What makes a great place to work? Many factors can influence the work environment and, therefore, employees’ mental health and productivity. In the past few years, there has been a shift in demands on behalf of employees. This is because they now look beyond the traditional benefits and incentives.
What does a great place to work look like?
A company that can be considered a great place to work must meet specific standards. These are indicators that, beyond the company’s mission, objectives, or income statement, ensure that its employees’ well-being is always placed at the heart of its production strategy.
The post covid era has transformed the way we live our professional lives. The work environment has been altered (in many cases) to adapt to employees’ current needs, as they are not the same as they used to be. This has come to light due to the pandemic. However, employees needed alternatives and new options even before the pandemic broke out. As a result, many employers and HR managers have implemented two key elements that alter the traditional work environment:
- Work format (remote, hybrid, or on-site):
Since the pandemic, employees got used to working from home, and not only that, but they saw the numerous advantages of this. This includes saving time and money on commuting to the workplace. From the employer’s point of view, it also saves office management costs.
- Flexible hours
Being able to work around flexible hours helps employees have a work-life balance. This is key as employees want a healthy life inside and outside the workplace. Quality time with family and friends is a vital aspect of our lives, and working in a company that prioritizes this makes it a great place to work.
These changes have significantly impacted employees’ emotional well-being, allowing them to balance their professional and personal lives. These benefits also contribute to talent retention, as employees are healthier and happier and want to stay in their companies. Moreover, companies have highlighted how employees’ mental health and well-being have been affected these past few years, with issues such as stress, anxiety, and burnout taking over workers. Poor mental health is one of the leading causes of absenteeism, affecting performance and resulting in a high cost to the company itself.
Companies that are leaving behind traditional work environments and adapting to their employees’ needs are on the way to becoming a great place to work. This is why companies such as ifeel have developed their emotional well-being program for companies to help employees reach their optimal well-being, both inside and outside the workplace.
10 indicators of a great place to work
How do I know if my company is a great place to work? It is relatively easy to check. A company can be considered a great place to work if it complies with the following characteristics and any others that protect the psychological well-being of the people who work there.
1. Fosters a corporate culture of care, collaboration, and a sense of belonging.
2. Facilitates work-life balance among employees.
3. Offers a complete program of social benefits adapted to employees’ needs.
4. It has a specific strategy for attracting, developing, and retaining talent.
5. Encourages employees to take care of their well-being inside and outside the workplace.
6. Finds ways to adapt its processes to its employees’ evolving demands.
7. Builds a positive employee experience from the employee’s first contact with the company until the employee leaves.
8. It considers the impact of all its decisions on employees’ psychological well-being.
9. Welcomes a diverse workforce as a strength of the entire organization.
10. Has a specific emotional well-being program in the work environment to take care of its employees comfortably and professionally.
Why is it essential to create spaces that are a great workplace?
Achieving quantitative objectives set periodically is no longer enough to measure a company’s success, nor does it provide a complete picture of the efficiency of its processes. There is now a new awareness among both employees and company management of the importance of providing new answers from the company to an issue that should never be left for later: people’s psychological well-being.
Companies must therefore take responsibility for their role in supporting their employees’ lives and, hence, boosting their motivation and commitment to the company. To do this, it is crucial to avoid the usual solutions and make more ambitious decisions that will enable organizations to become what we consider a great place to work.
Here are 6 reasons companies should opt for this approach and get involved in an updated way in fostering their employees’ psychological well-being.
6 reasons that underpin great workplaces
1. The ROI in corporate well-being programs is positive and enables sustainable productivity and diversification of the concept of success and performance.
2. The onboarding processes of new team members improve, and so does team cohesion.
3. Employees’ commitment to their objectives is enhanced, increasing talent retention within the company and preventing them from leaving the company for its main competitors.
4. The internal and external reputation of the organization improves, which contributes to the employer branding strategy and inbound recruiting processes.
5. Increases employees’ ability to manage their work anxiety and stress healthily.
6. Decrease in sick leave due to mental health problems such as stress or depression, which is enormously economically efficient and in terms of reputation.
Emotional well-being for companies
At ifeel, we have one goal: to help companies evolve in line with an important responsibility, which is to build a healthy corporate culture for all workforce members. It is about generating an environment where they can develop professionally without neglecting the other aspects of their lives. To achieve this, our team of psychologists specialized in work well-being has created an emotional well-being program for companies.
Through this collaboration, human resources managers can receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to improve their teams’ psychological well-being. In addition, this program offers employees a comprehensive mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs. Try our program now to discover all its benefits.
Visit our Resources section, where you will find podcasts on different topics (such as an employee experience guide), guides for Human Resources, or interviews with top HR managers. Moreover, take a look at the webinars we organized on occupational health and the work environment. In addition, you will have access to a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which will help you comply with the Labor Inspectorate’s requirements.
We hope this post about the qualities of a great place to work has motivated you to implement changes in your well-being at work policy. If you want more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, simply request it, and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
