Written by Sarah Warburton
Five secrets to identifying a great employer
Most of us know how important it is to find a great employer, but bad employers don’t tend to have “we don’t care about our staff” in the job description.
Having won several awards for being a great employer (including being featured in the Sunday Times Top 10 Small Companies to Work For three years on the trot), we have a pretty good idea of how to spot the bad ones, if we do say so ourselves…
With that in mind, here are our five tips on how a bad employer might try to deceive you and how a good employer really does things.
❌ Fancy titles. Rewarding people with great-sounding titles for jumping through the right hoops isn’t true personal and professional development. Gaining more responsibility should be based on learning what you’re good at and setting personalised targets with your manager.
✅ Opportunities for growth. A company should utilise your skills and offer training and development in the areas you enjoy in order to make the most of your potential and ensure you are doing the best job you can for the business.
❌ Encouraging overtime to prove how ambitious you are. No, no, no, no, no. Companies allowing their employees to slave away after hours is never okay. If there is really so much work to do that employees need to stay late to get everything done, the company needs to urgently look at recruiting more people.
✅ Encouraging a healthy work-life balance. Come to work and give everything your best, then go home on time and focus on your family/friends/box set/whatever floats your boat. At Equilibrium, we don’t want your mind on work whilst you should be enjoying your home life, that’s why we lock our offices at 6pm.
❌ High staff turnover. An obvious one, but a high staff turnover raises questions about why so many people aren’t sticking around.
✅ Low staff turnover (duh). If employees are happy with the culture, perks, salary and opportunities for growth, why would they leave?
❌ A good salary. Don’t get us wrong, money is important, and you should never lowball yourself. But don’t choose a company based solely on a higher salary. It’s actually only a small factor in being happy in your role. In the US, 89% of employers thought that their employees left because of salary, when in reality, only 12% of do.
✅ A good salary. (Yes, this one belongs on both lists.) A package that offers real benefit to the employee and reflects their value in the company combined with plenty of opportunities for growth and increased earning potential – that can’t be beaten.
❌ “Showy” perks. Fancy perks like a slide in the office or free beer on a Friday aren’t guarantees of a good culture. They aren’t signs of a bad culture either (we’ll use any excuse for free cake), but there’s much more to being a great employer.
✅ A fun, supportive culture focused on wellbeing and growth. Deciding whether a company is a great employer can ultimately be answered in one question: do they value their team? If the answer is yes, it will show in their approach to culture, training and growth.
Find out more about what makes a great workplace culture here.
