5 myths about the perfect workplace

Companies and managers alike are always looking for ways to improve. Feedback conversations with employees are being held on the regular, but often they forget to utilize one group that is very important; the people who leave.

In the world of progress, nothing is as important as reflection. You need reflection to look back and see where there is room for improvement. Many managers and companies are already capitalizing on this by holding regular feedback meetings and one-to-one meetings, where both employees and managers openly speak about their experiences. If you are not doing this, then start doing it. Tomorrow. Seriously. The easiest way to improve your company is by tapping into the knowledge of your employees, so don’t let their talents go to waste. In this blog I will not pay attention to that, however. In this blog I will go into the importance of the feedback of the people who will actually leave your company and show you what you can learn from them.

Let’s start with: why?

Well, firstly, people who leave your company have nothing to ‘lose’, so they will be very forthcoming with what they think. In normal feedback meetings, employees are encouraged to be as open an up-front as possible. Although this sounds great, experience teaches us that employees can be a bit hesitant into saying everything that is on their mind in fear of retribution. This factor of retribution is not present at an ‘exit interview’, so your ex-employee will be open and honest.

Secondly, it is important to note that you can learn a lot from the reason why the employee is leaving. It might be possible that this new information helps you to prevent others from leaving for the same reasons as well. Often managers make assumptions as on why employees leave, instead of actually asking and understanding why they leave. This way they cannot effectively deal with possible problems in the internal organisation. Therefore, it is important to find out the true reasons in an exit interview.

Thirdly, it is important for your employer branding as a part of the employee experience. In an exit interview you can take up all sorts of matters which require closure before the employee leaves. Perhaps there are conflicts that need to be settled, equipment which has to be returned, or ongoing confidentiality clauses which have to be signed. Most of all it is a moment for your employee to reflect and express their thoughts and feelings. It is always good to give your employee the feeling that they are being heard, but it is even more important to actually listen (and act).

Still not convinced that it is important to have these exit interviews? Here are ten more reasons.

What to ask?

As said before, the main goal is to find out what the motivations are of the employee who leaves, but it is also good to unravel other possible problems in your organisation. So don’t be afraid to ask creative questions. Don’t make turn the interview in a acquisition and the atmosphere light-hearted to get your ex-employee to really open up. When having these exit interviews, then it is good to keep the questions uniform. Make sure that you are asking everybody the same questions, so that you can actually use the results. More on that later.

Here are some examples of questions that you might want to use:

• What is the reason you are leaving us? (obviously)
• Could you list a top three of reasons why you are leaving us?
• Is there anything we can improve as a company? Performance or cultural wise?
• Is there anything that your own department could improve?
• Is there anything that your manager can improve?
• If you would be owner of this company tomorrow, what would be the top five changes that you would make?
• If you would go back to the beginning of your time at our company, then what would you have liked to see differently during your time with us?
  

What’s next? Data.

Now that you know why it is important and which questions to ask, it is time to get to the interesting part: the data. To get an organised set of data, you will need to try and standardize the answers given by the ex-employees to get a clear picture. For example, if you ask the question “Why are you leaving us?” then you can get a very variety of answers as it is an open question. However, you can label the answers given so you can detect patterns. Answer labels for this question could include: “Atmosphere within company, Development possibilities, Prospect of better benefits, Personal reasons” etcetera.

One or two exit interviews will not give you enough information if you are dealing with possible internal problems. That is because it could just be that the couple ex-employees that you have interviewed might hold a grudge against you. However, if a certain pattern appears when more and more ex-employees point to the same problems, then you cannot hide behind the excuse of a coincidental common grudge anymore. So, volume is key here.

After having the right labels and enough volume, you are ready to analyse the data and draw the right conclusions to improve your company and tackle possible problems.

In conclusion

You should always hold exit interviews, not only because it adds to the employee experience, but you can also actually learn from them. This information can be valuable to retaining your future talent, tackle possibly hidden problems, and improve your company performance.

Do you need help with holding exit interviews, analysing the data, or implementing solutions to newly discovered problems? Get in touch with us and see what we can do for you.

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This article was originally written in September 2020.

COVID-19 has already affected companies, cities and even entire economies. Even though we are done with COVID-19, COVID-19 is not done with us. So, what does this mean for the way we perceive work?

COVID-19 has heavily impacted the way we work. I believe that, even if there will be a vaccine to the virus, there is no way we are going back to ‘what was before’. The way we work has been impacted in such a way that companies have finally recognized the value of alternative forms. It baffles me that, for some reason, we are still holding on to Dolly Parton’s nine to five dogma which was originally based on agricultural economies and even pre-historic cultures (you need natural light to hunt and grow crops). Now with the miracle of human-made light a lot of industries have the option to re-design their working days. So, in this blog I will be talking about how I will think that the way we work will be impacted (and what we are going to do with all those empty office buildings).

Working remotely

First, let’s get into the obvious. With the COVID-19 crisis many offices closed their doors, forcing people to work remotely. This often involves Zoom meetings with: people who are dressed in cosy clothes, interruptions of cat’s, children, and the occasional doorbell, and connectivity issues which makes you pull your hair out. But we have gotten used to it, more or less. The opinions are divided on how good it works. Some people want to go back to the office to socialize and others hail it as the new way of working. I am not going to take a stance in how well it works, but I am going to take a stance in whether this is a temporary phenomenon or not. Just to be clear: it is here to stay.

I think there will be some alterations in the future. Working remotely all of the time will still be an option, but I think that many people will opt for a combination of working remotely and working from the office. I think that people will be going back to the office for a part of the week to get in touch with their colleagues and stay at home for the other part to ‘really get things done’, but overall, I believe that working remotely is now an integrated part of working.

Working (very) flexible

Working remotely also opened up another door to working (very) flexible. Flexible working has already had its place in the workplace before, but the COVID-19 crisis and working remotely really accelerated this trend. It is not unusual anymore to receive messages early in the morning or late in the evening, while not being able to reach certain colleagues during the day. This sense of flexibility has opened up a sphere of ‘working a couple of hours here and there’ which means that we can restructure our entire day. What a relief for all those early birds or night owls out there!

Bringing the kids to school? No problem, work when they are to bed in the evening. Tired of recycling socks and in need of a laundry run? Easy, just run it and work a bit overtime. Still have to do groceries for the dinner of tomorrow? Fine, just get up an hour earlier, put in some work, and do groceries during your extended break.

Private and professional colliding

What working remotely and working flexible have caused is that there is not a clear distinction anymore between our private and personal life. You are not walking in an office anymore at 9AM and you are not leaving it anymore after 5PM. That is something people will have to deal with on a mental level, which is easier for some than it is for others. For people who are struggling with this, I think that lot of companies will (or should) move to a model where the teams meet (digitally) in the morning to open up the day and close down the day (digitally) in the afternoon. This brings back a mental sense of opening and closure, clearing up the blurred divide of private and professional life.

Another point that I want to make here is that there will be new models of facility, with options for people who work a lot remotely. In that sense you can think about compensation for the cost of living at home and facilities.  

Three cups of coffee a day does not cost a lot, but if you multiply with the number of days in a year, then costs begin to show themselves.

When it comes to facilities you should not only think about laptops and that kind of hardware, but also chairs, tables and ventilation. Basically, everything which turns your living room into an ergonomic working environment. I would argue that employers will also have a stake in this. Their cost of building up a workplace and providing coffee basically stays the same, but their cost of their physical buildings will go down as they can close down offices when people work permanently or flexibly, from home.

Working holidays

One form of impact that I have not heard yet is how this whole COVID-19 crisis will make us reconsider the line between work and holidays. I predict that people will rethink the way that they take holidays and how they plan their holidays, permanently. Firstly, right now, there is the obvious of not taking planes anymore and more regional travelling instead of international travelling.

But I would also argue that also the structure of our holidays will change, moving to being more flexible on holidays. Perhaps you are not able to leave the office for the entire week, take off four entire weeks in the summer, or even miss that one important meeting that distorts your family plans. So why not go to your holiday destination and work for a couple of days, one week of the four in the summer, or attend that one important meeting. I would say that combining work with holidays will become more common and it can provide a possible positive trade-off for employees (as long as they know how to properly balance it).  

Let’s talk office

Now that I have discussed the consequences for outside of the office, let’s move on to how this will impact things inside the office. First and foremost, I think that the current pandemic will influence the way we are perceiving as a hygienic working environment.

In this sense you can think about sanitation, disinfection, and ventilation, but also on policies regarding when somebody is considered healthy enough to enter the office (regarding the spread of infections). Most companies right now have a sort of ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards this issue and let employees decide when they deem themselves fit enough to enter the office.

We might move to a scenario where employers more actively encourage employees to stay away from the office when they show symptoms of a disease. Then there is of course the topic of training and education, which will also play a role. New guidelines will require training and education for your staff.

Last but not least, there are already companies who specialize themselves into making virus-free environments, such as the six-feet-office introduced by Cushman & Wakefield. Again, I believe that COVID-19 will have a lasting impression on how we regulate health in the office.

In conclusion

I believe COVID-19 has a significant impact on how we perceive ‘work’ going forward. It has shocked the working world, turned it upside down, and made us realise that there is a contingency (the idea of choice) in what we do. In a last remark, I would add that all of this is just a prelude to much larger changes which will improve the quality of our lives. If working regimes become more flexible to adapt to our preferred lifestyle, then you will notice that:

• less and less people press themselves into public transport during rush-hour;
• more people will move out from the cities into the countryside to work remotely;
• we travel less to work on location (decreasing our environmental footprint);
• people can organize their lives better to their own preference;

and this will ultimately benefit our (mental) health and wellbeing as human beings. Therefore, I embrace this change and am looking forward to keep working in the new normal.

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During the workshop, we explored the future of AI in HR processes and how it can streamline recruitment, onboarding, talent development, and more. We learned how to write effective prompts to maximize AI's potential and leverage tools like ChatGPT. We experienced aha moments through interactive exercises and practical examples of how AI can be used in everyday work. We gained tools and strategies to successfully implement AI in our organizations. And we discussed the ethical aspects of AI and how to ensure responsible use.

Here's what some of our participants had to say about the workshop:

"Nils Janse is an inspiring speaker and a true AI expert. I'm glad I attended the workshop!"

"It was a great mix of theory and practice. I now feel more confident in implementing AI in my work."

Huge thanks to all participants for a very interactive workshop! 

Want to learn more about how AI can transform your HR function? Contact us today to book a consultation!

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