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The secret to boosting morale and maximising profits

Author: Andre Thomas, Founder and Managing Director, Thomas Telman

Published: 04 Dec 2024

Last month, I was invited by the ICAEW to deliver a webinar on how to attract and retain talent in three steps. This topic continues to be a major problem for law firms and accountancy practices across the UK. According to Gallup, disengaged employees are costing the UK economy £44 billion a year, which means that three out of five of your employees is a financial drain on your business.

Notwithstanding, many leaders consider workplace culture to be fluffy or ambiguous, and therefore not a priority in board room meetings. The well-known quote from management consultant Peter Druker, puts culture into perspective. He said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” so ignore it at your peril.

If you are a forward-thinking leader, I have a plan that will help you develop a culture that leads to attracting and retaining the right people whilst also increasing profits.

What are people looking for?

Many moons ago, before the mobile phone or the internet, I was studying for my “A” levels at Mid-Kent College, and I was fortunate enough to land myself a Saturday job in an insurance broker. I remember my manager making it very clear that I had to keep my top button done up at all times. He would even inspect my shoes to make sure they were polished.

When I told my niece this story, she started to laugh, saying that he was being mean and ridiculous. However, it did help me appreciate the importance of being smart when at work. The world certainly has changed since then, with the advancement of technology, and of course COVID-19 has completely changed the way we think about where and who we work for.

In a recent poll conducted by Deloitte:

  • 86% of millennials say having a sense of purpose is important to their overall job satisfaction
  • 44% have turned down an employer based on their personal ethic beliefs
  • 80% say that work life balance is the top consideration for Gen Z and millennials when choosing an employer

When making decisions about your people strategy, such as what skills do we need? Or what is our employer value proposition? You must consider external factors, and therefore you need to appreciate what your perspective employees want.

What culture do you have?

Your culture is shaped by your values, and therefore they need to be lived by the senior management, otherwise they will not be taken seriously. If your values aren’t embedded, your firm is exposed to cultural risk, which asks, what is the likelihood of a toxic culture emerging? If your values aren’t reflected in your actions, it can cost you dearly because people will leave and post negative reviews about the poor communication, silos, and poor management. A critical part of understanding what culture you have is knowing how you are perceived, because perception is reality. 

Annual engagement surveys are the usual practice but they only provide an insight into what the problem is. For example, if you conduct a survey using the Likert scale then participants will be limited to a multiple-choice answer, usually ranging from very bad to very good. Although this is useful data, the result is limited to only quantifying the problem, therefore unless participants have an option to explain “why” you won’t have a full picture of their true experience. The other potential problem is that, unless people feel safe to answer honestly, you will always struggle to find the root cause to a business problem, and therefore it’s better practice to work with an external consultancy to conduct interviews and focus groups.

What culture do you want?

Once you have gathered both quantitative and qualitative data by conducting surveys and investigated the “why”, you will have valuable knowledge on what culture you have. You can then ask, is our culture helping us to accelerate or is it hindering growth?

It’s only when you have all the information can you make the right decisions on how to develop your culture and people strategy. The great thing is that you will no longer make operational and human resource decisions based on what your competitors are doing, such as increasing salaries, but instead you can rely on what your data is revealing to find the correct solution.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, many leaders are still living in the past, because they have successfully developed a company with their old principles which has served them well up until now. Today, you need a new approach to your employer value proposition. The key question all applicants ask is what is the culture like? To answer this question with confidence, you must analyse your culture, because failing to do so could hinder your growth and potentially damage your reputation.

*The views expressed are the author's and not ICAEW's
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