It used to be that culture was a task lumped into HR’s basket. A popular buzzword on career pages and a hot topic in job interviews, but outside of that, how seriously were businesses really investing in culture beyond Friday night drinks and a foosball table?
Flash forward to 2021, and almost 60% of young Americans value the quality of their work lives more than the financial payoff of their job. Makes sense considering that in the US, 89% of employers think that staff quit their jobs for more money, when in reality it’s the main driver for only 12% of people.
What employees want more than bigger bucks is a supportive, engaging environment to work in every day. One in which people can collaborate effortlessly with their colleagues, ideas flow freely, and everyone’s voice can be heard in a business no matter what their job title is. When it comes to building these work environments, collaborative work tools have a crucial part to play.
Take the recent findings from a comprehensive study into the Total Economic Impact of Workplace from Meta, conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study involved over 200 companies that have used Workplace for a number of years. As a direct result of using Workplace to connect all employees on one platform, and enable bottom-up communication and cross-team collaboration, these companies achieved:
- 10% increase in employee retention
- 32% increase in product innovation
- 24% increase in onboarding efficiency
On average, these companies also reported a 3.9 x return on investment in Workplace over a 3 year period and $13.1 million in quantified benefits over 3 years. These tangible improvements across a number of business areas make a strong case for using collaborative, intuitive tools to build a more connected workforce.
If we dig a little deeper into that first statistic on employee retention – it’s estimated that employee turnover costs businesses in the US billions of dollars every year. The stats tell us that when employees quit their jobs, 75% do so because of their boss, not because of the job itself. It’s not possible – or fair – for the success of a company’s culture to rest on the shoulders of a handful of bosses. But having employees plugged into one connected platform where they can have conversations with other colleagues in the business makes employees part of a larger support network. Feeling connected and engaged with other colleagues is a valuable lifeline that may make employees less likely to walk away from a good job because of a bad boss.
The additional benefits of creating a more connected workforce are that it creates more opportunities for peer feedback and employee recognition, and allows people to have more meaningful conversations at work. All positive, culture-building activities.
Much to the HR team’s relief, bringing everyone onto the same page with collaborative work tools makes every employee a custodian of company culture. Forget the token foosball table, building closer communities at work is the way to foster a better culture.
