new era of employment has dawned. A hybrid model of on-site
attendance with working from home has become the norm in
many companies. Not only has the way we work changed, but employer and employee expectations have shifted beyond recognition, both as a result of the pandemic and the natural evolution of society and the workplace.
Employees today are resetting their priorities and adjusting their goals, leaving many organisations unsure about how best to re-engage them. In other words, there has never been a better time to find out what makes staff tick, what motivates them and what brings them the kind of happiness at work that salary alone cannot buy. In this evolving landscape, The Sunday Times is proud to partner with employee experience platform WorkL to deliver fresh insights into what makes a workplace a Best Place to Work.
Just as the world of work is being reinvented, so is the way workers’ voices can be heard. WorkL is the disruptor of the employee engagement analysis sector and its thorough survey into the new work environment for The Sunday Times is defined by speed, ease of use and value for money. By entering the new Sunday Times Best Places to Work awards, organisations of all sizes, across industry sectors, will receive granular data on how their employees feel about them via a dynamic dashboard. This will include benchmark industry analytics, the risk of employees leaving and net promoter scores. WorkL’s data analysts can also slice the survey results by demographics such as gender, disability, sexual orientation and age — enabling them to compile a richer picture of the workplace experience.
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A
ireland focus IN FIGURES
WorkL, the global employee experience platform, has been busy targeting Irish workers to find out about shifting expectations and the standards required in the Irish workplace.
Given that Zoom – the company that enabled so many people to work from home during the pandemic – is one of many firms now urging that its employees return to the office, it is a good time to reassess how we work and what makes us happy in our roles.
To that end, WorkL has conducted research comprising more than 3,000 employees based in Ireland, to unearth the key issues workers are concerned about, and how Irish employees define what makes for a great place to work.
The results are a snapshot of employee sentiment spanning six months, from February to August 2023. One key finding that employers may take solace in is the fact that overall job satisfaction is up from 70.4% to 72.4% — a trend that business strategists will be keen to leverage.
WorkL conducts employee surveys with companies of all sizes across all sectors, from tech, media and retail to financial services and energy. This wealth of data is used to benchmark flight risk (the likelihood that an employee will leave a company) and the value of extra discretionary effort people put in when they feel engaged.
In Ireland, the percentage of employees expected to leave their jobs has also fallen over the last six months, as people consolidate their positions and focus on building their careers after the turbulence of recent years.
You may recognise your own workplace environment reflected in these statistics. And if you feel your company has overachieved compared to the status quo, then you may even wish to nominate it as one of the Best Places to Work in Ireland by visiting stbestplacestowork.ie
31%
28%
83%
average wellbeing risk at UK organisations is reduced to 8% in the best places to work
average flight risk – people leaving organisations in the next nine months – drops to 9% in the best companies
How the best workplaces score on sharing information with employees, compared with
69% for UK firms in general
To enter The Sunday Times Best
Places to Work 2024
SHARE
Sources: *Six Steps to Workplace Happiness by Mark Price (2018)
** CMI report (The Workplace Inclusivity Illusion), June 2022
SECRETS OF SUCCESS
stbestplacestowork.ie
Enter now
A
Reward and recognition
Lord Mark Price on why happy teams make business sense
Employees today are resetting their priorities and adjusting their goals, leaving many organisations unsure about how best to re-engage them
“
steps to workplace happiness
The secret every business leader wants to know is: what creates a truly happy workforce? WorkL has drawn on a huge bank of its data, sourced from surveys and exit interviews with 750,000 employees worldwide, combined with comprehensive research alongside academics and behavioural scientists. The research has pin-pointed six key motivators of work happiness. These are the things that really matter to workers — now is the time for businesses to listen.
Research reveals the winning formula for engaging andretaining talent: make employees feel fully appreciated
Rewarding performance acts as a motivator that helps build trust
“
Even as the work from home model is in decline, employee satisfaction is on the up
While everyone wants to be paid fairly, WorkL research has found that salary isn’t the main motivator for happiness at work. Of course, paying somebody 5-10% less than they believe they are worth nibbles away at contentment and becomes demotivating. Yet conversely, if you pay 5-10% more than people think they are worth, they don’t work any harder.
More important to workers is being told they’re doing a good job, and in a personal way (not with an automated gift voucher). It’s about recognition for every part of the process: rewarding an individual’s performance with a thank-you, a note of congratulations or a small gift functions as a powerful motivator that helps build trust.
Failure to authentically collaborate and share information will leave employees fumbling in the dark and feeling as though they are a less important part of the business. This, over time, erodes commitment.
Whether you’re a CEO or a shop floor employee, it’s difficult to do your job well if you don’t have a context for your role, don’t know how well you’re doing it, and don’t understand the direction the organisation as a whole is headed. Do you truly know what’s going on under the bonnet of the company? And if not, why not?
Transparency at a corporate level, and ensuring that every employee has the information and training required to do their job, is key to the overall success of an organisation.
One of the overarching takeaways from the pandemic was the wake-up call that every employee has pressures outside of their working life, whether that’s what’s going on in their relationship, financial worries or health concerns.
By addressing the physical, emotional and financial health of employees, companies will improve engagement levels and productivity. At the heart of an individual’s wellbeing at work is a manager relationship based on trust and mutual respect, listening and responding to anxieties.
While no manager should become a counsellor — there are professions much better equipped to do that – if you are actively supporting the health of your people, they will be more committed and absence rates and staff turnover will be lower. A holistic approach to employee wellbeing makes business sense.
In 1962, when President John F Kennedy visited NASA for the first time and asked the janitor what his role was, the man responded: “I’m helping put a man on the moon, Mr President.” That’s purpose. Today, purpose has become a go-to workplace buzzword, and with good reason.
Helping employees to see that what they do every day is worthwhile (including how the business interacts with the wider world) instils a sense of pride that drives extra discretionary effort. A high sense of purpose leads employees to tell friends and family that they work for a fantastic organisation, feel pride in the work they do and even recommend that others come to work there. Every employee should know their unique value to the company.
with Martha Lane Fox
It takes less than 10 minutes for organisations to set up WorkL’s digital 26-point survey, and less than five minutes for employees to complete it. Questions cover six key drivers of engagement: Reward and Recognition; Information Sharing; Empowerment; Pride; Job Satisfaction and Wellbeing. The fee for entering the awards includes a 12-month subscription to The Times and Sunday Times, and starts at just €900 for organisations with 10 to 49 employees.
Entries are now open and Best Places to Work organisations will be celebrated in a dedicated Sunday Times supplement next May. How would yours fare? Be in the running to find out.
Information sharing
Wellbeing
Instilling pride
10
Keeping score
Lord Mark Price,
founder of WorkL
Balancing act
Working part-time allows Julie Adams more time to pursue other interests
Stepping up
Rachael Smith is working towards becoming
a head of department
Visit stbestplacestowork.ie to enter.
Entries close on April 12, 2024
‘Friday is all yours’
The Sunday Times, powered by WorkL, is looking for Ireland’s best places to work. Will your company make the list?
Help us find the
workplaces in Ireland
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PICTURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS: ADOBE, GETTY AND SHUTTERSTOCK
happiest, most productive
Entries close
April 12, 2024
6
happiest
Industries
Sources: WorkL analysis of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023 finalists compared to a WorkL benchmarking database of 50,000 companies
31%
of those with a disability are at flight risk, compared with 26%
of those who are not disabled*
of employees who identify as LGBTQ+ feel overlooked for opportunities as a result of their identity**
65%
37%
of people in the health and social care sector rate their wellbeing as poor*
10
happiest
Industries
Non-profit organisations
and charities
Marketing
and advertising
Technology
Construction and
building materials
Entertainment and media
Business and
management services
Financial services
Energy and utilities
Agriculture, animals,
forestry and fishing
Real estate, rental
and leasing
Employees need to feel part of the decision-making process, and that requires actively listening to their ideas and empowering them to voice suggestions in a two-way conversation.
When all experiences, voices and skills are encouraged, people tend to have more positive feelings about their role, their colleagues and their organisation. Crucially, actively seeking a diversified team and acknowledging differences are key to building the best outcomes and creating an atmosphere for collaboration.
Trusting people to self-develop, and coaching them with constructive feedback, will empower teams more effectively than looking over their shoulder and telling them you “wouldn’t do it like that”.
Empowerment
Job satisfaction
Personal development consistently comes out on top as the biggest driver for workplace happiness, so it is integral to the success of every organisation. Is your company helping you to be better at your job — and is your manager supporting this? When WorkL monitors flight risk within companies, a poor relationship with a manager is regularly cited as the number one reason for leaving a company, no matter how great the brand. On the other hand, when employees feel that management really values them, they put extra effort into improving their workplace. Feeling appreciated motivates employees to go the extra mile and make their work environment, as well as their own input, even better. Companies that put maximum effort into helping people do this will reap rewards.
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72.4%
of employees are happy, enjoy their job and have a good relationship with their manager
JOB SATISFACTION
23.4%
of employees are likely to leave for a new role in the next nine months
FLIGHT RISK
70.7%
of employees feel recognised and fairly paid
REWARD & RECOGNITION
72%
of employees are proud to work at their organisation and would recommend it
PRIDE
*Data shared from 3,000 employees based in Ireland.