Caring is contagious.

Volunteerism for 2023 PEOPLE® 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that Care

“Being a caring company isn’t about winning a popularity contest,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO of Great Place To Work®. “These great companies use their power to build a better world for their employees and customers, and as a result they see stronger performance, more innovation, and higher profits.”

Those principles of care have a remarkable impact on volunteerism for the companies on this year’s list. Overwhelming majorities of employees participate in community impact programs and volunteer efforts.

At Cisco, No. 1 on this year’s list, 80% of its workforce participated in its Community Impact program in the 2021 fiscal year, with participation including volunteering, donations, and participating in local programs. Together, 62,000 Cisco employees generated more than $34 million in total donations and matching gifts.

To get this level of participation, Cisco frequently encourages employees to get involved. New hires are asked right away to consider their impact on their community and a new hire give-back program offers new employees a $15 credit to donate to a cause of their choice.

Later, employees continue to receive nudges towards volunteering and donating. Cisco’s intranet displays a personalized module that tracks participation in community impact programming. The dashboard shows participation for an employee’s team, and for the whole organization — using a little social pressure to create a community of giving.

Cisco employees volunteer at the Raleigh Branch of the Food Back of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

Employees are also guided into Cisco’s Community Impact Portal, a digital platform where they participate in variety of opportunities, all of which have definable positive value for the community.

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Giving employees the opportunity

Many companies on the list offer their employees stipends or paid time off to volunteer or support a cause they believe in. The most caring companies take it one step further and organize multiple opportunities for employees to volunteer together.

At Bombas, No. 72 on the list, the giving team organizes 10 to 15 volunteering opportunities for employees every month. Examples of some of the activities include putting together items from the holiday wish lists of families in need, mentoring students on their résumés and interview skills, donating clothes, and more.

Bombas employees participate in a gardening event in partnership with Services for the Underserved.

“Many companies will claim to [have] a give-back mission of sorts, but this company not only makes decisions based on this mission but truly encourages employees to remain engaged and volunteering for the community,” shared one Bombas employee. “Some of my fondest memories at the company are through our giving events.”

Sponsoring leaders

For some companies, having employees serve on nonprofit boards is beneficial and so they find ways to reward employees who take on leadership duties in their communities.

CarMax, No. 76 on the list, offers employees a $1,000 grant when they serve on a nonprofit’s board of directors. In its 2022 fiscal year, the company paid $235,000 through the program and has since expanded the benefit to also provide the grant if an employee’s spouse, domestic partner, or child serves on a nonprofit board.

At CarMax, 88% of employees surveyed say they feel good about how the company invests and supports local communities.

CarMax employees build a playground in Richmond, Virginia.

The value of time

When companies do give time off to employees for volunteer activities, there are ways to maximize the effort to engage workers in community programs.

RSM US LLP, No. 4 on the list, offers a “Pursue Your Passion” program where employees can apply for the chance to pursue a passion project with financial support and time off from the firm.

This year, nine employees were awarded $10,000 each and nine days off. One employee used the grant to open a therapeutic horse-care and riding program for disabled children, young adults, and veterans on her parent’s farm in Michigan.

카지노 커뮤니티 추천 on the list also listened to their employees and found ways to support the work that they were already using vacation days to do.

At Dow, No. 88, employees who are passionate about disaster relief and service are able to volunteer with service partner Team Rubicon to assist in the wake of natural disasters for up to two weeks without using vacation days.

Volunteering lessons

For companies looking to improve employee participation in volunteer activities, the PEOPLE 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 That Care offer some helpful tips:

1. Get started during onboarding

 Many companies match charitable donations or offer opportunities for employees to direct the disbursement of company funds to a cause they support. By asking new hires to participate in charitable giving, companies can reinforce their values and ensure that employees feel included in efforts to give back to the community from the start of their employee journey.

2. Take away the pressure of organizing volunteer activities

 Many employees don’t have the time to find their own volunteer program, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to participate. 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that can help organize group volunteer activities see multiple benefits: higher levels of belonging and camaraderie, and higher volunteerism rates.

3. Find ways to support what employees are already doing

 There’s a good chance your employees are already actively engaged in their communities. Rather than invent your own programs, ask how you can help the work they are already doing.

Partner with employee resource groups to identify the most important needs in local communities. If employees are serving on nonprofit boards or doing regular volunteer shifts, how can you celebrate and reward that service?

When employees give back to their communities, your business benefits. Employees feel better about their company and their work when they believe they contribute to making the world a better place.

Make the list

Think your company deserves recognition for all the ways it cares for employees, local communities, and the planet? Get started on applying for next year’s list.

Parents at typical workplaces are not alright.

As the U.S. Surgeon General noted in , parents in today’s workplace face a perfect storm of loneliness, economic stress, and cultural pressure. Four in 10 (41%) parents are so stressed most days, they cannot function, according to data from the American Psychological Association.

The company you work for plays a big role in your mental health. Managers have a than their doctor or therapist.

At the Fortune Best Workplaces for Parents™, a consistently positive experience at work contradicts the trend seen at typical workplaces, according to research from Great Place To Work®.

At these companies, 90% of working parents look forward to coming to work, and 91% say they want to work for their company long term. But for parents at typical workplaces, only 52% of parents look forward to their work each day, and just 65% plan to stay in their role.

Learn strategies from other great workplaces at the For All Summit™ April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

What makes the difference for parents

One of the key differences between the Best Workplaces for Parents and a typical workplace is how much control parents feel they have over their experience. In practice, that often comes down to their experience with their direct manager.

“What makes the biggest difference for working parents is if they feel their people manager wants them to succeed at work and at home,” says Michael C. Bush, CEO at Great Place To Work. “Do you have a people leader who cares and listens, or are you powerless to change your experience, unable to set healthy boundaries or pursue personal goals?” 

Researchers have shown that a lack of control over one’s environment directly correlates with for employees. For parents, exercising autonomy can be even more challenging. that parents are spending more time at work as well as more time with their children, sacrificing personal time, leisure, and sleep.

At the Best Workplaces, 50% more parents report that management involves them in decisions compared with a typical U.S. workplace. That experience is correlated with higher levels of well-being: Parents who say management involves them in decisions are 30% more likely to say their work has meaning and 20% more likely to say their workplace is psychologically and emotionally healthy.

“When parents feel their people leader and company cares, they give more effort and your business reaps the benefits,” says Bush. “Giving parents a sense of control over their work environment unlocks their creativity and passion.”

When parents say they are involved in making decisions that affect them, they are 30% more likely to report adapting quickly to change. When parents say their work is meaningful, they are 26% more likely to give extra effort on the job.

This increase in agility and discretionary effort is crucial for innovation, forces companies to reinvent themselves .

How to give working parents more control

The Best Workplaces for Parents offer a clear alternative for creating workplace norms where parents can thrive.

Here’s how companies that made this year’s list listen and respond to the needs of parents to offer more flexibility and make work more meaningful:

1. Ensure working parents at every level of the organization can share feedback about their experience.

The Best Workplaces use multiple listening channels to make sure they collect feedback about the experience of parents across the organization.

Wegmans Food Markets, the No. 26 large company on the list, schedules leaders to work shoulder-to-shoulder alongside frontline employees and hold regular one-on-one meetings to get feedback. Hilton, the No. 3 large company on the list, brings team members together for a daily huddle before each shift to share key information and collect feedback.

At tax consulting firm Ryan, No. 13 on the large company list, senior leaders hold regular listening sessions with a cross section of 12 to 15 employees to get feedback and then take action on common themes uncovered.

2. Maximize flexibility to directly address the needs of parents in the organization.

After listening to parents, winning workplaces take action to offer more flexibility and choice to employees.

At Wegmans, employee feedback uncovered how frontline employees struggled to manage at-home responsibilities without a consistent weekly schedule. The grocery chain created a company-wide program to give hourly employees a consistent day off each week, making it easier for employees to schedule personal events. (Hear more about how Wegmans embraces flexibility.)

At Hilton, team members can choose how they work and what type of work they do through gig work opportunities. Hilton allows team members who qualify to select shifts and explore new roles, potentially learning new skills and growing into a new career.

3. Empower parents to make a difference in their role.

Having meaningful work improves employee retention across your entire workforce. For parents, meaningful work can justify the sacrifices and tradeoffs needed to juggle work and family responsibilities.

Like any other employee group, working parents want to develop their skills and grow their careers. Cisco, the No. 1 large company on the list, gives every employee access to personalized one-on-one career coaching sessions.

To ensure that every employee has the opportunity to make an impact, Cisco invests in programs like its Women Inventor Network, which aims to increase the number of employees who submit patents and participate in innovation.

Programs don’t have to directly target working parents to have an impact. Since parents are represented in most demographic groups in the workplace, efforts to support those groups also benefit parents.

When every employee has a better experience, working parents benefit as well.

Make the list

Use Great Place To Work 카지노커뮤니티™ to enter your company for this and other Best Workplaces™ lists. Start here.

Hourly workers often miss out on meaningful work, mental health support, and training opportunities compared to salaried employees at typical workplaces. At CarMax, where most employees are hourly, Diane Cafritz, EVP, chief innovation and people officer, explains how they bridge those gaps.

Listen to this episode of the Better podcast to learn how CarMax boosts engagement by supporting its frontline workers, and get practical tips for empowering hourly employees at your organization.

On creating a sense of meaning and purpose for hourly workers:

You might not intuitively think that working at a used car dealership will give you purpose and meaning, so we know that we have to be intentional about providing that for our associates.

Everything we do is based on our four values — do the right thing, put people first, win together and go for greatness. And we weave those values into every program and all our communication so our associates know that we walk our talk.

카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 vision is to ensure an iconic experience for everyone everywhere. An iconic experience is going above and beyond, and the great thing about trying to achieve an iconic experience is everybody can contribute. So we link our associates’ work through their business objectives, through our recognition programs, and how they are contributing to an iconic experience for our customers. We celebrate when they go above and beyond for customers or associates.

We have quarterly communications meetings at all of our stores, and in those meetings, we recognize above and beyond iconic experiences. Recognition is such a powerful way to make people feel valued.

On the connection between customer service scores and employee engagement:

We ask our customers about their satisfaction with the associates they worked with. And whatever that score is so to speak, the NPS score for associate satisfaction, we bring that back to the associate and we celebrate their wins and help them improve when they are not meeting the expectations of our customers.

And it's just this lovely cycle. If we only worked on the things that were opportunities for them, meaning when they didn't meet the customer's needs, then it would be somewhat of a beat down, to be perfectly honest. So, we really focus on what you’re doing well and work on continuing those strengths.

When people are getting recognition and that one-on-one manager conversation about their performance, we think that they're more engaged because they feel more valued. And more engaged associates overall provide a much better experience for our customers.

[Learn to support your entire workforce at the For All Summit™ April 8-10 in Las Vegas. Better listeners save $200!]

On well-being support for hourly workers:

We dedicate a whole month to mental health, and one of the things we do is we take leaders who have struggled with alcoholism or depression or anxiety, and we have them tell their stories, and we videotape them. These are leaders, these are vice presidents of the company, these are people who you wouldn't necessarily assume had mental health struggles.

We showcase them in ways that they’re comfortable telling their story. They talk about how they were supported by friends, family, the company, and their colleagues. That has been wildly successful and incredibly important.

We also provide access to Headspace for all our associates and their family. And we’re piloting a program called Empathy, which is a virtual-based app that helps you go through grief. What we wanted to do was say, what's the common incredibly stressful event in people's lives and what can we do? And we believe that’s if you have a loss in your life.

Financial well-being is very critical to health, and we have tried to make it more accessible and more affordable. Those are the two things, particularly that our hourly workers tell us when we survey them: affordability and accessibility. And so for both, for instance, we have done every sort of virtual service that you can provide. Physical therapy and primary care can be virtual. We are in small and large markets, and in some of the small markets, there is no access to even basic primary care.

On supporting hourly workers with training and development:

One thing that's core to our training and development is individual development plans (IDPs). Everybody at every level of the company has an individual development plan. It takes away the stigma of an individual development plan. I know other companies use that as, “This is how to get you back on track if you've sort of fallen off of your performance.” For us, it's for our most successful and our least successful.

We also offer 10 minutes or less of video, bite-sized learnings for anybody to take advantage of depending on what they want to work on. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 hourly workers are incredibly busy. For them to be able to find time for development, we have to make that time for them.

And if it were classrooms where we had to fly them, it's just not practical. To get them to watch something that's entertaining, educational, and easy to digest and then work with their managers on practicing, is the best way to train and develop our associates right now.

On providing flexibility for workers:

The top two things that are important to our hourly workers are pay and flexibility. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 frontline associates love engaging with people. They wouldn't be working for us if they didn't. So their ask isn't to work at home, or wherever they want. Their ask is, I want to get my child off the bus. Can my hours be adjusted so I can get my child off the bus every day? Hey, right now I need to go part-time. Can I go part-time? How many hours do I need to work in order to get my full benefits? Can I go to that level?

They need to be able to switch shifts with people on a dime if they can, based on what's going on in their lives. That's what they need. So as we think about flexibility, it’s not just salaried versus hourly, but what does each individual population need.

There are no unimportant jobs — but many roles can go overlooked and underappreciated.

Hourly workers often struggle to feel as connected to the mission of a company or their impact on society. Great Place To Work® research found that less than half of hourly employees (49%) at typical U.S. companies say their work is meaningful.

Salaried workers do better by 11 percentage points with six in 10 saying their work is meaningful. And the gap isn’t trivial. Hourly employees who say their work is more than “just a job” are three times more likely to want to work for their company long-term.

So, what does it look like when companies ensure their hourly workforce feels engaged and included in a meaningful mission? Two great examples come from CarMax and The Wonderful Company, both honorees on the 2024 Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List.

Steve Howe, chief financial officer and executive vice president of human resources at The Wonderful Company joined Diane Cafritz, executive vice president, chief innovation and people officer at CarMax at the For All Summit™ to discuss their strategies.

At CarMax, about 80% of its nearly 30,000 associates are hourly workers and for The Wonderful Company, an agricultural producer of oranges, wines, nuts, and more, about 75% of its 3,000 employees in California's Central Valley are hourly, including seasonal and temporary staff. Both companies have extensive experience with hourly workers.

Join us in Las Vegas April 8-10 for our 2025 For All Summit™ with leaders and culture champions!

Getting the frontline involved

At The Wonderful Company, a program called “Way of Work” intentionally trains frontline employees to identify and solve problems for the business.

“The idea is to give our frontline workers … the people who really know what's going on … the training, the tools, and the ability to identify problems and solve those problems,” Howe explained.

As an example, he shared how workers in the field came up with a solution to quickly change a flat fire on the harvesting machines that weigh thousands of pounds. Flat tires create major delays, and jacking up the machine to change the tire in the field poses real safety concerns.

The solution the frontline employees came up with? Adding a built-in hydraulic pump to each truck that harvesters can immediately deploy to change a tire on the spot.

“We’re the largest nut farmer in the world, so we go to the manufacturer and say, ‘Can you do this?’” Howe said. “And they love it.”

The truck manufacturer is thrilled to have a new feature to market to other buyers. The Wonderful Company has reduced a three-hour wait time to just 30 minutes to replace a flat tire. The whole process is safer — and frontline workers can point to their direct contribution to improve the company.

Recognizing frontline contributions

When your work goes underappreciated and unrecognized, it’s hard to feel like that work matters. At CarMax, a recognition platform is a crucial tool for connecting hourly workers to the greater mission.

“When you log into that platform to give either peer recognition or manager-to-associate recognition, you have to denote which of our four values you are recognizing that associate for,” shared Cafritz.

Recognition has a clear connection to higher levels of innovation across a company. Great Place To Work research found that employees are 2.2 times more likely to participate in innovation and share new ideas when everyone has an opportunity for recognition.

At CarMax, one of its associates found a tool on Amazon to remove dog hair from a car — a common pain point for the team cleaning and detailing a used car before reselling. The new tool quickly caught on across the company, and the employee who helped find the solution has a clear example of their impact on the business.

“That associate had a huge sense of pride by providing that as a company-wide solution,” shared Cafritz.

Tips for engaging hourly workers

Howe and Cafritz both shared some tips for other companies to make hourly work meaningful and connect all employees to the mission of the organization:

1. Employees are paying attention to what captures your focus

Howe spends an hour every month listening to presentations from employees on new ways to improve their work. Even on the projects where there’s nothing for him to approve or move forward, he makes sure those presenting get his full attention.

“It’s just a question of bringing focus,” he shared. “I know that anything that interests my boss fascinates me, and I think most people feel the same way.”

The takeaway: Listening and engaging as a leader is sending a clear signal of how meaningful a topic might be. When you pay attention, you reinforce employees’ sense that their ideas matter.

2. Get buy-in from frontline managers

If you want to change the experience of the hourly employees, consider carefully what their manager will need to create that change.

“It will never ever work if you don’t have buy-in, particularly from frontline managers,” Cafritz said. As an example, when CarMax made changes to its compensation plan for sales consultants, managers suggested a tool was needed to demonstrate how the new plan would work.

For any change affecting hourly or frontline employees, frontline managers are essential resources for troubleshooting and developing communications tools.

3. Keep asking questions

Surveys like the Great Place To Work Trust Index™ offer crucial information about the experience of hourly employees, Cafritz says.

Howe echoed Cafritz on the importance of listening and then took it one step further.

“If you can, instead of asking [employees] and then doing what they tell you to do, just let them do it,” he said. As an example, he points to The Wonderful Company’s program that gives every employee up to a $1,000 to give to a charity of their choice.

“Instead of asking employees: ‘Who do you want us to give money to?’ the employees get to decide who give it to, and we cut the check,” Howe said. If you believe that hourly employees have just as many good ideas as anyone else in the company, a great company puts its money where its mouth is.

For companies that are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging, programs must have a clear connection to key business outcomes.

For CareSource, a health care insurance provider in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia, President & CEO Erhardt Preitauer set an ambitious goal for the company to become the employer of choice for .

The goal has clear strategic benefits for CareSource.

“CareSource makes a difference in more than two million lives. While we are supporting our members, we want to ensure we support employees and make a space that is inclusive for all.” says Solomon James Parker, director, research and development, complex health solutions at CareSource.

“How can you do that if your employee base is not representative of that population?”

CareSource sees its efforts as crucial for elevating the culture of the organization to drive innovation and progress that downstream impacts the lives of members.

“Building an inclusive workplace is a bet on the future,” Parker says. “We are investing in and creating spaces where the leaders of tomorrow can thrive.”

Learn more about industry-leading ERG strategies at the For All Summit April 8-10 in Las Vegas!

Setting benchmarks to measure impact

To understand how to create more inclusion for people with disabilities, companies might want to explore a self-ID campaign to learn more about the employees in the organization.  

“First, we have to ask, ‘Who are our employees that have a disability?’ and ask if we are creating a culture that makes them feel supported in disclosing that they have a disability,” Parker says.

At CareSource, this became a campaign to invite people to share information about their experience with the HR team.

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 initial percentages of individuals who felt comfortable self-identifying as persons with disability was fairly low,” says Patrice L. Harris, director of diversity, equity and inclusion at CareSource.

“If you’re not engaging your employee base, how can you know what is working and what is not?”

To increase participation, CareSource has focused on trust, and uses its Great Place To Work survey to understand the experiences that increase or decrease trust across its workforce.

Survey results are broken out by different demographic groups, including employees with a disability. Statements around things like psychological and emotional well-being revealed gaps between employees with disabilities and the larger workforce at CareSource.

“It wasn’t horrible, but it was lower,” Harris says. The team then takes the results and builds action plans to try and improve scores.

To increase the number of employees who trust the organization enough to share their status, the team has focused on communication and education.

“We built two web pages, one external, one internal, so people can go and see our goals, annual KPIs and accomplishments,” Harris says. “We’ve launched education around disability inclusion, how our words matter, etc.”

Executive sponsorship has also been incredibly important, with engagement from Josh Boynton, senior vice president, specialty companies and complex health solutions, and Jennifer Dougherty, chief human resources officer. With these top leaders making the issue a clear priority for CareSource, there has slowly been an increase in the number of employees who are disclosing their disability status.

“Are we where we need to be or want to be?” Harris says. “No, but we are really, really proud of the progress that we’ve made.”

Making disability inclusion a business priority

To build more inclusion and offer support to employees with disabilities, CareSource launched 10 workstreams to tackle different aspects of the employee experience, from recruitment processes to offering accommodations.

Each workstream is made up of a cross-functional team with measurable goals that are not a side-project, but rather a core part of their job duties. A workstream might include employees with lived experience or who identify as having a disability, but also have relevant roles such as human resources, IT, facilities, and more.

"First, we have to ask, ‘Who are our employees that have a disability?’ and ask if we are creating a culture that makes them feel supported in disclosing that they have a disability.” 

When Dougherty as CHRO sent out invitations to join workstreams, the first message was sent to managers. “From the start, we wanted to set our expectations around DE&I,” Harris says. That meant being explicit with managers and seeking their input on the right person for the workstream and what would be expected of those that participated.

Harris summarized the message: “If you say yes, this work is a part of their workload, not something that they do off the side of their desk when they have time.”

When performance reviews come around, Dougherty reaches out again to make sure managers are considering the disability inclusion work and all the progress the workstreams have made when evaluating their direct reports.

“We created an internal dashboard that all the workstreams can access,” Harris says.  “They go in, they put in their desired goals and their deliverables. They tell us to what degree have they completed those goals — and we revisit on a quarterly basis.”

Getting direct employee feedback

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are an essential part of the strategy and ensure that employees can share their experience.

“If you’re not engaging your employee base, how can you know what is working and what is not?” asks Parker.

At CareSource, there are two ERGs that have direct responsibility for employees with disabilities, but other ERGs can also offer their insight and provide valuable visibility around different intersections, like race or gender.

For the CareSource team, the groundswell of support that employees have shown for the effort to increase visibility and inclusion for people with disabilities has been tremendous.

“It was almost like people have been waiting for us to say or have this conversation out loud and to simply say, we want to help,” Harris says. For others looking to tackle this challenge in the workplace, she advises doing your prep work to avoid being bowled over by the enthusiasm and energy people will bring to the work.

“Partner with consultants or advisors — people who have been there, who know what you don’t know — to help you put your strategy together, then sit still for a minute,” she says. “Take time to pressure test your strategy and socialize it before you launch.”

Both Parker and Harris are clear about the opportunity that exists for companies of all sizes to have an impact.

“Just start the work,” Parker says. “Don’t wait for the perfect timing.”

What does it mean to be an inspiring leader?

It all comes back to purpose, says Michael C. Bush, CEO at Great Place To Work®.

“Help your workforce understand how their work relates to the company’s higher purpose and business success,” he advises.

On an individual basis, make sure employees understand the valuable role they play in achieving your organization’s goals. Does everyone have an opportunity to interact with the product, meet a customer, or witness how your company is changing the world?

Register for the next For All Summit™, April 8-10, to connect with leaders and experts from great workplaces around the world.

Meaningful work is a crucial part of the employee experience — and the No. 1 predictor of employee retention.

How tapping into purpose builds trust

Here’s how great workplaces are helping their employees connect with a mission that is bigger than themselves, and find deeper meaning in their work:

1. Use storytelling to highlight shared values

When companies live up to their values, that builds trust. Great workplaces invite employees to share their personal stories to reinforce shared beliefs and expectations.

Global biotechnology company AbbVie developed a set of five principles with input from employees around the world:

• Transforming lives
• Acting with integrity
• Driving innovation
• Embracing diversity & inclusion
• Servicing the community

To engage employees, AbbVie launched a video series where company leaders and employees shared their personal connection to each principle.

Storytelling can also help connect employees to the bigger picture, ensuring that everyone in the organization understands how they contribute to a broader goal.

At Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a Bell Ringing ceremony is held to celebrate important milestones in the disease treatment development. At these ceremonies, a patient and their family join the organization to “ring the bell” honoring the progress made in treatment of their disease area.

Employees can see first-hand the impact of their work on patients living with debilitating illnesses, and the ceremony serves to connect employees with the deeper purpose of their work.

2. Meet employees where they are

Do your efforts to inspire employees use clear, accessible language? When employees read your mission statement, is it clear how they fit into the picture?

At Wegmans Food Markets, a commitment to transparent language is part of the secret sauce, as captured in its “W board” — a mission board on display at all of its locations.  

“We work very hard to ensure the W board is relatable to every employee at all levels,” says Peggy Riley, vice president of employee communications and engagement at Wegmans. “We don’t have big, fancy, complicated words, or equations. Every single employee contributes to our success.”

Consider communication barriers such as language differences or access to communications technology. If you are trying to reach a frontline, deskless workforce, make sure your mission doesn’t only live on your intranet or in a company email newsletter.

By making the W board a physical representation of its values in every location, Wegmans ensures every employee, from a senior vice president to a cashier, interacts regularly with values and the mission of the company.  

3. Share the metrics that matter

The mission becomes more real when there are numbers to show your impact.

Stryker, a biotechnology manufacturer, calculates how many patients it has impacted around the world using a methodology developed by a cross-functional team of experts at the company. The team calculated that it impacted over 130 million patients annually — a figure that fills employees with pride about their accomplishments.

This number is shared each year with all employees and published annually in Stryker’s comprehensive report. The company credits these efforts as one of the major reasons they see such high scores on pride in the company’s annual Trust Index™ Survey.

Of course, the metrics that often carry the most weight are business outcomes and the bottom line. Cisco publishes a Purpose Report each year and has made a clear connection between purpose and business success.

That’s how Cisco closed deals with 24 clients that weren’t asking for help with hardware or software, but came to the company for help turning diversity, equity, and inclusion into a business amplifier and accelerator.

4. Give every employee the chance to connect with their impact

Other workplaces focus on ensuring that every employee, regardless of role or tenure, has the opportunity to have an impact.

At Jackson Healthcare, employees are asked on their first day at the company about the kinds of service that would be most rewarding for them. The company then works hard to empower employees with the tools they need to get involved, both in their jobs and in their personal time.

The vice president of community impact invites every new hire to a one-on-one coffee chat to hear their story and discover ways to get them involved, when and how they want.

Employee resource groups also offer a unique opportunity to engage and inspire employees.

At Scripps Health, an employee-led sustainability council focuses on improving operations across areas including construction, energy, food, grounds, recycling, supply chain, transportation, and vendor partnerships. Panda Restaurant Group coordinates with its Panda Green Committee ERG to run a drive that recycled 500 pounds of electronic waste in 2022.

5. Train managers to lead with purpose

When researchers analyzed data to understand if purpose leads to higher company profits, they found that clear communication was a crucial ingredient. In particular, middle managers and professional workers within an organization played an outsized role in whether companies saw the benefits of embracing purpose.

For companies looking to inspire employees, the data shows the critical role that middle management and people leaders play as communicators and connectors. Great workplaces spend resources to make sure these leaders can help their teams connect to purpose.

At DHL Supply Chain, more than 9,000 frontline leaders were given communications training as part of a two-day program to help managers develop the skills to communicate strategy business priorities. Leaders who participated reported that this was the first time they considered their role in companywide communication, and that it helped them understand how to make topics across the business accessible and relevant to their teams.

Does purpose drive profit?

Great Place To Work® research has found that when companies embrace their purpose and have clear communication from their leaders about how purpose is connected to performance, companies have better performance.

Cisco, No. 2 on the Fortune 100 Best 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 to Work For® List in 2024, draws a direct line between its purpose and its business performance.

“We know that when we show up authentically in our purpose … it builds trust with our customers,” says Gloria Goins, chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at Cisco. Goins shared how purpose and diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging (DEIB) programs at Cisco are driving stronger business performance at the 2024 For All Summit™ in New Orleans.

“At Cisco, our North Star is: How do we take our purpose and use it as a differentiator in the global marketplace?” Goins says.  “How do we make sure it distinguishes Cisco from every other company on the planet?”

Connecting DEIB and purpose

Why does Cisco connect its purpose with efforts to improve DEIB across the organization?

The answer is part of Cisco’s , which identifies how an inclusive workplace drives superior outcomes for the company’s mission.

To achieve it’s mission, Cisco sees that it needs every employee to fully participate, and that a more diverse set of voices leads to stronger results. High-trust culture is a crucial ingredient for success across environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG).

“카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 vision at Cisco is to be the global leader in building diverse, equitable, accessible, and resilient communities to accelerate business growth and to fulfill our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all,” Goins says. “How are we going to do that? By embedding DEI in every single thing we do.”

In this way, DEIB is an unavoidable component of purpose, and a clear business priority with a measurable impact.

DEIB as a business strategy

For DEIB to have staying power within an organization, it must operate like any other business unit.

Goins says DEIB leaders should cultivate four skills:

1. Deep expertise for diversity and inclusion work. “DEI is a profession and a practice,” Goins says. “Your lived experience is part of it, but it is a profession with art, science, scholarship and pedagogy.”
2. Business acumen. “I tell my team all the time: ‘We can’t be business partners to the business if we don’t have basic business acumen,’” Goins says. That means going to earnings calls and taking trainings to understand how the business operates.
3. Knowledge of the organization’s mission and industry. You have to know how the business defines value, what goals it has in the market and how you want to differentiate yourself from competitors, Goins says.
4. The ability to create business results. It’s not enough to be strategic, knowledgeable, or have subject matter expertise, Goins says. DEIB professionals must also know how to execute, measure, and drive change — and connect those results to revenue.

Highlighting DEIB with customers

How can purpose and DEIB be used to increase revenue? It has to be embedded in everything a company does, and Cisco works hard to ensure customer-facing teams are comfortable and empowered to talk about these issues.

“We know that 78% of our customers care about DEI, they care about ESG,” Goins says. “How do we partner with our customers, our partners, our suppliers, to make DEI not only a business priority for us, but share that expertise to make it a business priority for them?”

There are three roles Cisco’s DEIB can serve with customers, Goins says.

• Champion. Cisco can advocate for practices that customers and others can adopt to improve inclusion and belonging, such as the “Proximity Initiative” it developed.
• Convener. The DEIB team might be just one of a group of voices bringing together expertise both inside and outside the organization to answer a customer’s questions.
• Catalyst. The team can lean in to solve tough problems around the world through initiatives like Cisco’s .

How to ensure purpose creates business value

Goins shares five immediate actions that any company should take to ensure purpose is creating accretive value for the business:

1. Get leadership commitment. “Everything starts and ends with the leaders,” Goins says. “Make sure to define what is an inclusive leader, how you enable them, how you measure, and how you hold them accountable.”

2. Incorporate purpose into your core business strategy. “You have to align it with all the people and business policies or practices that you have,” Goins says. “카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 operations — every policy, practice, procedure, and mechanism — has to reflect DEI inherently within it.”

3. Enable and empower employees to talk about purpose and DEIB. “They’re the ones that are going to activate it,” Goins says. “They’re the ones that are going to evangelize it.”

4. Seek customer engagement and alignment. Cisco is working with 24 customers who have asked for help, not with Cisco’s hardware and software, but with turning DEI into a business amplifier and accelerator, Goins says.

5. Measure impact and report progress. Cisco annually produces a “Purpose Report” that shares quantifiable progress toward its goals. “The connection between purpose and profit is real and tangible,” Goins says. “Purpose will give you a differentiator in the marketplace because it builds trust with your employees and your customers.”

Purpose over profit.

It’s a phrase that’s become the rallying cry of so many businesses in recent years, as consumers demand better of the brands they buy from, and employees and job seekers demand better of their workplaces.

This has especially been the case since the pandemic started. Two-plus years of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and isolation have put purpose and company culture even more top of mind. People want to buy from, and work with, companies that reflect their personal values.

And brands are certainly responding – companies like Patagonia, Lego, and Ben & Jerry’s have marketed themselves as synonymous with corporate responsibility. But the question remains: Does purpose at work really lead to better business results?

Answer: It depends.

The data behind purpose at work

To find out, Harvard Business School (HBS) used Great Place To Work®’s extensive database on employee engagement, to determine if all the resources companies put towards purpose are, in fact, driving better business results.

HBS used Great Place To Work’s sample of 429 U.S. companies, and more than 450,000 employee survey responses, to create a measure of corporate purpose. Employees were asked to agree or disagree with statements such as:

• “I find my work is meaningful.”
• “I feel good about the ways my company gives back to the community.”
• “I’m proud to tell others I work here.”

These employee surveys did not go into the type of purpose the company was pursuing (i.e., environmental, social justice, etc.), but merely whether the goal resonated with employees.

What they found might surprise those on the purpose bandwagon: A sense of purpose at work alone isn’t correlated with firm financial performance.

What is correlated, and is the key to unlocking purpose’s potential, is clarity.

The clarity factor

From the initial data set, HBS performed a factor analysis and identified two types of companies with purpose:

• High purpose-camaraderie organizations. These included high scores on statements such as “We are all in this together.”
• High purpose-clarity organizations. These included highs scores on statements such as “Management makes its expectations clear.”

When it came to better business performance, only one group stood out: high purpose-clarity.

In fact, the study found that when employees experienced a sense of purpose at work and believed their leaders set a clear direction and expectations (purpose + clarity), those companies outperformed the stock market, achieving returns 6.9% higher than the market.

Middle management makes the difference

The research also revealed that it wasn’t top executives playing the largest role here, but rather middle managers and professional workers. When those two groups experienced purpose and clarity, companies’ financial performance jumped even higher.

The report explains, “This last finding underscores the absolute importance of fostering an effective middle manager layer within firms: managers who buy into the vision of the company and can make daily decisions that guide the firm in the right direction.”

Purpose at work: making it matter

Purpose does matter. Employees want to believe they’re making a difference in some way and will work harder when they believe in the purpose of the company.

But a company’s purpose needs to be carefully implemented to ensure that middle managers within the organization are clear on it. They need to be fully bought-in and on board.

Otherwise, financial results won’t be impacted, and time will be wasted coming up with words that just don’t matter.

For the full story, .

You can measure purpose at work

Are your employees experiencing a sense of clarity and purpose at work? Get Certified™ with Great Place To Work and, through our research-backed Trust Index™ employee survey, learn how your company culture stacks up and how you can create more purpose. Learn more.

Sustainability has become a global business imperative.

Nine in 10 (90%) global institutional investors revise their investments when companies do not at least consider ESG criteria, per a . In a volatile world, business leaders see the need to their organizations.

And customers demand more sustainability, too. A found that 67% of participants would pay as much as 41% more for a product that was sustainable. The trend was particularly strong with young consumers.

Sustainability is the future of business. To be successful, you are going to need your whole workforce to be engaged and energized to solve problems and find solutions.

A new generation of leaders

To reach climate and sustainability targets, leaders must change.

“We’ve always thought about how do we reach these , but rarely do we talk about the people and the leadership that it requires to reach those goals,” says Tony Bond, chief diversity and innovation officer at Great Place To Work®.

“A leader creates an environment where people can flourish — but there’s also a correlation with great leadership and the ability to lead sustainable development initiatives.”

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At the heart of the issue is trust, the core of what Great Place To Work measures via its proprietary survey. If there isn’t trust between employees and leaders, people won’t come forward to address the risks companies face around non-sustainable business practices.

“Who is in the best position to alert leadership of the risk involved in some of the business practices or products that are being made?” Bond asks. “It’s the employee.”

“If we’re not creating a great place to work, how likely is that person to share this information?”

To meet sustainability goals, organizations need leaders who can build trust.

“About 3.4 billion people in the world work somewhere. Wouldn’t it make sense if we started there and if we created this great environment for people where they work?” - Tony Bond, chief diversity and innovation officer, Great Place To Work

Quickly making change

카지노 커뮤니티 추천 who can quickly adapt will be in the best position to win amid an energy transition and threats posed by climate change. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 research shows that high-trust workplaces will be much faster than their competition.

At Great Place To Work Certified™ companies, 82% of employees say people in their organization quickly adapt to change. At the typical U.S. workplace, only 61% said the same.

Some of the biggest drivers of agility come down to an employee’s experience with leaders. When employees say their leaders inspire people to give extra effort, they are 58% more likely to be agile. When leaders have a clear vision for the company, employees are 37% more likely to be agile and 33% more likely when they say managers competently assign tasks and resources.

Clarity unlocks purpose

Effective leadership also ensures that purposeful work drives business success.

In a , Great Place To Work data showed that embracing purpose only led to stronger business performance when employees had clear direction from their leaders. When employees reported meaningful work, and leadership that makes its expectations clear, the companies saw stock market returns that were 6.9% higher than the market.

“This last finding underscores the absolute importance of fostering an effective middle manager layer within firms,” wrote the study’s authors. “Managers who buy into the vision of the company and can make daily decisions that guide the firm in the right direction.”

Great workplaces have leaders who can both set a vision and ensure that middle management throughout the organization can carry their message and empower employees.

At Crowe, setting goals included signing the United Nations Global Compact, which outlines targets to help fight for human rights, the environment, and social good around the world. At Scripps Health, a sustainability webpage was published with articles on how to reduce carbon emissions and reports on company sustainability initiatives.

Publishing a sustainability report is often a crucial step for getting everyone in alignment around ESG goals. “It’s served as a really great organizing framework,” Scott Beckman, director of sustainability for PCL Construction told us last year. “It’s caused a lot of internal discussion when we produce it, from the top levels all the way down.”

At Certified companies, 81% of employees said management has a clear vision for the future of the company, compared to just 59% at typical U.S. companies.

Employee resource groups offer innovation

One tool our research has found to be effective for engaging employees on sustainability? Employee resource groups (ERGs).

Members of ERGs are usually highly engaged employees committed to improving the organization and helping to solve business challenges. 카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 research has found that ERG members at great workplaces are also 30% more likely to have confidence in their executive team than non-members, a key indicator of future success on sustainability goals.

ERG members can also be crucial voices, ensuring that organizations hear from underrepresented demographics when considering their policies. According to the crises created by rising global temperatures and environmental hazards will hit socially vulnerable groups the hardest.

카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that can tap into their ERGs will be able to get valuable insight and context for their sustainability practices, ensuring that their efforts have the desired impact for communities facing the worst consequences of climate change.

At Scripps Health, an employee-led sustainability council focuses on improving operations across areas including construction, energy, food, grounds, recycling, supply chain, transportation, and vendor partnerships. Panda Restaurant Group coordinates with its Panda Green Committee ERG to run a drive that recycled 500 pounds of electronic waste in 2022.

Making the commute green

Is offering remote work a way to make your workplace more energy efficient?

A found that two-thirds of Americans who work from home say they have taken proactive measures to reduce their carbon footprint. Of those who commute to an office, 66% drive a car, while only 7% take public transit.

“Who is in the best position to alert leadership of the risk involved in some of the business practices or products that are being made? It’s the employee.”

More than three-fourths (77%) of respondents to the same survey said that working from home is better for the planet and 58% of Gen Z and 52% of millennials said that celebrating Earth Day while requiring employees to commute was hypocritical. Reasons for this belief came down to increased carbon emissions from transportation and office buildings (63%) and increased use of hazardous materials in workplace settings (58%).

Great workplaces take this into account. Power Home Remodeling, which has a hybrid work model in which most of its employees commute a few days a week, offers employees $3,500 towards the purchase of a new fully electric vehicle.

Tips for leaders

Want to drive sustainability throughout your organization? Here’s what our data says you can focus on:

1. Focus on clarity.

Make sure your sustainability goals are intrinsically tied to business outcomes and company values. Ask: Where can our organization have the greatest impact? 카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that have clear and effective leadership are seeing that a commitment to purpose drives higher business performance.

2. Involve every employee in sustainability.

ERGs can be helpful partners, providing highly engaged and diverse employee populations to tackle issues across the organization. Can your ERGs do a SWOT analysis of your current sustainability practices or attend leadership meetings on sustainability? Consider making sustainability metrics a KPI for ERG groups.

3. Invest in trust.

By becoming a great workplace, your organization can have a profound impact on employees and the communities where they live and work. If every company in the world offered a high-trust culture, the world could make significant strides toward the 17 Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the United Nations.

“If we’re taking care of people’s well-being in the workplace, that’s a big part of this whole initiative, gender equality, decent work,” Bond says. “About 3.4 billion people in the world work somewhere. Wouldn’t it make sense if we started there and if we created this great environment for people where they work?”

When everyone has a great workplace, the benefits will be felt in many different ways. “카지노 커뮤니티 랭킹 impact on the external environment, socially and environmentally, can be even greater,” Bond says. 

Get more insights

Learn more strategies from our workplace culture experts at our For All™ Summit, April 8-10, 2025 in Las Vegas, NV. 

Among the many challenges facing CEOs today, one thing is for sure— investing in employees reaps benefits for the workforce and the bottom line.

The retail industry, like so many others, is undergoing significant transformation. From changing consumer expectations to evolving market dynamics, all retailers face new challenges, including staffing shortages and high employee turnover rates. In the AlixPartners Disruption Index released in January 2023, 85% of surveyed retail CEOs challenges around knowing which disruptive technological, societal, or economic challenge to address first.

Despite this shifting landscape, the retail sector is experiencing growth. The critical factor for that success, according to the 2023 Fortune Best Workplaces by Industry study of more than 1.3 million employees (27,000 from the retail sector), is employee experience.

카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that show they prioritize people tend to outperform across all culture and business metrics across industries. But employee experience—the overall quality of interactions, relationships, and support that employees receive from their organization, with significant impact on employee well-being, fairness, and purpose—is especially tied to retail success. In fact, companies on the 2023 Fortune Best Workplaces in Retail list are 52% better than their peers and outperform companies in any industry (not just retail) by 35%, including the highly competitive industries of professional services and technology by 25% and 27%, respectively.

A connection to purpose

Though pay and benefits generally have a big impact on employee experience and retention for workers in the retail industry, doing “meaningful work” also plays a major role. According to Great Place To Work®, eight out of 10 employees at winning retail workplaces report their work is meaningful compared with just four out of 10 at typical retail workplaces.

“Purposeful employees feel a sense of pride in collective accomplishment,” says Sarah Lewis-Kulin, vice president, global recognition, at Great Place To Work. “They want to work at their current companies for a long time and feel like they make a difference.”

Indeed, according to Great Place To Work research, creating a sense of purpose in retail environments makes retention 76% more likely and drives discretionary effort. Additionally, 70% more employees on the Best Workplaces in Retail list say they give extra to get the job done, compared with typical companies.

Wegmans Food Markets—the 107-year-old grocery chain based in Rochester, N.Y., which ranked No. 1 on the Fortune Best Workplaces in Retail list—found in a July 2023 employee survey that 95% of employees feel connected to the family company’s mission “to help people live healthier, better lives through exceptional food.”

“We are united in delivering on this mission together, and recognize it takes all 53,000 employees to succeed,” says Peggy Riley, vice president of employee communications and engagement. “On employees’ first days at Wegmans, we take time to explain our mission, values, and the integral role they play in our success. We explain how every individual’s work and role at Wegmans helps us collectively deliver on our mission.”

One-on-one connections

At Wegmans, managers have created a cadence of one-to-one connections with each of their employees. These listening channels—with options for in-person, digital, named, and anonymous communication—ensure that every employee has a comfortable place to share ideas, which managers sometimes implement right away.

Workers also complete a digital “People Profile,” that includes what’s important to them inside and outside of work. “By encouraging employees to share their passions, we learn what they love to do and help connect that to their work at Wegmans, making their work even more meaningful and enjoyable,” says Riley.

Wegmans’s commitment to connecting work with employee passion and purpose is working. According to Riley, almost 10% of the company’s 53,000 employees have more than 20 years of service.

“카지노 커뮤니티 추천 that are seeking to make improvements sometimes focus just on tangible programs and practices,” says Lewis-Kulin. “But you really want to understand the deeper dynamics that are driving experience. Those are based on trust. Best Workplaces in Retail leaders take time to get to know employees as individuals with lives and talents and commitments outside of work. Then they make room for people to contribute those ideas and talents within the workplace.”

Authenticity and trust

Relative to other industries, retail companies tend to be places where people feel like they can be themselves at work, according to Great Place To Work. Eighty-five percent of employees at Best Workplaces in Retail companies report working in an agile environment, with adaptable colleagues who are open to change, compared to only 58% at a typical organization.

At Wegmans, in addition to the employee-manager relationship to support the needs of each employee, companywide channels are established to prioritize employee feedback and concerns. The “Ask Bob” program helps to transform employee ideas into action, where any employee can send a suggestion or comment to Bob Farr, senior vice president of store operations, and receive a personalized response from him. Farr responds to about 1,200 Ask Bob ideas a year. These exchanges with an executive leader embody Wegmans’s emphasis on sincere, direct connections between managers and employees.

“These companies do what they say they’re going to do; values aren’t just hanging on the walls. Wegmans has customers begging it to open stores in their areas. You only get that when you have employees who are passionate about the company.”

— Sarah Lewis-Kulin, VP, Global Recognition, Great Place To Work

In addition, employee advocates at each Wegmans location act as champions of culture and support for employees.

“Since the role originated in 1986, it has evolved from a traditional HR staffing function to one of advocacy, support, and caring for our people,” says Riley. “Advocates provide confidential, exclusive, dedicated support, and many locations have two full-time advocates to support their people. They offer an objective point of view and provide a safe space for our people to seek guidance to find resources and development opportunities, resolve personal and professional issues, access benefits, and more.”

When employee performance challenges arise, Wegmans’s employee advocates advise and coach both employees and managers.

“Rather than reporting to a store manager or anyone in the employee’s chain of command, advocates report to a HR director, who in turn reports to our vice president of store operations HR,” says Riley. “This structure preserves impartiality and builds confidence with employees that advocates represent them fairly.”

Advocates also offer support when an employee faces personal challenges away from work, adds Riley. By building ongoing, one-to-one relationships with employees at their stores, advocates become a trusted ally to help their people navigate uncertainty and connect employees with Wegmans’s many available programs and resources.

When organizations invest in becoming great places to work for all, the benefits ripple out, from employees to the broader community and society. Through their commitments to employees’ growth, well-being, and sense of purpose, retailers like Wegmans are setting the standard for a thriving work environment that can positively impact the lives of everyone involved. In a rapidly changing retail landscape, this focus on employee experience sets these companies apart in their industries while also providing valuable insights into the crucial role employee well-being plays in overall business success.

“These companies do what they say they’re going to do; values aren’t just hanging on the walls,” says Lewis-Kulin. “Wegmans has customers begging it to open stores in their areas. You only get that when you have employees who are passionate about the company.”

This article was created in partnership with FORTUNE Brand Studio.

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Learn more strategies from our workplace culture experts at our For All™ Summit, May 7-9 in New Orleans.