Name: Great Place To Work Certification LIVE Q&A
Uploaded: 2025-10-22T16:47:19.137Z
Duration: 28 min 29 s
Description: Great Place To Work Certification LIVE Q&A

Transcript for "Great Place To Work Certification LIVE Q&A": Hi, everyone. Welcome to our webinar on great place to work certification, why it matters, how to achieve it, and the strategy behind these exceptional cultures. Coming to you from London in The UK, I'm your host, Maggie Green, EVP of sales at Great Place to Work, and my pronouns are she, her. I've been with Great Place to Work for over twelve years, and I personally witnessed firsthand the impact that creating a Great Place to Work for all has on business performance all over the world. And I'm thrilled to be introducing you today to one of my great colleagues, the expert on all things great to work Great Place to Work. So Scott is joining me today. Scott is an account executive partnering with all size organizations, helping them drive the cultures needed for employee and business success. He brings over twenty five years of human resources leadership experience, and we're so grateful to have him up as part of our team and to be meeting all of you today. So, Scott, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much, and and I'm so excited to be part of this team too. And I'm so excited to meet everybody today on this call. Hey. Listen. We're all here for a reason. Right? And and that reason is maybe you're looking at your culture. You're looking at your experience of the employees and you're realizing that maybe something's off. Maybe you're just starting to build a listening program. Maybe you're here for gathering information or maybe you're saying to yourself, you know what? Our culture is incredible. It's about time we get certified as a Great Place to Work. Whatever those are, there is this common thread though. And that common thread is there's something about the employee experience or the workplace culture that is that you're thinking about at this moment. Because we know when employee experience improves, the increase in productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction follows, and that it's not just a people initiative. This is a business strategy. So if you're with me on this, do me a favor. Throw an emoji out there. Maybe it's a smiley face, a heart, a thumbs up. And if you're still a little skeptical, go ahead. Choose an emoji that describes your feelings at this moment. Let's see what kind of emojis we have out there. Looks like a lot of people are are are feeling the way that we feel at the moment. Looks like we got looks like we've got the right crowd with us today. Well, if that's the case, let's jump in and let's start discussing what a Great Place to Work is. So when we talk about what a Great Place to Work is, like, what does that actually mean? See, we've been recognizing and rewarding great workplaces and helping them build exceptional cultures for over three decades now. So I'll throw some numbers at you. 22,000 customers in over a 170 countries and territories serving over 20,000,000 employees every single year. We have the largest employee experience and culture database available. And we've been studying these behaviors that need to be true in order for people to experience their workplace as a Great Place to Work. So what is a Great Place to Work? It is one where you trust the people you work for. It is one where you have pride in what you do, and you enjoy the people you work with. That is the definition of a Great Place to Work. You see, we distill it down to three relationships to make it easy for everybody to understand and work on, and it enabled us to focus on what we're measuring when we're looking at different companies. Now in this model, you'll notice a red circle here that wraps throughout all those relationships. At the right, it says for all. That is because when we look at great workplaces around the world, what is very clear to us is that in order for the most people to have the greatest experience at work every single day, we need to be thinking about how we lead in ways that lead for all, for every single individual. That means no matter who they are, no matter what they do, and no matter where they work. This is the lens through which we identify critical leadership behaviors. Now say that again. Critical leadership behaviors that are most important for our leaders to pay attention to. Now it's within this frame that we start to think about that employee experience and what needs to be true in order to create that experience every single day. Now I know it is not going to surprise anybody when I say that these relationships, they start with our leaders. That's where they begin. See, it's how we as leaders behave every day that creates conditions, conditions for people to say, hey. You know what? This is a great place to work for me. When leaders lead in this way, it creates the experience that people have, and this experience, that's what shapes the culture of the organization. And then as a result of that culture, as we move forward to the right here, that unlocks amazing things in people, amazing things in individuals. The intent is in high trust, high performing cultures, that's what enables businesses to perform at exceptional levels. So leadership, that drives performance. That's what creates the conditions for people to give their absolute best and enable the best work for businesses to win. And that in all, and what you're looking at, that is what we call the Great Place to Work effect. Now I mentioned a couple of times critical behaviors, leadership behaviors, creating conditions, that enable employees to excel. Let's talk a little bit more about what we mean by that. As you as I mentioned, we've been studying leadership and great leaders and great workplaces for a long time. What we found out is there are nine high trust behaviors that leaders exhibit every single day. Here's the big question. Are they exhibiting these in ways that build trust, or are they exhibiting these in ways that break trust? And this is what we measure. We measure this through a single validated and reliable survey that we call the trust index survey. I'm gonna get to that in in a in a few more slides. But first, since we've been talking about all these great cultures and these great workplace experiences, let's first just take a quick look at the business strategy by looking at some of the return on investment we're seeing. So listen, every company has a set of metrics that they measure their performance by, at least every company I've been a part of. But let's take a look at a universal set. So we study certified companies on a regular basis. We study noncertified companies on a regular basis. And here's some of our findings when we look at this universal set. Number one, productivity. We see productivity higher in these organizations. Employees are willing to give that extra effort of work. And we see this in in metrics like revenue per employee, which I'm gonna jump to on the next slide. Important metric there. Recruitment, also, you can see a difference there between us and other organizations that aren't certified. Employees in these certified companies employees in these companies have amazing cultures and really good employee experiences. They're promoting their company on a regular basis to family, to friends. And then when you look at talent coming in, we did a survey or a study about, about two years ago now. In that study, we basically asked, listen. If you're looking at new organizations and everything else is even except one of them is Great Place To Work certified by their employees, what does that mean to you? And their response was that they were 15 times more likely to choose that organization knowing that they had a culture, a culture where people can thrive. Retention. Employees and certified companies, they are twice more likely to say that they wanna stay at that company for a long time. Now we just got a publication out on Monday. And these these figures are new to me, so I'm just gonna read them because this is pretty incredible stuff. Ready for this? Employees who feel their work is meaningful are 294% more likely to wanna stay with that company. People who feel the workplace is psychologically and emotionally healthy are a 103% more likely to stay with that company. And the last step that we came out on Monday was if someone feels like a full and respected member of the team regardless of their role, they're a 104% more likely to stay with that company. This is when we talk about behaviors that we can exude. Move on to two more. Customer service, we noticed customer service scores are higher in these companies. And lastly, agility. Agility is really important. And when we see agility, what we're saying is employees are much quicker to adapt to changes, allowing companies to move faster and innovate quicker. And we all know how much change happens on a daily basis. So some really good stats there. If we look at the next slide, I talked briefly about revenue per employee. It's an amazing measurement to look at. We came out, Fortune came out with its fortune 100 best companies to work for in April about October already, in April. We also came out with a study of revenue per employee. And what we noticed was when you look at these 100 best companies who are also certified great places to work and we compare them against 6,000 other companies, their revenue per employee is almost nine times higher. Nine times higher. And what we've learned is these companies are more profitable because they built this consistent positive work experience grounded in trust where employees can thrive. So really good statistic there, and I'll throw one more out there. When we look at the 100 best companies, the public when we look at public companies within that list, you'll notice that they've outbeat the market by 3.5 since, you know, over twelve twenty years. And I always think if I would have would have just invested in these companies every year, what my retirement account can look like today. But let's look at some points in time here. 02/2008, the great recession. A lot of things were going on. They outperformed. The COVID nineteen pandemic starting in in February '20. Again, lot of things going on. They outperformed. And last year, last year was a very volatile year thinking about what was gonna happen politically, not understanding what was going on with the election. Again, they outperformed. And it's not that these businesses aren't facing the same challenges as the rest of us, aren't facing the same times of crisis, aren't facing the same uncertainty. They're able to bounce back, and they're able to bounce back quicker and with even better results because they are doing something important. They are doubling down on their people, and they are doubling down on the positive effects of trust. And, again, it's not just publicly traded companies, you know, that are that are seeing this. Okay. So then how do we begin to listen? We've talked about who we are. We've talked about some return on investment. But how do we begin to listen? How do we begin to shape this employee experience and earn certification? It is a very straightforward two step process. The first step is once we decide that we're gonna have a partnership is we send out a survey to your employees. That survey is 60 statements. It's on a five point consistency scale, and it takes the average employee about fifteen minutes to complete. That's open for two weeks. While that two weeks is going on and we're taking the survey and you're monitoring participation. The only other thing that we need the organization to do is to fill out a culture brief. And a culture brief is basically just a short fact sheet about your company, why you exist, the demographic makeup of your organization's workforce, benefits offered, and other key facts, about your culture. Once that is all done, we will find out if you're a certified organization or not. You'll find out in twenty four hours, actually, once that survey ends. That trust index survey determines certification. If the average results of your trust index survey are 65% or higher, you will earn Great Place to Work certification for the next twelve months. So we're basically saying there is, if every seven out of 10 employees are saying that, hey. This is a Great Place to Work, then you are a Great Place to Work. As part of that, I know you've all seen the badge on LinkedIn and other places. I was in a store, the other day in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was right on the front entrance. So that badge is yours. Royalty free. Yours, use it however you want. Get it out there externally. Get it in there out there internally. Be very proud of what you accomplished because it's not easy. You will also have a company profile on our website. That company profile will talk about what employers are saying about your strong culture and why they enjoy working for you. And there's even a button that you push on that that profile that directs traffic right back to your website. And then we're gonna give you some other employee branding, tools in the toolkit. It doesn't stop there. It's like a game show, so it doesn't stop there. There are other additional opportunities. So once you're certified, we partner with Fortune and People and a dozen about two dozen different lists. Right? The best part is any list that you are eligible for, we do the application process for you. It's automatic. In addition to all of that, you're going to get some extremely valuable data. So let's just take a peek at that. When we think about data, our focus is to give you the data to take something that is seemingly qualitative, like culture and trust, and provide you quantitative insights. So, again, within twenty four hours of completing your survey, you will have access to all your results in our platform called and pricing, and you will also find out if you are a certified organization. Our platform, it provides some really powerful tools that enables you to analyze your results by different demographics, identify trends, confirm what we may believe as organizations, and uncover blind spots that we didn't even know existed, and be able to focus on areas that we can improve within the company. We make it easy for you to analyze your results and allow you to put it against really strong competitive benchmarks, like industry benchmarks and Fortune one hundred's best companies to work for benchmarks. So you will have many tools within this platform to really start to drive the experience, drive the culture that you need to. I always get the question when I'm on calls with individuals about, you know, let's talk a little bit more about return on investment. Tell me a little bit more about the customers you work with. So I thought I'd highlight one of them, which I I think is really important based on the industry that they're in. So the Breakers, Palm Beach, that hospitality industry, they've been around for over a century. And for those of us who know the hospitality industry well or even not so well, one of the things in hospitality is it's really hard to keep people. There's a lot of turnover in that industry. And for those of us you know, we know turnover means one very important thing. It means high cost of bringing people in, recruiting them, retraining them, all of that. We've been working with them, for over a decade. And and one of the things they really wanted to focus on was that retention rate. And you can see in that box where it says 90% retention rate. You know, what they did is they prioritize that employee experience. They really focused on that, and they took that retention rate from 76% over the decade to over 90%. They are nearly doubling the average retention rate in the hospitality industry. And what does that mean when you think about it? Two things come to mind. Right? Reduction of turnover cost, also by keeping the same people, their quality of service and their quality of performance is very consistent, which in hospitality means you get return customers. It means more revenue, more profit. And I think one of the director's paths says it best in the top right. It allows us to really go to the deepest levels of pinpointing where the opportunities lie. So we're not just throwing darts. Right? We are pinpointing where the opportunities lie using some really strong data. Couple of things before or a few things before we get to questions. Number one, upcoming list announcements. I talked about list through Great Place to Work. We have an exciting one coming out tomorrow. Fortune's coming out with best workplaces for you. Very, very important list. Another really important list in November is best workplaces for parents. One thing I didn't mention, is you can get certified whenever you want. There is no deadline for certification. You get certified whenever you want, but there are deadlines once you get certified to be included in Great Place to Work lists. So some really good list coming up. The deadline to be certified, as long as you're certified by February 6, and you meet criteria, you're eligible for that people company that care list. We also have best workplaces in the Bay Area, Texas, New York, and Chicago also need to be certified by February 6. The next set of lists, you need to be certified by May 8, and that's best and medium, best medium and small workplaces as well as best workplaces and technology. So if this is something that you're thinking about, start thinking about it now. You know? Get certified before or at the very beginning of the year so you're eligible for any list, that meet that you make criteria for throughout 2026. Really important there. The last thing I'm gonna talk about before we get into questions is we have something extremely exciting coming up on October 28 at 12PM eastern, 9AM Pacific. We are having a live event called the Great Place To Work Effect Live. Going to be a virtual experience. We're gonna explore how leading organizations are building high trust cultures. High trust cultures that drive performance, that drive innovation, that drive employee engagement. You're gonna hear from top executives. You're gonna hear from culture experts and also certified companies about how they're using data, how they're using data to provide storytelling and to elevate their workplaces to levels that they've never seen before. Okay. Hope that was beneficial to everybody. As we start questions, we're gonna put a poll on the screen. If if you wanna talk more if you wanna talk more and really think about how we can part and how we can work together, that poll is gonna come up. And and click that you wanna speak in the next twenty four hours. And then I'll reach out to you directly. We'll set up a time and learn about your organization. What are you trying to accomplish, and how can we help you accomplish that? I appreciate you listening. I'm gonna turn this over to Maggie who's getting a lot of questions right now, and let's see what we can answer today. Hi, Scott. Thank you. It's nice to be back. Let's see. So we've got a couple of questions that have come to the q and a and also ones that were submitted before. And so I'll I'll give everyone a chance to add some more questions, as we go along. But let's go ahead and get started. And so I'm getting some questions around people don't know or are trying to figure out, like, if they are ready for a Great Place to Work or if they're a Great Place to Work ready. What would your recommendation or advice be to companies who aren't quite sure, whether or not they're ready for Great Place to Work? Yeah. You know, I I I've said this before. I've said this in in in my career. You never know whether you're ready until you have data. Right? So it's not about readiness. It's about, do I wanna start diving in to employee experience and workplace culture, see where we are today, and see how I can make this a better place, a place where employees thrive, a place where we drive performance. So it's it's phenomenal when you get certified. But start with the data. See where that data takes you, and that cherry on top is it took you to a great place. Now you're certified. And if for some reason you're not, now you have an amazing set of data to work with. That's awesome. Thank you, Scott. Yeah. I always think of it as, like, where you have to understand where you are today to then know kind of where best to go tomorrow. But if you don't have a solid understanding or foundation for where you are and where you stack up, then, like, we can help you do that. Right. Talk to me a little bit about Great Place To Work and the global impact. So people are talking, or kind of asking questions that, is this just for US employees? Is this for can I also include my employees outside The US? Talk a little bit about how that works. Absolutely. So, again, we are over a 170 different countries. So for organizations that have offices in different countries, we work with all of your offices. As long as an office location, right, a country as long as a country location has at least 10 employees, you have the ability to get certified. Every country would have its own certification badge, Maggie. So if you had you know, you were in The US as well as The UK as well as, you know, another country, when we go through that survey, you're gonna get results on everybody, but each country is gonna be held to that standard of what is a great place to work and get a badge for that country for the next twelve months. That's great. Yeah. I love that because we're able to conduct one survey for your entire global population as you mentioned, Scott, but then be able to receive kind of that local recognition to help with, local recruiting or attention or performance, in that particular country and then being able to benchmark against other best companies in that particular country. That's awesome. Hope that answers couple people's questions. You talked about the steps to get started. But how like, typically, what is and you said that you can be certified at any time, but talk to me a little bit about how quickly or how long it takes from kind of getting started with us to then achieving certification. I I mean, listen. I I've had some people literally, you know, sign a partnership agreement with us and and get that survey out that same week. Right? But, you know, let let's that that that's probably the outside. Let's think about this. One of the most important things when it comes to surveys is communication. Right? And that is the leadership communicating. I always say three things. You know, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? And what we can expect from the results? Right? And that that expectation is sharing the results, sharing what we learned. So depending on the size of your company, that communication you figure is one to two weeks. The survey is open for two weeks. So now we're at three to four weeks. So I think to play it safe, from the moment we sign, between four and six weeks, we've got that survey out and completed. Okay. That's really helpful. And then what about have it seen some people kind of mentioning that they already survey or how do we compare to other surveys? So can you talk a little bit about what, you know, is this this great place to work? Are we replacing an employee survey platform? Are we in addition to? And how would you recommend, kind of staggering those surveys? Yeah. I I I think the recommendation comes through a a conversation to really understand deeper what's going on. But you bring up a good point. You know, we are an and and we are an or. Right? So just if if you have a really good, process right now for your listening program, which we have many companies we work with, we become an and, you know. They have a they have a system in play, and they want to get they wanna focus a little more on culture and get Great Place To Work certified. There are other organizations that, you know what, they wanna replace what they're currently doing. They wanna replace either their internal process or replace their their their current vendor. With our platform, in addition to having the trust index survey, you can also have the ability to do pulse surveys. So we can absolutely be the or, we can be the and. It really comes from a conversation of what are we trying to achieve and how can we best partner with you to do that. That's great. Thank you, Scott, for sharing. There are a couple of other questions in the q and a that I didn't have a chance to get to, and we're out of time. So I want to take the opportunity to thank you all, and thank you, Scott, for sharing all of these quest all of this kind of engaging and, meaningful information. And I look forward to the conversations that will, come as a result. And so thank you all, and we'll be in touch soon. Take care, everybody. Thank you so much.