11 Apr 6 Ways to Create Happy Employees Without Perks
via Inc.com by Jennifer Anker Kaufman
Free lunches. Yoga. Gym Memberships. Pet-friendly offices. In the tech world, every startup's perks one-ups the next. Don't get me wrong, perks are great; they are great for recruiting and they are great for retention. But over the last few years, we are seeing a noticeable shift in our conversations with candidates and employees; today's workers are savvier and much more interested in the work and the culture than the perks. In fact, employee engagement is a much higher indicator of a happy employee — something I've witnessed first hand as a recruiting lead at Zynga, Okta and now Twilio.
The stats back it up. According to the Gallup Organization, highly engaged organizations have double the rate of success of lower engaged organizations. Double. When an engaged workforce impacts your bottom line as much as we know it does, engaged employees are your competitive edge. The question is, of course, how do you create those?
Excluding all company perks, here are a few ways to encourage employee engagement:
1. Encourage employees to be social.
A recent study reports that having a close friend at work boosts employee engagement by 50%. To encourage those relationships, host events in the office, encourage teams to get together outside of work, create common spaces for working, eating, chatting and empower employees to organize around the things they are passionate about. It matters!
At Twilio, employees have created "employee resource groups" that promote, celebrate and encourage people who identify with different cultures. It's become another great way for employees to socialize with those outside their department and helps people find a sense of community and support within the larger organization.
2. Write down your values.
First of all, have a set of values. Then, write them down, share them on your website, paint them on a wall and talk about them often. Employees who say their organizational values are "known and understood" are 51 times more likely to feel engaged in their work.
One of my favorite Twilio values is "draw the owl." It's derived from a popular Internet meme but what it really means is that nobody is going to tell you how to do your work. Your job is much more than your job description and you are the one responsible for figuring out an approach to reach your goals. We believe that if we're truly innovating, there is never going to be an instruction book for how to get our work done. Draw the Owl started off as one of Twilio's values and has transformed into a mantra of sorts reminding everyone to figure out a way to have an impact…
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