Sean Reddington, founder and CEO of THRIVE, the Learning and Skills Platform, which has seen its customer base grow by 357% in two years, credits Thrive’s success to a people-first approach.
Sean says there are four simple tactics to create a passionate workforce, who are as happy in their work life as they are at home.
Sean said: “It is so important to find ways to keep our workforce engaged and passionate about what we are working for. And it’s a learning curve. What worked 30 years ago doesn’t work today so we must adapt and grow together.
“Our entire mission is to ensure employees have a job where they can also grow as a person and in their job, as well as building a community of friendship and true collaboration and support.”
Sean’s top tips for engaging the workforce
1. Build a truly employee-first environment
Most companies will say they do this, but few walk the walk. Make sure you’re viewing your employees with the same light as you do your customers. Customers bring in the money, while employees are an expense, but don’t let this cloud your decision-making and priorities.
If you don’t have a workforce that believes in your vision and comes along for the ride, then you don’t have (or soon won’t have) a business to serve those all important customers.
Hire the right people, then let them define how, when and where they perform. We don’t put parameters on our roles like full-time, hybrid, or office-based. We’re flexible-first. However your people need to work, whether that’s around family commitments, mental and physical wellbeing, or simply preference, make sure you’re enabling that for them.
Loyalty isn’t taught as part of the hiring process. It’s built through mutual respect and understanding. Give that respect to your employees and their non-work lives, and you’ll build engagement, commitment and a culture of transparency as a result.
2. Offer quick, real-time access to growth and progression
We know from experience and research that those employees coming into the workforce over the next few years are more ambitious and goal-orientated than any that have come before them.
Firstly, make sure you’re building a culture of continuous learning. This doesn’t have to be formal, course-based training. Think about mobility opportunities around the organisation, skill progression, coaching and mentoring, and ways that you can enable learning in the flow of work.
Make learning fun! Have a platform in place that supports social learning, learning at speed, peer to peer knowledge sharing and user-generated content. We’re talking about a generation that’s growing up with TikTok. Adapt your processes to fit around them, because they won’t be changing to fit around you.
3. Create a community at work
Whilst Boomers and Millennials wrote the rule book for working lunches and post-work drinks, new demographics coming into the workforce have spent a large chunk of their education and/or working life living through a pandemic. As we return to some level of normality, we’re seeing a lot of ‘business as usual’ with the return of social get-togethers and company trips.
But, there’s some important factors to consider here. First of all, you’ve most likely got a very dispersed workforce. Hiring opportunities have opened up geographically, and businesses that have continued growing over the past few years have a much harder job on their hands physically getting people into one place. Business leaders need to look at other avenues to build connections.
Spend time getting to know your employees. I’ve opened up my calendar between now and the end of the year to chat individually to each of my 130+ employees. I want to know what they’re passionate about, what makes them tick, and how they like to engage with their peers. People are different, not everyone enjoys Christmas parties and busy offices. Some are more than happy in their home office, on Zoom, and sitting down for dinner with the kids instead of heading to the pub. Understand your people and meet them where they are. Then plug them into community and collaboration opportunities that work for them.
4. Communication and Transparency
A big lesson I learnt during the lockdown was that people are very adaptable, and they will find ways to communicate and stay connected. Even more so for the younger generation who have grown up in our digital-first world. As an employer it was a time of panic, and we were navigating new territory in trying to ensure our workforce felt not only communicated to, but able to connect with us when they needed to as well. Whether it was work-related or to talk through wellbeing challenges, we encouraged and enabled this approach with technology and transparency.
Talking to our customers about how they were supporting their employees was enlightening. Ted Baker were in the middle of implementing THRIVE when the pandemic started, and they pivoted their whole implementation strategy to a communication and collaboration-first approach, connecting their employees around the world and delivering initiatives that focused on good mental health and encouraging employees to post their own content to share with their peers.
We’ve baked this approach into our culture now and I encourage other business leaders to do the same. For those already in the business it’s crucial to keep them supported and engaged, and for new hires it’s meeting their expectations for an open, collaborative work environment.
Finally, don’t fear transparency. Just because an employee isn’t talking about their gripes with you, doesn’t mean they’re not talking about them full stop. I want each and every person in the business to feel like they can come to me. I’m passionate about keeping all employees up to date with what’s happening at THRIVE, and in return they’re transparent about their challenges and concerns. It helps me to grow the business and build the modern culture that we’re known for.
