How to create a great place to work

I was running a training session last week on ‘How To Create A Great Place To Work’ and the first part of the day was about purpose.

It always amazes me how many business owners don’t know what gets them out of bed in the morning. They've got no idea what their purpose is. 

So what make you leap out of bed in the morning to go to work? 

What makes you go the extra mile, stay late and do the extra bits and pieces that have to happen to make your business succeed? 

What is it that's actually making you do that? There has to be something.

If you don’t know then until you can get to the root of what your purpose is then you're going to struggle to make your business succeed. You need to know what your purpose is and you need to find out what drives you.

Once you know your purpose, then you have to share it.  There is no point in keeping it to yourself. Share it with your family, friends and customers. But most importantly you must share it with your team. They need to know what the purpose of your business is and what you're trying to achieve. Employees need to understand what the big picture is and secondly how they fit into the big picture. 

Most people don't actually take the time to find out what their purpose is. They've not really thought about their purpose. Then they wonder why they're not getting anywhere.

So let’s recap, the 1st step to creating a great place to work is to know your purpose or your why.  Step 2 you have to tell your employees.  Without you're purpose you’re wasting your time because nobody is going to want to get behind you. You need to get your staff on board with your business purpose so they are all pulling in the same direction – the direction you want the business to go. Do you ever feel like all your staff are going in a different direction to you?  

You've got to get clarity on what your why or purpose is.

Once you understand what your why is, you can then start to identify what your values are. 

That's why when you're creating a great place to work, you've got to get your HR foundations in place. Your HR processes, policies and procedures. They all have to be in place first. They are the building blocks of your business in creating that great place to work. That’s also where your values fit in, because every process and everything that you do in your business should link back to your purpose and values so that nothing is disjointed. It all needs to link.

Identifying your values is not an overnight job. You can't do it in ten minutes. It's going to take a long time. It's going to take a lot of thought. The worst thing to do is just to put them on the wall and think, "Right. That's it. We've sorted the values out." 

Once you have identified your company values that's when the hard work starts. Now you have to live them and that’s how you're going to start creating a great place to work. 

A company where people are queuing up to come and work for you.  A company where they want to stay. They don't want to leave. They want to give you everything that they can because they understand the purpose and the values and where they fit in. They really get it.  How does that sound?  Like heaven?  You see the opposite of that when you don’t have employees that ‘get it’ is people disease.

The people disease where they're back-biting. Where they regularly phone in sick, they moan they don’t get paid enough. They don’t care about customers and they won't go the extra mile as it’s not their job. That's when you know that you haven't got a great place to work, you’ve got people disease.

Sometimes you have to say goodbye to employees because they don't fit with your culture and your values. This may be difficult to do but if you don’t exit these employees people disease will spread through your business and very soon you could find an epidemic has broken out.

My challenge to you is to find your purpose and then identify your values. I would really love to hear how you get on. Let me know if you need any help with finding your purpose or your HR Foundations just drop me an email [email protected].