Over the past few weeks, we’ve been thinking about the things that engage us. We’ve also been thinking about the things that engage you in our previous blog posts, which you can catch up on here.
At People Lab, we’re really interested in finding out more about what engages different people. This week, we’re interested in hearing
more about engagement in your organisation – and the efforts your colleagues go to in the creation of a great place to work.
We’ve worked with all kinds of organisations over the years. From huge corporate companies to start ups and SME’s, we’ve worked alongside a variety of companies to help them create successful, sustainable employee engagement. One thing we’ve had the pleasure to witness on many occasions is the team effort involved in creating a happy workplace, and how colleagues come together to share ideas and suggestions for change.
A great example of this is Capital One, one of the top six credit card issuers in the UK. The company employs around 800 employees out of its Nottingham base, and we worked alongside them to ensure that Capital One was a great place to work. Now, this company isn’t like many others we’ve seen. It’s head office (from the outside) has the appearance of the average office building in the UK -but once inside, there are few people who could forget the amazing experience of visiting this HQ.
The company provides employees with a free gym, a library of courses and a band practice room. There are beach hut themed meeting rooms, ‘break out’ spaces dotted throughout the office and smatters of colour which create a vibrant, buzzing impression on visitors and employees. However, the thing that strikes people most about the company is the genuine warmth and happiness of employees.
The company was voted as the No.1 place to work this year by
Great Place to Work – proving that their approach to employee engagement really is worth shouting about.
It isn’t just in the aesthetics and the environment. Companies like Capital One encourage brilliance; they hire the best possible people, and encourage their employees to be social. There’s no ‘chained to the desk’ feeling in these kinds of companies – and any CEO who knows their stuff will encourage employees to take regular breaks, catch up with colleagues and take a chance to have a laugh together.
On the other hand, we’ve all worked in or seen organisations that don’t encourage their employees to be social. One organisation I used to work for as a teenager actively discouraged laughter at work, deeming it ‘unprofessional.’ We were also told not to speak to each other between serving customers, because ‘work is for working, not chatting.’ I found this approach entirely odd; why would you want your employees to appear robotic and miserable?! It also meant that, outside of work, the go-to conversation would be how much we disliked our boss – so in an attempt to maintain a ‘professional’ veneer, our employer had actually pushed the majority to find work elsewhere.
We’d love to hear from you – how social is your organisation? Does the company you work for encourage you to socialise with your colleagues? How is happiness viewed by your employer? Leave your comments in the section below, or visit our Linked In group to continue the conversation.
If you’d like to find out more about our work with Capital One, take a look at our case study here.
