Did you know, you are likely to spend one-third of your life at work? Life’s too short for that time to be spent anywhere other than somewhere GREAT. So, how do you know if you have a “great place to work”. Well as I was pleased to discover recently, there is an organisation called Great Place to Work (GPTW) that is the global authority on workplace culture and they have a certification program where you can find out whether or not your workplace is great. When our General Manager, Sarah Jenkins, approached me to ask if she could submit TrainTheCrowd to get certified as a great place to work, my initial reaction was that it sounded like a great marketing idea. However, after going through the process I realised it is much more powerful than that.
GPTW Process
You may be wondering, what is the process to get certified? There are three simple steps:
- Survey employees
- Complete culture brief
- Analyse results
GPTW provide you with a research-backed employee experience survey that you send out to your team members, one person completes a culture brief form and then GPTW do the rest! GPTW were exceptional during the entire process. They provided a kick-off meeting, webinars, instructions, templates and tools to use to ensure the process is as easy as possible to complete. Once it has been determined whether your organisation meet the criteria, GPTW contact you to discuss your results.
Our Results
The results are in for TrainTheCrowd and we are very excited to announce we are officially certified as a “Great Place to Work”. From a marketing perspective, getting certified is a great achievement and means that we can proudly upload the GPTW certification logo on our website and promote it to our LinkedIn network. However, it is not the only benefit. I discovered the most powerful part of the process was reviewing the survey results, in particular what people wrote in response to the open-ended questions.
Valuable Insights
The team were asked two open ended questions which provided valuable insights into what we are doing well and also showed us areas we can focus on. Below is a summary of what we learned.
Is there anything unique or unusual about this company that makes it a great place to work?
- Support: team members feel supported by management and peers both personally and professionally
- Celebrations: team members enjoy celebrating one another’s accomplishments, weddings, birthdays, engagements, work anniversaries and other life events
- Female: 3 out of 4 leadership roles are held by females which is unique in our industry
- Work/life balance: team members are free to work from anywhere which brings a sense of freedom and trust that is truly appreciated
- Family culture: team members are all treated equally and people genuinely care about the wellbeing of others in the team
- Common goal: as a collective we strive for excellence in everything we do and are proud of the high quality work we deliver
What is one thing you would change about this company to make it a better place to work?
- Nothing: many people feel they have landed their #dreamjob
- Social events: more in person catch ups (COVID-19 restrictions permitting)
- Office space: larger office space to cater for more people at one time and more opportunities to catch up with colleagues
- Career path: provide direction on how people can progress in their career (e.g. additional responsibilities, upskilling, cross-skilling)
In summary, I would highly recommend encouraging your organisation to conduct an employee experience survey process. We have gained valuable insights about what we are doing well and what areas we can focus on so we can continue to be a great place for people to spend one-third of their life! If you would like to hear more about our GPTW experience or think TrainTheCrowd sounds like your ideal place to work, please reach out to us at dreamjob@trainthecrowd.com.