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to real productive work than a traditional office setting. Hint: these are the
people who will jump on a problem at 11:30 on a Thursday night, if a solution
presents itself suddenly. Consider restructuring certain policies to support both
shifting priorities and more overall flexibility.
These issues don’t take the place of a high salary as an attraction point, but they
do change the playing field. Consider industry greats like Google: their website
calls out that “what makes working at Google truly unique is the workplace
culture that encourages innovation and a healthy disregard for the impossible.”
Right off the bat, you can tell that working for this company is working with
this company; the likelihood of getting trapped into a lock-step nine to five is
lower. A Millennial potential candidate may look more deeply into open positions
without even seeing a salary, provided there is this feeling of openness.
Tip:
When you are designing the most likely places potential candidates will
make first contact with you, specify to at least some degree what makes
working with your company interesting, entertaining, special or a better
fit for those potential candidates who might care less about a big salary
and more about other factors. Make sure that your company presence on
sites like LinkedIn and Glass Door reflect your best foot. Even candidates
who are fairly happy at their current jobs are poachable if you can connect
them with benefits, culture (both company and extracurricular), personal
betterment opportunities like training courses, and a great reputation.
But don’t take away from this the belief that you have to completely invent
the perfect workspace for up and coming talent. As Alexander Kjerulf writes in
Happy Hour is 9 to 5, “Happiness at work is not about eliminating all the bad
stuff from your job. It’s about being happy at work even though some of these
bad things are present. It’s about building your skills and your energy to fix the
problems, and to create more and more positive experiences at work.”
The “new” work environment is one of excitement, innovation, creativity, non-
standard solutions, and increased transparency.
Tip:
Being realistic about challenges a potential candidate may face in their new
position helps them gain agency in a new situation. Empowering individuals with
an accurate understanding of their challenges can actually engage them to fight
harder to fix issues, be more creative in their problem solving, and build loyalty
with astonishing speed and longevity.
Empowering your employees to grow in ways that both satisfy them and make
them better at the jobs they do will help you both continue down a road of
excellence. Giving them work environments that help them blossom can also
reduce strain on operational expenses.
Tip:
If, in your work environment and your industry, it is both conducive to
productivity and realistic operationally to have some or all employees work from
home for some portion of the regular work week, you’ll be doing a number of
positive things: you may reduce strain on your physical location, give your top
talent more time close to family and pets and in an environment that they’ve
designed specifically to meet their needs, and secured long-time retention of
the people you want on your team for a long time to come.
Keeping these tips in mind, you will be in a great position to attract, hire and
retain incredibly rich and diverse talent and turn out a better product, whether
that be innovative tech or refuse collection. It never hurts to remember that a
great, successful company is the sum of great leadership, smart empowered
employees and solid vision.
HR
Nicole Smartt is the Vice President and co-owner of Star Staffing. She
was awarded the Forty Under 40 award, recognizing business leaders
under the age of 40. In addition, Nicole co-founded the Petaluma
Young Professionals Network, an organization dedicated to helping
young professionals strive in the business world. To subscribe to her
blog, go to StaffingQueen.com!
HAPPINESS AT WORK IS NOT ABOUT
ELIMINATING ALL THE BAD STUFF FROM
YOUR JOB. IT’S ABOUT BEING HAPPY AT
WORK EVEN THOUGH SOME OF THESE
BAD THINGS ARE PRESENT.
Money
