WEAVING COMPANY VALUES INTO STRATEGIC INITIATIVES TO CREATE A DESTINATION WORKPLACE

When one-third of your life is spent at the office, work should be fulfilling. At G&A Partners, we know that our employees are the heart and soul of all we do, so we focus on ensuring this is a destination workplace where people want to work, not have to work.

What’s the difference between a workplace and a destination workplace? Is it the work? The space? The people? It starts with establishing values that are more than words on a page or a poster in the hall. Employees should see those values in action daily. Our values, such as putting people first and leading by example, are tied to everything we do.

Values that are firmly ingrained into our culture is only the first step. Success in the PEO industry requires the best of the best, so here’s how we dedicate our efforts to ensure G&A Partners is an employee destination.

Empowering employees to make a difference. We established and promote six employee resource groups (ERGs) that are focused on meeting people where they are and giving them a space to collaborate on common interests and initiatives. Our ERGs include:

• With Women, dedicated to issues impacting women.
• Younify, dedicated to providing a space to come together to deepen the understanding of what makes each of us unique by building community, educating, and connecting.
• Helping Hands, an employee-led philanthropic service team.
• Serve, our phenomenal Veteran’s team.
• Wellness Warriors, committed to empowering employees to improve their overall health.
• Confetti Crew, responsible for hosting events that ignite our amazing workplace culture.

A collaborative environment where every voice matters. We actively solicit feedback from our employees so we can address issues and create an even better place to work, which we measure by employee Net Promoter scores, stay interviews, exit interviews, Glassdoor reviews, biannual employee surveys, and annual leadership assessments. It only matters when you share those results – so we do so with all our employees on a regular cadence.

Provide tools, training, and support for employees. We believe that continuous learning is the key to success, so we’ve developed a platform with tools to empower and inspire every member of our organization with the creation of G&A University. Every employee receives over 40 hours of individual training along with micro and instructor-led training programs that support each individual’s personal and career goals.

Provide great benefits and a meaningful career path. At G&A we know an investment in our people is an investment in the future, so we established a structure for employees to grow from entry-level positions to roles with increasing levels of responsibility. Our benefits offerings place a strong focus on the whole person and include physical, financial, emotional, and social wellness programs.

Rewarding individual and team performance.  We start with key performance indicators and not only measure but celebrate successes throughout the company by recognizing service excellence, servant leadership, and employees who demonstrate our values and provide phenomenal customer service.

Offer a flexible work environment. Recent years have presented all of us a shift in the world of work, and for G&A Partners, the hybrid work model where employees split their time between office and work best supports our commitment to be a destination workplace.

Within each of these strategies, our company values are woven throughout. These great programs put people first, demonstrate our leadership, and encourage communication and collaboration.

Alone, these initiatives don’t make a destination workplace. Rather these initiatives intertwined with our values come together to create a workplace that embodies our values in everything we do, encompasses who we want to be, and connects our employees to something greater than just the work on a computer screen.

These programs and approach work well for G&A, but the blueprint to a destination workplace isn’t the same for every company. Businesses must champion what’s unique about their companies through their own engagement initiatives and strategies.

There’s no avoiding it, though: a company’s competitive advantage is determined by its people. Therefore, it is imperative to find the right talent and recognize and retain top performers. But you can only do that if you remember employees want to feel valued and connected to the work they perform.

The bottom line for any business: significantly improving your people practices can create a measurable impact in shareholder value. And building a workplace people want to be a part of – quite frankly, that’s a lot more fun!