At Talentfoot, we like to think of our tech executive recruiting team as an agency representation firm for executives as they navigate the Manager-level and C-Suite free agency market. And we view ourselves as the tech recruiting partner for the countless organizations we work with who need top talent in their corner offices and on their leadership teams. This mindset is beyond what other tech recruiting agencies view as a client-provider relationship.
This mindset has opened the door for a host of experiences that allow us to offer our partner agencies so much more than just tech executive recruiting services. One of those added experiences is how to build a healthy employee culture.
Whether you have 50 employees, or 50,000 employees – a toxic workplace environment will absolutely slow you down. We don’t like to see our partners face roadblocks to their growth, especially when it’s something they can control like their culture. And we don’t like to go through a tech executive recruiting process, only for the executive under our representation to want out once they see how things are done in their new organization.
Luckily, not only can you control your employee culture, you can also gain immense benefit from building a healthy one, and in ways you might not even think about or see up front. We know how to build a healthy employee culture, and we are going to show you what that process looks like in this article.
This process has five steps:
- Putting your employees in the driver’s seat
- Providing educational, training, and advancement opportunities for your employees
- Offering flexibility in both scheduling and workplace location (very important in today’s technology recruiting world)
- Mandated mental health days
- Creating bonds beyond work through regular off-site gatherings
Let’s run through each of these five steps and how to implement them in your own journey towards building a healthier employee culture.
Step 1: Putting Your Employees in the Driver’s Seat
First and foremost, you need to empower your employee culture with enough autonomy for your employees to make decisions on their own. What do we mean by that? Your employees are adults, not children who need constant supervision. This doesn’t just apply to decision making either. Employee empowerment also means that your employees have the opportunity to determine their own schedules and advancement. Employee autonomy is a hot ticket item with the executives we talk to in our tech executive recruiting circles. If you can’t trust your employees to make good decisions, then perhaps it’s time for a few new hires.
Now that we have established why you should give your employees autonomy, let’s go over how to do so.
First, you need to create a culture that rewards innovation. How many times have you heard that employees are the lifeblood of your organization? It’s truer today than ever before, and it starts with making sure you provide them with all they need to be innovative. Passion is also an important factor here. Make sure your employees feel free to voice their concerns.
Encourage your employees to think big. Provide the tools they need, like education and training or an opportunity to submit new ideas (like through Roundtables), then let them run with it. Allocate a certain amount of time for this exercise every month, and make sure to hold your employees accountable for their actions before you jump in with both feet and try to fix the problem yourself. A high degree of employee accountability is another big deal with the executives we interview in our technology recruiting process.
Step 2: Provide Educational, Training, and Advancement Opportunities for Your Employees
Training can be a challenge when it comes to building a healthy employee culture – especially in the technology recruiting world. With such an emphasis on moving fast and taking risks (that’s how you innovate after all), your employees may see training as a waste of time. They don’t want to spend their time learning new things when they already have a full workload of projects that need to be completed. It’s up to you, the savvy executive leader, to provide your employees with opportunities for education and training both on-site with your own team, and off-site with consultants, and vendors so that they can continue advancing their careers.
Train your employees so that they can work for any organization at a high level, and create the culture that makes them never want to leave. Proper employee training for career advancement is something we see a lot of tech professionals gravitate towards when they come to use for representation because of our reputation for tech recruiting.
Step 3: Offering Flexibility in Both Scheduling and Workplace Location
We want to reiterate that your employees are grown adults and not high school kids. You should be able to trust them to handle themselves in a way that allows them to get work done, the right way, and on time. You need to trust them to manage their work schedules, whenever that may be and wherever that work may take place. Obviously, collaboration is a big component to both productive workflow as well as a healthy employee culture, and regular collaboration time should be on your employees calendar and they should be both encouraged and required to attend. But, beyond regular meetings, you need to let your employees run their own life so long as they are getting work done at the level and in the way that you and your customers require, and so long as they are getting the work done on time. This schedule and workplace flexibility is the third step on your journey towards building a healthy culture.
It’s very tough to compete for top tech talent in today’s technology recruiting world if you do not offer flexibility for your employees.
Step 4: Mandated Mental Health Days
This one is straightforward but easily the most missed step on this list. Point blank – if your employees need a day off – they need a day off. It’s that simple. Burnout is a real thing and it should be avoided at all costs. Also, many, many, many people struggle with mental health disorders that are both diagnosed and managed, and undiagnosed and unmanaged. While the latter is less ideal, the former can still present challenges for your employees that you may never know about because they seem put together while at work. That’s why it’s so imperative that you trust that when your employees say they need a break, they really do need a break. It will be much more beneficial to your employee, their team, and your organization as a whole to let them rest and take care of their mental health so that they can get after it when they are back.
So, this is step four of the process to building a healthier employee culture and seeing that the stats are staggering on how many people are not taking mental health days, we’d say it’s pretty damn important. Beyond trusting your employees when they say they need a day off, the answer to this problem is obvious, and that would be mandatory mental health days. You need to make it clear that your company cares about your employee’s mental health, and requiring that your employees take a day off specifically for their mental health is one way to do this. Implementing mental health days through Brain Breaks twice a year, and after completing a big project or after reaching a stressful milestone is a good strategy. Encourage your employees to make the most of their mental health days by doing something they find fulfilling like golfing, visiting the spa, exercising, traveling, or just curling up on the couch with a good book. Create a communication channel for your employees to share pictures and stories from their mental health days as a way to deepen the bond of your team. This is what we have put in place here at Talentfoot, and it’s paying off for us like it pays off for your technology recruiting partners.
We are seeing a growing trend amongst the organizations that are winning the talent war when it comes to tech executive recruiting, and that trend is that the winning companies have a robust mental health program.
Step 5: Creating Bonds Beyond Work Through Regular Off-Site Gatherings
You have created a culture of trust, transparency, supportiveness, advancement opportunities, and flexibility in scheduling and workplace location. Your employees know they can come to you with issues outside of work, and they know that you care about their mental health. They also trust that you have their best interest at heart, both personally and professionally, because it’s evident in the way that you treat them. Now, your employees need to get to know each other in a way that allows them to build bonds with their team members outside of the office.
As humans, we crave connection with one another. So, while you may not consider it work-related, seeing your employees put this time in together helps to foster the sense of camaraderie that will keep them coming back for more throughout their careers at your company.
This is step five on our list and while it does typically happen outside of work hours (therefore making it a bit easier to arrange) that doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthwhile investment to facilitate. You can achieve a healthy employee culture without this, but adding this is the icing on the cake. And don’t forget that a company sponsored bonding event is a great way to introduce potential tech executive recruiting hires to your team in a casual and comfortable environment.
That’s it. The 5 step process for building a healthier employee culture as we see it as your technology recruiting partner. If you can nail each of these steps, you will set your organization up for success in the talent wars of today’s tech executive recruiting market.
Need a Really Good Technology Recruiter?
You need technology executives, and we know just the tech executive recruiting firm for the job. That would be us, Talentfoot. You can start your search for your next top hire by contacting us today.
