan

“We can’t get good staff. When we do, we can’t keep them.”

If that’s what people are saying now, buckle up for a very rough ride, because the news is going to get worse. Finding, inspiring and retaining talented people in your business will get a lot harder before it gets better unless you make people the asset many so-called leaders only pay lip service to.

You have to get serious about making your company’s people a strategic issue if you hope to still be in business in five years’ time, let alone ten years’ time.

Replacing staff is an expensive process that’s likely to get more costly. Chasing “cheap staff” is a myth fraught with many real dangers. 

For too long, HR has been the creator and keeper of policies and standards when it comes to staff. That has to end in a company that cares about people. Top management must be closely involved with HR, and HR needs to have a say in the top levels of management. How else can you monitor whether HR acts on an independent agenda or in accord with your company vision?

Look at your people as a talent pool, not a cesspool. If you see HR or people management simply as a cost, you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth. To change your results, change your thinking.

Kerry Larkan