This past year and a half has taught many companies a valuable lesson. We’re all very human, even when we’re at work. Humans are complex, innovative, resourceful, resilient, messy, and don’t always have it all together. At the height of the pandemic, we all faced immense new pressure and it forced companies to view and treat employees in a more human way.
Some companies seized this opportunity and actually embedded the idea of holistic humanity at work into their people strategy. They explored new types of flexibility, new ways to be productive remotely, and even ways to celebrate and amplify the diversity of their employees and their different ways of working.
At Culture Amp, we have always envisioned a future of work where companies prioritise a strong culture and values, build engaged workforces, and support resilient, high performing teams. What we saw over the past year and a half, in response to the global pandemic and racial justice, is that the future is already here, and it’s time to put that vision into practice.
Humanity at work drives business success.
Companies with a more human-centric approach are better positioned to attract and retain top talent, drive innovation, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profitability. While embracing humanity at work might feel new to some, the key to success is tried and true: listen to your people. When you understand your workforce, you are best positioned to empower people with the skills to succeed.
We revisited these three pillars to understand how companies can build more human-centric practices into their people strategy:
#1 Understanding your people
When organisations get employee experience right, they can achieve twice the customer satisfaction and innovation and generate 25% higher profits than those that don’t. The challenge lies in listening to and understanding your employees effectively to improve their experience.
Enabling managers to ask the right questions at the right time in the right way can help drive actionable insights. For this to happen at scale, you need the right technology in place. Employee experience platforms built on science can be powerful tools to collect, analyse, communicate and act on employee feedback. The use of dashboards helps managers see the big picture in real-time and help to benchmark results across the company and others in your industry.
#2 Build high-performing teams
Only two out of every ten employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work. However, employees are at least three times as likely to be engaged if they help set their own goals and align them with company initiatives.
Getting performance management right can make a huge difference for companies and their employees, and there is no one right approach that works for all. We know there is a strong correlation between a great work culture and high employee engagement and performance. We find that the best performance processes focus on continuous feedback and ongoing development.
#3 Develop your people
Employees with managers that are good coaches have been found to be 40% more engaged and give 38% more effort at work. However, 90% of managers believe they need better support and training to be better coaches. Over a third of managers struggle with giving direct feedback about their employee’s performance, and they usually don’t have a lot of time to devote to training programs.
Employees and managers alike need a way to build learning into their daily practice. That’s why we developed Skills Coach in partnership with LifeLabs Learning, an online tool for managers that prompts them to do two minutes of micro-learning exercises each day. The ongoing, conversational learning style helps managers learn and retain new skills and positively change their behaviour over time. 81% of managers that use Skills Coach agree they have seen a positive change as a result. This is just one of many ways you can incorporate a growth mindset into your existing practices and prioritise employee development.
At Culture Amp, we believe the future of work is already here and strive to help organisations create a better world of work for all of us. You can already see it in companies that are putting culture first, with highly engaged employees that live their values daily and strive to be inclusive. Above all, these companies embrace what it means to be human at work, and they are proving to be much stronger as a result.
Discover tips, best practices, and resources to prepare your organisation for the future of work. Learn more and connect with us at our Humanity at Work site.
* All data points mentioned in this article can be found in the toolkits available online