How To Attract/Retain Top Talent

Create an Awesome Culture

 

By Joanna Bradley, IT Sales & Marketing Recruitment Manager

 

Recruiting for dynamic startups, early stage companies, and even established players is all the easier when that company really knows how to go after the best talent. It is exhilarating as a recruiter to reach out to the best and brightest talent with an opportunity they weren’t even looking for and be able to get them very exciting about it because of the company’s awesome culture!

The companies who have dialed in their culture and know what to offer their employees to motivate them do less recruiting. It is simple. These companies are retaining their excellent talent. They have built a work environment and value proposition that creates engaged, committed team players.

 

Companies take different approaches to building such an attractive workplace and work contract. What works for one company may not work for another, it depends on the company and the employees. Define a culture and benefits that appeal to the people you want to attract.

 

These are some of the things that we’ve seen work best in terms of creating an awesome culture:

 

Give ’em Food:

Who doesn’t like free food? Chocolate donuts and pizza for some, for others organic / vegan / macrobiotic / paleo / trend food. Offering fresh and healthy snacks or meals, at a subsidized rate or complementarily. There’s nothing like healthy fuels to feed the minds of your most precious human resources.

 

Give ‘em Drinks:

If most people like free food, boy do most love free drinks. Cold beer Fridays, Happy Hour at the local watering hole, a monthly office party… these are easy ways to not only celebrate accomplishments and thank the team, they allow employees to mix it up and create/reinforce connections and bonds.

 

Be Flexibility:

Flextime, work-from home, virtual offices, self-policed hours, ROWE, ski days. There are any number of ways depending on the nature of your business to offer employees flexibility. Workplace flexibility accomplishes goals such as reducing greenhouse gases, reduced traffic and transit time, and better work-life balance.

 

Encourage Fitness:

Many companies provide free or subsidized gyms, on-site or off. Some offer cool perks like a company ski pass, golf membership, or shared bicycles. Many will help facilitate walking/hiking clubs and other recreational activities that promote health and fitness. Healthy bodies make for healthy minds.

 

Build the Team:

Sponsoring a race, forming a sports team to play in the local league, providing flexibility to coach others, organizing a group recreational outing, taking employees out to a comedy show, and/or any other activities that motivate your employees is a great way to help them bond as a team, and reward them for their dedication at work.

 

Long Lunches:

Companies that offer long lunches so that people can take advantage of time to exercise. It’s a great way to make people happy by allowing some endorphin release in the middle of work, and it keeps people in a productive mode. Other folks may take advantage of a long lunch to check errands off the “to do” list of life such that at the COB, post work life is freed up for quality personal time.

 

Green Initiatives:

Being a proactive green company can be approached in a huge variety of ways: car-pooling, providing public transit passes, buying green power, going paperless, reducing/reusing /recycling. Creating contests or participating in local promotions like national bike to work day create fun and awareness, and facilitate playing a role in greening our world.

 

Community Service:

Giving to your local community is very rewarding. Companies can encourage volunteering by giving flex time or time off, celebrating employee contributions, and providing air time for people to inform colleagues about the community organizations dear to their hearts. Participating in fundraisers can be as simple as encouraging the sale of girls scout cookies in the office or as elaborate as creating a team goal linked to a donation to the group’s chosen beneficiary as a function of meeting the goal.

 

Blow Off Steam:

Some companies have built game rooms and offer impromptu fun time on the job, some organize competitive gaming sessions. Other companies have a music room, on-site jams during the day provide an opportunity to get creative juices flowing and get a fresh perspective on the day. Some organizations provide an in-house masseuse to help employees relax and refocus.

 

Flora and Fauna:

Domestic animals provide comfort to humans, from the utility of seeing-eye dogs, to the soothing presence of canine companions for treating trauma and stress. Why not allow pets at the office, or organize a visit to/from the local animal shelter? Beautify the surroundings and get some fresh air made in-house by bringing in plants. Why not have a green thumb contest on the desks?

 

Staff Initiatives:

If what is going to motivate your team hasn’t been mentioned, or just isn’t evident, ask your staff. Get input directly from your workforce about what would make the company an even better place to work. Encourage the employees to design programs, goals, and celebrations that motivate them. You may be surprised by what they come up with!

 

The key to creating an awesome culture is understanding the types of personalities that make your company productive and unique, and nurturing and feeding these folks. This builds excitement, loyalty, and engagement, which means a more committed and productive staff.

 

What makes your company great?

Do you have other ideas about fun and fantastic company cultures?

Share them with us, we’d love to hear from you.

Share on Facebook / Send us an Email / Tell the Group on LinkedIn

 

 

About Redfish Technology:

Founded in Silicon Valley in 1996, Redfish Technology recruits top high tech and clean tech professional and executive talent. Partnering with growth mode companies, small and large, Redfish staffs executive functions and builds out the teams below. The company provides services nationwide and has offices in Silicon Valley, the East Coast, and Sun Valley. Redfish has received a number of awards: Awarded first place in the 2013 “Best Places to Work”, named a “Top Executive Search Firm” by Leading Providers, and awarded “The Most Dependable Executive Search Firms & Staffing Agencies of the West” by Goldline Research.