Human Resources: What employees want

What employees want

Straight talk, fast advancement are two low-cost favorites

by E.R. Martin  

Remember the bad old hiring days of the 1990s? When positions went unfilled for months and small-business owners were always worried about star performers jumping ship to a place that could offer them a new car just for signing on?

Sure, those days are over. But creating a good, strong culture and keeping employees happy is still important.

Although it’s been proven that happy employees equal higher profits, it may seem too difficult to keep employees happy when your company is struggling through a recession. But many employees may be simply hanging on to their job until the economy improves, says Lissa Weimelt, co-president of Minnetonka-based The Hiring Experts Inc. Once things turn around, unhappy employees will jump ship quickly.

“You may be able to endure a bad culture longer in a poor economy, but the flip side of that — is the company rewarded with better profits? Not really,” she says, adding that happy employees lead to higher profitability.

“We do know that since the economy has been in recession, pay satisfaction has indeed gone down,” says Asha Knutson, consultant with Eagan-based Advantis Research and Consulting. Advantis researches employee trends and helps companies improve their marketplace and workplace results.

But it’s not just tangible compensation such as pay and benefits that make employees happy — it’s the intangible things, too.

“I think the key really is communication,” says Knutson. “Employees are really looking for communication on what’s going on, how are we really doing.”

She adds that in most cases simply sending an e-mail from the CEO every once in a while won’t get you points for good communication with employees. Employees want to know how certain information affects them and their jobs, specifically. “Face-to-face is always better than more impersonal means, but more is always better than less,” Knutson says.

Employees at Eagan-based Gearworks say that communication in the form of weekly company meetings and straight talk from management is one of the things that makes them happy to be there.

“They don’t sugar-coat stuff for us and whenever we receive information it’s not being filtered through management,” says Lisa Burt, the company’s marketing manager.

Dave Morehouse, wireless engineer, says that kind of straight talk creates a self-selecting process for employees. Only those with a temperament suitable for fast-growing companies are likely to stay.

“By just keeping it honest, people that probably can’t deal with the emotional stress of being at a startup just haven’t chosen to be here,” he says, adding that employees understand there can be ups and downs in a young firm.

 A big part of creating a culture is hiring people whose skill sets and personality both fit the job, says Weimelt.

“You can only continue your culture if you get people who feed into it and who mirror it,” she says. “You can’t mold a person to fit your culture; you have to find a person who is your cultural fit.”

Probing questions
Behavioral or situational interviewing is one way to find candidates who fit into your culture. If your company places a high value on teamwork, ask job candidates what they did in their previous position that demonstrates a commitment to teamwork. Before beginning the interview process, make sure you know what you and your hiring team are looking for in the answers to these types of questions.

“Look at that hiring process as ‘this is critical to my company’s success,’ and make sure the person doing the interviewing is someone who really understands the company values,” says Weimelt.

“We reap what we sow,” she adds. “And if we don’t reap it today we reap tomorrow.”

Both Morehouse and Burt came to Gearworks from some of the largest employers in Minnesota: Burt was at Golden Valley-based General Mills Inc. and Morehouse came from IBM. Neither one regrets the move to Gearworks, despite the fact that some of the amenities of large companies aren’t offered.

“I really, really enjoyed my time at General Mills and I did enjoy having all the amenities, but the tradeoff you make when you work for a big company, you spend a lot more time at the bottom rung of the ladder,” says Burt.

Morehouse calls moving to a smaller company “the best decision I ever made.”

Recognition is another feature that both Burt and Morehouse cite as vital to the company culture. Whenever a goal is reached or a project is completed, either by a single department or by the entire company, there is recognition and a celebration, be it large or small.

“I don’t want to downplay the fact that we work our asses off. But it’s important to feel like you’re rewarded for that,” says Burt. “We’re all putting in lots of hours, but it’s good to feel like you’re getting a pat on the back.”

Both Morehouse and Burt also feel that the design of Gearworks’ offices contribute to the free flow of ideas. Except for a few employees who have privacy needs, such as human resources and finance employees, everyone is in cubicles. But, say employees, don’t think of this as Dilbert-land.

“There’s a bad connotation with cubicles, but I love it,” says Morehouse. “It just removes so many barriers.”

Teamwork counts
Lee Jones, president and CEO of Eden Prairie-based Inlet Medical Inc., believes that a sense of teamwork contributes to a positive office atmosphere.

“There’s not a ‘that’s-not-my-job’ mentality around here,” Jones says. She adds that in a 17-employee office, everyone, including the CEO, is expected to pitch in when help is needed.

“I know that if I ask somebody to help me out, I’m perfectly open to having them ask me to help them out.”

That kind of attitude is what Weimelt calls “walking the walk.”

“You may have a vision of who you want to be,” she says. “But I think the core is: ‘Who are we, and what am I doing day to day that shows who we are?’ ”

Another value that Jones emphasizes is learning from mistakes rather than being punished for them.

“There isn’t a lot of beating people up over doing a bad job,” she says. “It’s more looking at ‘this happened, that’s the way it was, let’s move on to something else.’ ”

Jones believes this kind of attitude encourages employees to think creatively and ask for help.

“People aren’t afraid to say, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ Because there’s not a consequence.”

Although when asked Jones can’t pinpoint anything she does formally to create a certain culture at Inlet, she admits that she wants the office to be a place that she enjoys coming to each day.

“I want an environment that I want to work in, so that’s how it gets developed in the organization, which is kind of selfish thing. But at the end of the day I’m the one left holding the responsibility,” says Jones.

Living values
“Especially in this environment, the whole question of culture is really important,” says Jennifer Alstad, president of Minneapolis-based B-Swing, which has nine employees. “Being really true to your mission, because I think that’s what people tend to get disenchanted with, if they come in and they’re not really sure why they’re doing what we’re doing.”

She says B-Swing works to stay true to its mission by doing a lot of pro-bono work for organizations like Wellstone Action, a new nonprofit founded to continue the work of Sen. Paul and Sheila Wellstone. The work is done during regular business hours, and Alstad says that the work serves a dual purpose.

“We’re probably not as busy as we were two years ago, but we can still use our time productively to do things that are meaningful,” she says. “I actually think that’s really good for morale too, that people get to work on a variety of things and that they get to take on leadership roles.”

Simon Foster, head delivery boy at Golden Valley-based SimonDelivers.com, agrees that communicating your values is essential to happy employees. The company has 420 employees.

“There’s two ways to make employees happy,” he says. “One is, be clear what you expect of them. The second is being clear about expectations and living your values.”

And when it comes to communicating, Foster follows through. He and two other managers shaved their heads upon losing a bet that the operations teams couldn’t get order costs below ten dollars for more than three weeks.

But Foster is also serious when it comes to weeding out those employees who don’t fit the company culture.

“The most difficult thing is when you have to adjust your structure and let people go, move people around,” says Foster. “And I’ve learned the company actually has gotten to the point where they applaud when you get rid of people who are clearly weak.”

A bad economy is a time when companies can make or break their reputation with employees, says Weimelt. “Do the right thing now,” says Weimelt. “Take even the extraordinary time that it takes. Do it. It’ll reward you in a good economy.”