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Creating an Employee-friendly Work Environment, with Paula Miller and Barbara Ashkin
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At the December event, Paula Miller and Barbara Ashkin from CXtec discussed Creating an Employee-Friendly Work Environment. CXtec has received recognition for its employee-friendly environment and has a reputation for being an excellent place to work.
What makes a business environment employee-friendly? Paula and Barbara noted that it is an environment where employees like each other and like what they do. Open communication is an important part of this, so that employees feel that they are part of the conversation. Those in leadership positions must talk with employees (note – “with” not “to”).
Employees need to feel as if they can have an impact on the business and that what they do matters. In some businesses, this may mean making the employees part owners in the business. For other businesses, it may mean allowing employees to have input into how the business operates.
Barbara and Paula talked a lot about how they get employees involved and working together. CXtec employees are encouraged to take part in both community and social activities. For example, employees may decide to volunteer together on a community project. These activities help the camaraderie within the company, even if all of the employees do not take part. (Obviously taking part in these activities must not be mandatory.)
Sometimes CXtec will ask employees to participate in a volunteer effort then add a “wrap around activity” to the event. For example, a walking event to raise money might have a social component afterwards for employees.
Other thoughts from their talk:
- Life-long learning can also be an important aspect of being employee-friendly.
- Rewarding employees for the efforts is important; however, you must give employees the rewards that they want. While we think of rewards as costing a lot of money, employees may value rewards that do not have a high cost. In order to know that, you need to talk to your employees about the rewards that would be meaningful to them.
- Being employee-friendly is something that must be worked on every day. Paying attention to it once a year – or even once a month – will not work.
- Employee “challenges” – problems, questions, etc. – need to be addressed quickly. This demonstrates that you value your employees.
- Being employee-friendly does not necessarily mean being high-paying. While pay is important, the environment can be even more important. Barbara noted that CXtec is not the highest paying employer in the area, yet it has a high retention rate for its employees (80-90%).
Barbara and Paula provided wonderful examples during their talk. (Watch the video to hear the entire talk.) It was clear from their enthusiasm that they believe that being employee-friendly is important and that it works. Thanks to Monica Johns for being the facilitator for the December event.
Event photography courtesy of Gerri McCarthy
