Improved Corporate Culture is More Important than Financial Incentives
What brought you to your current job? Was it the allure of free lunches, high-tech break rooms, or high pay? Sure, some of these perks have a little pull when it comes down to making a decision about your place of employment, but the newest generation in the job market is seeking more than just financial incentive to draw them to their job and keep them with their employer.
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The disconnect comes as a result of the values of the incoming generation, the millennials, who seek more than just financial incentive and are looking for more purpose in their jobs. When faced with a place of employment who attempts to motivate them purely through perks, these employees tend to become frustrated, disengaged, and ultimately unemployed. Many view these results as actual qualities of the generation. For instance, there’s an overwhelming idea that millennials simply don’t care about their jobs, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead, millennials tend to value employers who, in turn, value their ideas. They seek respect, and respect cannot be bought with perks. This new generation of workers is more likely to value their purpose, their role in the organisation, and their business relationships than in the past.
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Smart organisations will recognise the indirect impacts of workplace culture and values in affecting productivity. Thus, they’ll focus on capitalising on the values that millennials hold highest when it comes to workplace satisfaction. Incorporate many of these values into your organisation’s policies and ethics in order to retain your employees’ happiness and workplace satisfaction:
- Listen to Your Employees: They want to feel like their ideas are valued, so take the time to meet with your employees regularly and truly listen to their ideas. Employee feedback can help you and your company advance and grow as well.
- Foster Development: Your employees aren’t just there to ‘make a paycheck’; Help them to grow, and foster their personal and professional development.
- Create Company Traditions: Employees should feel a sense of ‘family’ with their company, so create traditions cemented in your company’s values that can help them to feel ‘at home’ when they’re at work.
In addition, your younger employees also value more concrete aspects of their workplace that includes flexible hours, workplace transparency, and even opportunities to lead. By putting these new perks into place that are rooted in an enhanced corporate culture, you’re setting your organisation up in a way that will improve the lives of your employees. From there, it’s just about hiring the right people for the job.
When your organisation begins to align their values with those of their employees, then you’re likely to see why other organisations rooted in old methods falter under pressure. Stress, job insecurity, and high job demands force employees to feel obligated to go to work rather than motivated, and this can all hinder true productivity in the long run.
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HSG offers Leadership Development Programs and Culture Change Workshops. We are experts in creating holistic and productive workplace culture and environments. We know how to change organisational culture in a cost effective way.
