Case Study: Rejuvenating employee benefits at Great Place to Work

Making a mandate for change

Great Place to Work is a management consultancy that provides insight, recognition and organisational development to numerous companies, helping them work towards becoming the very best they can be.

As a leader in showcasing the best places to work, Great Place to Work felt that it was time to up their game when it came to their own people strategy. After a year of significant transformation and managerial change in the business, the company reexamined its employee initiatives and found them not suited for the business following a tumultuous year of change. Alongside this, Great Place to Work knew they had to improve their continuous communication to promote ongoing business strategy, build a stronger culture of trust and align employees further with business objectives.

The organisation’s first step was to survey employees to uncover what exactly needed to be improved. The survey found double digit drops across main strategy areas of reward, communication and involvement. As 93% of the workforce completed the survey, Great Place to Work didn’t second-guess the results and hired a Chief People Officer (CPO) to deliver change.

With a strong mandate for change, Great Place to Work’s Executive Team audited the organisation’s benefits against what they and their colleagues wanted in order to cultivate an improved culture and create a uniquely great place to work. This was done with a simple question: “What do you want and need?” The results gave Great Place to Work the insight to build a strong, distinctive and tailored platform for employees.

Moving beyond tick-box-benefits

With ‘The Place’ (its Reward Gateway employee engagement platform) as a firm technological foundation, the new CPO and Great Place to Work Executive Team introduced new benefits that met the need of its diverse employees, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all engagement strategy.

These new benefits centred on providing employees a healthy work-life balance. These included the introduction of two working from home days a week, reducing time lost to travelling to and from the office, and new summer hours being introduced, shutting the office at 1pm on Fridays between the May and August Bank Holidays, allowing employees greater work-life balance throughout the summer. Additionally, GPTW increased maternity leave to 16 weeks full pay and eight weeks at 50%, and increased paternity leave to six weeks full pay, encouraging new parents to spend time with their loved ones at such a special time.

Alongside this, Great Place to Work decided to provide some unique benefits to its hard-working employees. These included adding one “My Time” day a year where employees can take the day to do something they love e.g. giving back to the community, personal development and so on, and the “Live a Dream Lottery” where employees can pick a once in a life experience, within reason, and win it if drawn.

Making a great place to work

Simply taking a step back and listening to what employees want can make a big difference. In the six months since the new benefits launch, Great Place to Work saw increased dedication to the company’s business goals. Company sales were 50% higher than the same time in the previous year, and Great Place to Work tracked at a higher level of profitability than ever before.

However, not only did the new benefit help drive productivity, they also helped to achieve a zero staff turnover rate. The new benefits not only helped to retain staff but helped to attract new talent. Anecdotally, new hires have been raving about the new offerings and have highlighted the culture has one of the main reasons for joining the company.

Through its use of Reward Gateway’s platform and re-examining its offerings, Great Place to Work has been able to revive its employee engagement and reestablish themselves as the true workplace experts (and win the ‘Most innovative company benefits’ at The Engagement Excellence Awards 2018!).