Creating a “Great Place to Work”

 A “great place to work” is one in which you “trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with.” This was the definition used by co-founder of the Great Place to Work ® Institute, Robert Levering, in his 1988 book, A Great Place to Work: What makes some employers so good – and most so bad.

23 years on and it seems this has now become the new holy grail of employee engagement. Granted, the familiar big names – Deloitte, McDonald’s, Coca Cola and the like – are all on this and it clearly forms a part of their operational strategy. And so too are many dynamic, ambitious SME’s. But as an ‘observer’ with the privileged position of working with many diverse brands over the last 15 years, there is undoubtedly a new popularity (many would claim ‘trend’!) towards this rather ethereal goal.

Which is all good – in fact, enormously encouraging. It recognises the holistic approach the best organisations need to adopt in providing a bed of learning, inspiration, wellbeing and reward for hard graft to look after their people. A home from home – a micro world in which we all exist for the vast majority of our waking life. We should expect fulfilment – if we’re putting in.

So why the switch-on to the obvious? Perhaps the ‘wake-up call’ delivered by a global recession? The pressure on motivating people without throwing salary increases and unhealthy bonuses at them; the re-focus which has been gathering traction over the last 5 plus years of getting the best out of your talent pool; the stagnation of the labour market – it’s heck of a challenge to get the best people to move employer…particularly if the company they’re already ploughing their trade at are already well down the road of creating a great place to work.

We’re seeing the objective feature heavily in a larger than usual number of the staff engagement projects we’re involved in – conferences, motivational events, recognition programmes, incentive and reward schemes, cultural change programmes, brand refreshes, team events….Interesting, though not surprising, our longest-standing clients are those that feature in the Best Workplaces lists consistently, as they maintain a long-term commitment to creating invigorating and rewarding workplaces.

 According to the Great Place to Work Model, there are three primary relationships within a workplace from the employee perspective. 

1. Trust – the relationship between employees and the management. Has the following components:
1. Credibility of management in the eyes of employees. This is impacted largely by the quality of communications as well as the integrity shown by management in its dealings with employees;
2. Respect shown to employees. This is affected by how the organisation shows appreciation to employees, the kinds of professional training it offers, and the work-family balance benefits it provides;
3. Fairness in how employees are treated, both in terms of compensation but also in terms of providing equitable opportunities for promotions.
    
2. Pride – the relationship between employees and their jobs. In great workplaces, employees feel pride not only in their jobs but also in the company itself.
    
3. Camaraderie - the relationship employees have with each other. A high degree of camaraderie characterizes the best workplaces, where organisations and the people within them often go to great lengths to celebrate successes and provide other opportunities for employees to socialize with each other.

Our own internal survey conducted earlier this year revealed what MotivAction people believe makes a Great Place to Work. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, culture (and we’d wrap Leadership into this) is pivotal.

Your Fairy Godmother’s Christmas Party Top 10 Tips

1. Know your audience and be conscious of perception – both internal and external

2. Be different – include at least one element of surprise and/or delight to your event

3. Don’t hijack with a corporate or business element – if this is required, be explicit with your corporate comms

4. Excite, tease and engage invitees before the event with teasers

5. Avoid cliché – only do cheese if a conscious part of your theme

6. Plan each phase of the Staff Christmas Party evening – venue, theme, arrival, impact, pre dinner etc – walkthrough the event in detail, seeing everything through the eyes of your guests

7. As directors, don’t try impose your personal preferences – it’s not your party!

8. Time’s are still a little tight so rather than do nothing consider doing some cool stuff in the office – but use a 3rd party to arrange  and to add the creative touch and help deliver a quality event

9. Bespoke always wins over join a party, but there are some good opportunities if budget is tight.

10. Try and make peoples lives easier by helping get them home or putting them up – even if it’s just thought and suggestion, if costs are prohibitive

Apple of the Brand Eye

Ironic life isn’t it? On the day I attend a breakfast briefing on the power of brands, heavily featuring one of the world’s super brands, Apple, news comes through of its inspirational leader’s passing. Think Apple; think Steve Jobs. Think Steve Jobs; think Apple. The signature of truly great brands is their ability to live on beyond the company’s products, services…and people. This surely is going to be the biggest test of Apple’s claim to be a truly great brand. How much of their swashbuckling, pioneering, maverick, user consciousness and human style is the personality of their most famous leader and how much is part of the Corporation’s DNA. The future months and years will reveal all.

In the meantime, here are some inspiring words from the great man. Steve Jobs, RIP.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

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“There’s nothing that makes my day more than getting an e-mail from some random person in the universe who just bought an iPad over in the UK and tells me the story about how it’s the coolest product they’ve ever brought home in their lives. That’s what keeps me going. It’s what kept me five years ago [when he was diagnosed with cancer], it’s what kept me going 10 years ago when the doors were almost closed. And it’s what will keep me going five years from now whatever happens.”
– AllThingsD Conference, 2010

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“We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. We were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. We weren’t going to go out and do market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build.

When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
– Playboy magazine 1985

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“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
– Business Week 1998

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“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me.”
– Wall Street Journal 1993

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“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what it looked like, although that was part of it. Primarily, it was how it worked. To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”
– Wired magazine, 1994

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“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
– Fortune magazine 2000

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“Innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10.30 at night with a new idea, or because they realised something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.

“And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
– Business Week 2004

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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

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“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
– Stanford commencement speech 2005

Corporate Hospitality – Golf – 3 of the best

It’s been a busy summer. Although the weather refused to play ball, live corporate events continued to come thick and fast. I did manage to squeeze in a visit to France with the family, but more importantly got to visit 3 of the UK’s finest destinations for corporate golf – and get to sample a selection of the courses too. Some tough days in the office!

Here’s a quick heads up on where and what.

The first destination was Wentworth as a guest of Hilton Worldwide. The club is the home of the BMW PGA Championship and until 2007 the World Matchplay. It’s a truly stunning setting. The locale, Virginia Water, is a beautiful spot only minutes from the M25. The iconic clubhouse stands proud amongst immaculate landscaping. Just walking around any of the 3 courses brings on a smile – not only because of the quality of the course, but the beautiful (enormous!) houses lining many of the fairways – many of them complete with celebrity occupier, including Ernie Els and Bruce Forsyth. Wentworth creates a real impact – you feel privileged just to know you’ve played the same holes as some of the world’s leading golfers.

The next visit was to The Celtic Manor Resort – the now infamous home of the European Team victory at the 2010 Ryder Cup. With 3 courses to choose from, we got to sample the Twenty Ten, together with the stunning Twenty Ten Clubhouse – all built specifically for hosting the Ryder Cup. The course was immaculate, challenging and fantastically set up. And as usual, the experience at Celtic Manor was first class, making an exceptional choice for a range of budgets. The resort’s flexibility for the corporate market and it’s ability to combine extensive facilities with consistency of service, make it an outstanding and surprisingly easy to get to option.

The final visit was for The MotivAction Group’s very own golf day. In partnership with the venue, we entertained a select group of clients at Stoke Park Country Club and Resort. Famed not only for the golf course, leisure facilities and hospitality, the venue has also featured in a whole host of films – most famously Goldfinger and British gangster flick, Layer Cake (points to anyone identifying the link between the 2 films). Again, the course was in great nick and lived up to its well established reputation as one of the finest in the UK. Shame I made a total pigs ear of the signature par 3 upon which the notorious sixteenth at Augusta was modelled – I wasn’t the only one, and I won’t be the last!

Posted by Kieron O’Shea, Client Services Director

Pause for thought

For most businesses the quiet period during the summer is always a superb opportunity to regroup and catch up on a few things that you normally try to put off (like tidying the database!!). This hasn’t been the case for all of us at MotivAction – if we haven’t been out running our clients’ events then we’ve been beavering away on some very exciting pitches which, if we win them, we’ll be running during the coming quarter or so.

Having only been in my role here for seven weeks now (and having not come from a ‘pure’ events background) I’m spending a lot of my time reflecting on the nature of the job and putting into context the reasons why it is so important for many of our clients to hold team building events, conferences, brand experiences and live product launches.

As ever, I have to rely on someone else’s words to put it in a succinct and inspiring form so if you don’t mind I’m going to rely on this old Chinese proverb:  ‘Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.’

The way I see it, when it comes to educating others and sharing knowledge, nothing beats a physical or live demonstration. It is when your audience can see it, touch it and hear it that they become empowered, spell-bound, engrossed and convinced by your brand message.

Posted by Andy Cording, Account Manager at The MotivAction Group

High Performing Teams Down Under

As I write, the All Blacks have just completed the rout of Tonga in a powerful, polished team performance in Auckland. 41-10 the score – pretty emphatic. With the heritage of the Kiwi team, hardly any great surprise. But ask any member of the New Zealand Rugby set-up, past or present, it’s not about history or pure talent. The All Blacks work hard – damned hard – on building high performance and highly motivated teams, made up of high performing and highly motivated individuals. A few years back I heard ex captain, Sean Fitzpatrick, talk about the All Blacks being a major sporting brand – perhaps the greatest sporting team ever. Central to this brand was the unswerving focus on creating and maintaining brilliant teams. According to Sean such teams:

• Lived the values
• Inducted new members into the culture
• Took nothing for granted
• Shared ideas
• Had huge (good) attitude
• Communicated
• Cared for each other
• Were great mates and had fun!

In the same vein, this month’s M&IT (Meetings & Incentive Travel) magazine ran a feature on the value of Team Building. The article featured an interview with Sir Ian McGeechan, Performance Director at six time English champions Bath Rugby Club. The first team, coaches and support staff (numbering 40 plus) held a team building event in Wiltshire. He was quoted “It really helps the players to get away from the training park sometimes, especially in the middle of a tough season…They have to work together as a team to get through the exercises, and to support each other throughout, which will come in handy as we get to the crunch time in the season.” Substitute ‘training park’ for ‘office’, ‘season’ for ‘year’, and I don’t think anyone could disagree.

Last week, as the England team made their final preparations for this weekend’s opener against Argentina, they took an afternoon off training for a team bonding event – sailing ex-America’s Cup yachts across Waitemata Harbour in Auckland.

One caveat though – getting your team to strip naked and pump up rugby balls in a freezing lake isn’t team building – just ask the South African Rugby Team of 2003!

My MotivAction brand experience continues

The process of learning about the many services and offerings of The MotivAction Group continues. For those that haven’t read last week’s post, MotivAction is the full service agency I have recently joined as part of the Brand Communications team.

This week I found myself immersed in brand experience campaigns, and in particular, attending an in-house workshop on the brand culture of one of our major telecoms clients.

I have posted the details of my week on our blog site that is dedicated to Brand Experiences and Experiential Marketing, so please visit www.themotivactiongroup.blogspot.com to read all about it. There you can also read about my list of favourite World Records gained by well-known brands.

Posted by Andy Cording, Brand Experiences Account Manager

A total brand experience – a new Account Manager’s first week at The MotivAction Group

My name is Andy Cording and I’m a new Account Manager here at The MotivAction Group.  I’m now working with the  brand experiences team to help deliver great experiential marketing campaigns for clients. Someone in the office obviously thought it would be a good idea to chuck me in at the deep-end and experience as many aspects of the MotivAction brand within my first week. Somehow I managed to find a few moments to jot down my experience as the new boy here.

Monday:  After our weekly meeting to discuss progress and updates on new corporate events, brand experiences and business conferences taken on in the last week, as well as to plan the coming week, Simon F (Sales Director) takes time out of his busy day to give me the official walk-round. Names are thrown at me like balls at a coconut shy, will I ever remember who everyone is and what they do?

It turns out that MA has an impressive array of inflatable toys in our extensive storage area. Most of them have been out for the weekend and the operations team are now cleaning and servicing them, ready for the next event. I’m half tempted to launch myself onto the bouncy castle but I’m not sure how that would go down with my new boss yet!

Tuesday: It’s a really hectic day with lots of the Account Management team coming and going to meetings. In between client demands Karen, one of our Account Directors, is working on a high-profile pitch for one of our telecoms clients’ high street store launches. It’s well in-hand but she kindly asks for my thoughts. “I think we should do a mystery shopping exercise for the pitch”, I say. So off I go to one of their stores in a local town and pretend to be a punter looking for a new call plan and handset. I leave with my head swimming with information and a branded bag stacked with brochures. I wish I hadn’t asked…

Wednesday: At last, I have some time in front of my computer to start putting together my sales strategy. Part of this is to understand the type of brand experiences we’ve produced for other clients so I spend time reading MA’s fantastic case studies for clients such as T-Mobile and Virgin Trains. In the afternoon Zoe whisks me off to London for a credentials meeting with a major recruitment agency. We’ve managed all sorts of away days, conferences and store launches for them as well as a highly successful incentive programme for their staff but it doesn’t hurt to let them know what else we do and the many ways we can help them. My presence at the meeting doesn’t appear to have put them off completely and we’re hopeful that a few more briefs will be in the pipeline.

Thursday: My sleep is rudely interrupted by my alarm clock at 4:30am. As part of my induction I’ve been invited to help out on a team build event for a healthcare company in York. I’m rarely awake at this time of day and somehow I manage to navigate my way to the office to catch my lift up there. I’m pleased that I don’t have to do this every day of the week!

Our three-hour drive allows us to wake up in time for the Dragon’s Apprentice event we’re running for the company’s local team. The executive management team are keen to hear their ideas for improving customer service, brand perception and for new ways to be more environmentally and socially responsible. Looking resplendent in my black shirt and gold tie, I roll up my sleeves and get involved lugging gear, supporting the other guys in the team and helping Lord Alan Canderel with his ‘Your Fired’ cards!

Everyone (including the MotivAction team) has enjoyed the day and some brilliant business ideas are dreamt up by each team and presented to the Dragon-style panel of healthcare executives. It will be fascinating to see how the ideas the team sold into the Dragons are being put into action over the coming months.

Friday: Heading off to an event that MotivAction have had nothing to do with this weekend: the Cambridge Folk Festival. I’m hoping the combination of good music and fine ale will give me a good chance to reflect on my crazy first week at MotivAction.

I’ll keep you posted with how I’m getting on in my new job over the coming months – see you then!

Bang for your motivation marketing buck

Whether it’s spiralling commodity prices, flat growth, apathetic consumers or a wilting team, everyone’s got reasons for seeking as much as possible from as little as possible. So here are a few thoughts on how to get best value from marketing and comms budgets, and your people.

1. Incentives – take the focus away from the prize and create a programme. Keep it simple and communicate like mad. Encourage competition, but consider rewarding teamwork also; pick real key metrics not just sales…feedback, calls, meetings, pipeline. Think about lots of winners to raise energy and present opportunity to show appreciation. If you’ve a spare few quid then do a group prize – it doesn’t need to be South Africa; we’ve done some great London weekends, or trips on Eurostar to European Cities. The added advantage is the team building, the communication opportunity it presents for both current and future programme, and the shared experiences that often make the trip remembered in legend.
2. Recognise – go launch a recognition scheme. Just do it – they work! Consult, engage yes, but don’t let this slow things down. It doesn’t need to be complicated nor cost the earth – particularly if keep prizes low in volume or cost. The web has made huge impact in this arena also. Remember, it’s the recognition (private and public) that really counts.
3. Event venues – think laterally: local venues that see less corporate activity, from function rooms or sports centres to bars, restaurants or cinemas. Go back to basics with accommodation – lodge, caravan, dormitory or even camping. It will give a totally different flavour to your event and delivered with some thought and creativity save a great deal of money and offer a  kit bag full of memories.
4. Team Building – you don’t need to sail into Cowes or drive 4×4’s across the Yorkshire Dales to build a team effectively. Costs are largely in big items of equipment and high volume of event staff. Ideas are plentiful at the lower end of the spectrum – lead by creativity and technology. From bespoke and interactive treasure hunts driven by mobile phone technology to writing, producing and performing your own play/opera/talent show!
5. Brand promotions – don’t make the classic mistake of removing your key sales staff away from your store to drum up business on the street. Instead employ brand ambassadors – professional, informed promotions  people who are trained to understand your proposition and engage accordingly with your target audience, driving interest in your brand and footfall towards your store. Engage a decent agency and results can be a real revelation.

Kiitos…obrigado…dank u…merci…thank you!

“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated” (William James)

We’ve recently been involved in launching a new global employee recognition programme on behalf of an international entertainment attraction group. The reward and recognition programme extends across 12 countries and content has been produced in 11 different languages – from Mandarin to Portuguese.

The solution is primarily digital – web site and email primarily. This keeps cost relatively low – but the impact impressively high. Over 15,500 people are currently actively registered and within the first 2 weeks, over 2,500 ‘recognitions’ have been made.

Undoubtedly, the power of recognition continues to drive motivation. In the words of Mary Kay “there are two things people want more than sex and money…recognition and praise.”

Recognition is one powerful motivator that can be linked to behaviour to change a company’s culture and embed new behaviours:

–            For the critical non-measurables

–            Peer to Peer

–            Individual & Team

Recognition  and appreciation of work done has been identified by psychologists (e.g. Hertzberg, Maslow) as a major motivator (rather than hygiene factor), and from surveys as the number one motivating factor.

The table shows the average ranking when people are asked what motivates. Interestingly, high wages come first and appreciation is well down the list when people are asked what they perceive motivates others.  When asked what motivates you, the answers are quite different.  This is a revealing and highly significant finding, which explains some of the myths about motivation.

“What gets measured gets done: What is recognised is repeated”

“What gets measured gets done” is an important business mantra.  Measurable performance improvements can be and are rewarded through incentives, rewards and promotions.  We can measure a lot of outcomes.

However, not everything that is important can be measured and rewarded in a timely and entirely mathematical way. Values and behaviours in action, such as the difference between how we say “Good Morning” to a customer or colleague can make a huge difference to outcomes.

Mission critical elements of the business such as “simplicity” and “customer delight” can be recognised when they happen instantly.  So the other half of the management mantra should be “what gets recognised gets repeated”.