What makes a good workplace? Gym membership? High pay? Colleagues who make you laugh? Or is it something more intangible — the purpose of an organisation, or confidence you can advance and be appreciated for what you do? Whatever the answer, the question is vital to a company’s ability to hire the best staff and get the most from them. As companies struggle to boost productivity and still recruit workers in a loosening labour market, making workplaces better is as important as ever.
“A lot of organisations want to understand what it is,” says Trupti Indulkar Raipure, a director in the human resources practice advisory team at consultancy Gartner. “A great workplace is a place where you can attract great talent and you can retain them as well.”
In the FT’s UK ranking of the best employers, 500 companies are scored based on submissions from staff about areas such as working conditions, salary and company image.
Only one company, Cisco Systems, scored a perfect 100. Sarah Walker, chief executive for the UK and Ireland, says this is not just a nice-to-have: pursuing the company’s purpose — which it defines as to “power an inclusive future for all” — depends on a work environment that embodies the same values. “It’s multi-faceted: does the corporate strategy align to how it feels on the ground?” she says. “Do the words and the music align?”
In its annual Good Work Index, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the UK professional body for human resources, takes account of what it calls seven dimensions of work: pay and benefits; contracts; work-life balance; job design and the nature of work; relationships at work; employee voice; and health and wellbeing.
Experts say compensation is vital. “Pay is always number one,” says Indulkar Raipure. “Ask candidates, and the number one place goes to compensation.” Yet it is not everything. Especially for companies with fewer resources, it is possible to compete for staff in other ways.
One survey by Harvard Business School professors this year found 40 per cent of US workers would take a pay cut of 5 per cent or more to retain their current flexibility rather than have to be in the office five days a week. A further 9 per cent would trade 20 per cent of their salaries to avoid the office.
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that several of those organisations that ranked highly in the FT survey highlighted employee agency and flexibility over mandates. A hybrid model operates at Saga, which offers services ranging from insurance to holidays and online dating for older people and ranked sixth in the FT survey.
“We try to ensure there is a good level of connection. We encourage our managers to ensure a regular cadence,” says Roisin Mackenzie, chief people officer. “Once a week, twice a week . . . it’s fluid; we’re still navigating it.”
Laura Adams, chief human resources officer in the US at property group JLL, says the company is striking a balance between freedom and career progression with a hybrid model. “We fundamentally believe that being around leaders and getting that exposure is how you’re going to learn,” she says. “We believe it’s leader-led.”
At Saga, this approach also extends to performance, strategy and advancement — also key components of goals. “What’s really key is we look at the what and the how — clear objectives,” Mackenzie says.
“The critical thing for us is we spend a lot of time nailing our executive objectives. Everything cascades down from that.”
Getting this right is vital in creating a good workplace, says Indulkar Raipure. Employees are “always looking for an employer that can give them opportunities to grow”, she says. Helping workers achieve their potential serves employers, too.
“You can motivate them and contribute to your broader vision and mission. If you find your employees motivated to achieve that as well, it’s a win.”
Perks and benefits are another dimension and can be adapted to fit with the commercial offer of the company to highlight an employer’s unique selling point. Saga employees can take advantage of a perk of a week of leave for the birth of a grandchild.
“We have . . . focused on supporting employment for the over-fifties. That’s a distinctive perk of coming to work for Saga,” Mackenzie says.
At Cisco, Walker adds that managers are proud of initiatives such as inclusive communities around different interests and demographics, such as the Women of Cisco blog, which remain beneficial for the business.
“We want our business to be representative of the business and communities we serve,” says Walker. “The role of leadership is, do we embody things on a macro level? Do our teams reflect those values and those commitments?”
Surveys suggest a sense of meaning is also crucial. Shortly after the pandemic, consultancy McKinsey found nearly two-thirds of US-based employees were re-evaluating their purpose in life, and nearly half said they were reconsidering the kind of work they do.
At Cancer Research UK, which came 12th in the FT’s ranking, this sense of meaning keeps employees happy. “For the last 50 years we’ve doubled the survival rate in the UK, and our people are at the heart of all that work,” says Angela Morrison, chief operating officer. “Each day their work has that life-changing impact . . . it’s a real USP for us.”
Yet what “purpose” means, and indeed what a good workplace does, is different for every employee.
In a blog on employer rankings, workplace expert Josh Bersin wrote that no workplace can offer everything to everyone. Purpose might come at the expense of pay. More established companies may not offer rapid advancement but can still provide security. Scrappy start-ups could have the opposite structure. “It just depends what you’re looking for,” Bersin writes.
