Keep up the good work!

Something to keep in mind while trying to retain and satisfy your employees is that you really need to understand what they value and what their work life is like. A great starting point is to look at what your company values are, and your company’s workplace practices should be aligned with this. For example if the company values flexibility, then work hours should be flexible; if the company values employee growth, then lots of training programs should be in place, etc…

In regards to your question on dress code and work hours, this is very dependent on each individual company. In my experience working within Mezzanine, and several global corporations, the dress code has been business casual, with business formal in place when appropriate. Work hours are a great way to keep your employees happy. Often, in large CPG firms for example, summer hours are a great way to allow employees to enjoy the summer, and still work hard during the week. If your company is able to, one of the most effective forms of working hours in setting a set time (ex. at Mezzanine it is 9-5) but allowing for flexibility if people have appointments and other things they must attend to. A dog friendly workplace is also great. With having our office in downtown Toronto, by allowing employees to bring their dog in (must be trained of course), not only does it make everyone in the office more cheery, but allows employees to stay later to work as they do not have to rush home to walk their dog.

Another practice that has worked well in Mezzanine and other organizations is tying back to the note on “Parents should eat what they are giving their kids”. Our CEO acts, dresses and works the way she expects her employees to. Not only does this set the standards for the company, but it creates an atmosphere that supports teamwork and not bureaucracy. As soon as a company starts to prevent their employees from feeling of value, from achieving personal and professional growth and from being themselves, dissatisfaction arises within the organization.

While I cannot give you a specific number of practices Mezzanine applies, as it varies, I recommend talking with your employees to understand their needs, look at what has worked and not worked within your company, your company values and look into the practices of companies similar to your own.

Hope this helps!

At least in the submarine incident, they had data from the past to reflect upon, some sort of predictable behaviour. Oil prices, not so much. Marketing research tends to go astray when individuals are interviewed with questions like “If this candy bar was a product, how many would you buy?” Well, if we’ve been talking about my candy behaviours for the last half hour and I’m getting hungry by now, my answer may be exaggerated, in either direction. “2. No wait, 12.” A better question would be “How many candy bars have you bought in the last week?” A key lesson here would be to avoid estimation in marketing research and perhaps derive more insights from actual happenings, not predictions.

Excellent post!

In my mind, this translates into one of three possible scenarios:

1. A person’s motivation changes based on that person’s current circumstances;
2. We didn’t truly understand what was important to her and thus couldn’t sustain the motivation; or
3. It just wasn’t a good fit (e.g. role or company).

All are very real issues for companies. The notion of one-to-one marketing wildly tried in the late 80s early 90’s was difficult to execute profitably with sample sizes of one; however given today’s technological advances it becomes more feasible. Perhaps the challenges companies face today recruiting and keeping great talent will be the impetus for a one-to-one meritocracy program. A program whereby incentives dynamically change and are offered up to employees based on the company and their current situation – in essence, no two programs are the same. Given the limited economies of scale, I think we have a lot further to go on this front. However, when it comes to soccer and my daughter I think its option 3 – it’s just not her sport.

I have often thought that employees of a company should in many ways be considered the closest ‘customers’ of that company whether they buy their product or use their service. Employees make a choice to work for a company in much the same way that customers choose to buy from a given source. So as the author has noted, understanding what motivates your employees to want to work for your company (and stay working for your company) is critical. When a company understands itself well, it knows the type of people it is looking for. More importantly, it has a firm handle on marketing itself in such a way so that like minded people will look for their company to work for. Though never perfect, there is a wonderful almost ’symbiotic’ alignment between what a company wants and what the employee wants that creates a win-win for both parties.

Remember, though, business is dynamic and as a result companies will no doubt change. Checking in on the alignment of each party’s motivations is critical to maintaining the winning culture that allowed the business to grow in the first place.

Convincing companies that want to be innovative that they need to align their culture and internal systems with that mentality really is such an important part of making that innovation yacht float.