4Cs Blog: Happy Employees = Happy Customers

 More business owners are swapping rigid 9-5 schedules and traditional office environments in favour of flexible space and remote working as an option for saving costs, retaining employees and encouraging a healthy work-life balance. With this in mind, Instant Offices investigates what industries are leading the way for remote working and how to overcome the typical challenges of managing a remote team.

A 2016 study conducted by Vodafone involving 8,000 global employees and employers found that three-quarters of companies worldwide have already switched to flexible working options. 61% believe that it had increased the company’s profits and 83% reported a boost in productivity. Additionally, numerous studies suggest that workers would choose flexible working over a pay rise, indicating that more people are interested in a better work-life balance and a schedule that fits their agenda.

Millennials currently represent the largest and most distinctive generation in our workforce, with expectations and values that are significantly different from past generations. By 2025, these innovative and tech-savvy workers are expected to comprise more than 75% of the entire workforce. These rising numbers, coupled with the knowledge that nearly 60% of millennials remain perpetually open to new job opportunities, signal an immediate need for organizations to deliver a millennial-friendly workplace culture.

A recent Deloitte Millennial Survey revealed that millennials are now more open to the idea of staying with an employer more than five years, if given the right opportunities. With annual churn rates reaching nearly $30.5 billion in the U.S., organizations have a fiscal responsibility to engage their workforce. So, what strategies can you implement to ensure retention and a millennial-friendly workplace? 

Lots of managers contact their staff members outside business hours and 28.57 % expect to get responses with three hours, according to a survey conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Bothering employees outside business hours may feel necessary. However, doing so will be detrimental to employee engagement. In the digital age, it’s all too easy to text or email staff members when they are trying to enjoy some downtime at home. When you avoid contacting your employees off the clock, they’ll be less prone to burnout, will be at lower risk of developing mental health issues and illnesses and will feel more respected.

Recent studies have shown that workers are more likely to be engaged and productive when working for an eco-friendly company. In fact, 51% of Americans would not work for a company that doesn’t have strong commitments to environmental or social causes. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that people are starting to become aware of how serious climate change is, especially when you consider the fact that America alone produces over 5 billion tons of carbon emissions every day. Employees these days don’t just work for the paycheck, but they also want to feel part of a cause. Here’s how you can increase employee engagement by going green:

Developing a culture for your company is one of the best things you can do to help your business be successful. Company culture is an important part of your brand identity. Plan your culture well and you set the stage for making advocates out of your employees. It also helps you attract and retain talent overall. Your company culture is part of what makes your company special. 

Technology companies like Google are famous for offering really unique perks to their employees, like an in-house arcade, free food, cooking classes, on-site gym, massage therapists and shuttles to work – but they are not alone. Many startups are starting to follow suit with their own selection of perks, like unlimited vacation time. These identifiers help illustrate what the company values and in turn, its culture.

Get Senior Management "buy-in"

It's critical to get management on board for any employee survey. If not, the risk is that nothing will be done with the results and employees will feel cheated; after all if they they were asked for their opinions and nothing changes, then what was the point? That feeling of being ignored is worse than not doing a survey in the first place. There's a tremendous amount of data on how organizations with high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction outperform their competitors financially, so there is a huge incentive for senior management to consider assessing the level of engagement in their own employees. 

Can’t convince your senior management to do a survey? Maybe they don’t realize that your employees’ ideas can result in cost savings and can improve your bottom line.

According to a WHO questionnaire, around 27 working days are lost per year by US workers suffering from depression, nine of them because of sick days or other time taken out of work, and another 18 reflecting lost productivity.

Following these recent statistics, Ciara Morrison, Head of HR and Talent at Instant Offices identifies the early signs of Burnout and how to effectively avoid hitting rock bottom: 
If your work and family life are consistently stressful, you’re almost certainly at risk of burnout. Most people only realise that they are truly burnt out when it’s too late and then they need to work towards eliminating the symptoms, often while still having to deal with the stresses that caused it in the first place. 
But by keeping an eye out for warning signs can help you make changes proactively, making it easier to prevent burnout, while you still have the will and motivation to make the changes required.

More than ever, workers are looking for perks and benefits of a new workplace beyond just the number on their paycheck. As the ability to change jobs and careers increases, employers are doing more to compete for better workers. The next time you're on the hunt for a new place to work, look for these four things at your new office. 

Corporate Culture 

It's more than a buzzword in 2018. Corporate culture matters so much to young workers that a survey found most of them would give up $7,600 in annual salary to work in an environment with a better corporate culture. But what does that mean exactly? It depends on who you ask but many workers look for companies with aligned social values such as a commitment to sustainability or contribution. Companies are making it known what they stand for and what they can offer to their employees as a result, so finding the right place to work under this category is easier now than ever.  

We’ve all heard the crazy stories about the work environments of tech giants like Google or Facebook, which are noted for offering extravagant employee perks. From “nap pods” to on-site gyms, and even company-managed apartments and laundry facilities, there seems to be no limit to what companies will do in order to keep their workforce happy and engaged.

This might sound great to new hires, but problems are bound to arise when employees are showered with perks without consideration for productivity. There are certainly ways that companies can make sure they’re creating an attractive working environment without offering too much of a good thing. In order to understand how to do this, we must first look at some of the most popular perks, and how they might hurt your company if not deployed in the right way. 

An engaged employee is one who feels a strong emotional and personal connection to their workplace. They’re enthusiastic and passionate about their work, consistently go above and beyond and always want to achieve the best possible results. They’re the people who are proud to work for you, they do their job properly and help the business grow and prosper.
In contrast, disengaged employees do the bare minimum and often without any conscientious effort. They can be loud complainers who bring moral down. There is also the risk they could be looking for another job.

In 2018 you would be hard pressed to find a manager that didn’t acknowledge they are supposed to care about their staff and make their employees a priority, but the reality is that usually profits matter more, followed by customers, while employees end up last on the list. But this is the wrong approach because there is evidence that shows, as employees become more engaged companies thrive. 

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