Business leaders, especially those among the best in the business, know there are countless ways to attain a goal, any number of methods to use to engage employees and customers and build a successful company.
At a recent ceremony honoring the Best & Brightest Companies to Work For in West Michigan, business leaders shared a variety of the best practices they use to do just that.
The event featured a panel discussion about retention, employee engagement, wellness and wellbeing and multigenerational integration.
The audience for the event, held at the Pinnacle Center in Hudsonville, Mich., featured 2024 winners along with business leaders from around the region.
The panel discussion about how companies can navigate the modern workplace, included best practices offered by experts on retention, wellness and wellbeing, employee engagement and multigenerational integration.
Art Bettencourt, the CEO of AE Bettencourt, a Grand Rapids firm which helps companies find and retain talent, pointed to what he called a “generational cliff” in the workforce being caused by the number of “Baby Boomers” leaving and the number of “Generation Alpha” workers available to replace them.
“The boomers are getting ready to exit the workforce, and the next generation that’s coming up – Generation Alpha – is about half the size of the boomers,” said Bettencourt, whose company, which just celebrated its ninth anniversary, has clients in all 50 states. “When we look at the challenges we face in terms of the workforce size, that we’ve faced over the last several years, it’s actually projected to get worse. What we need to focus on as organizations is a transfer of knowledge and wisdom and productivity across the workforces.”
AE Bettencourt is doing things both internally and externally with clients designed to attract such multi-generational candidates. For instance:
- Looking at performance-based hiring — how can this person do the job? – and evaluating candidates based off of that to create a diverse work environment.
- Understanding how to integrate the different generations to get the best of both worlds.
“You hear a lot of things across generations, whether it was 100 years ago or today, the younger generation saying the older generation doesn’t understand technology and they’re too slow, and the older generation saying younger people don’t know how to work,” Bettencourt said. “You can go back and look at articles from 100 years ago that say the same thing. To be successful, you have to focus on what are the true strengths of the different generations, and how do we get them to work together to create a productive work environment?”
Nancy Stellini said there are several areas on which companies need to focus to help with recruitment and retention of talent.
Stellini, the vice president at Triangle Associates, a Grand Rapids construction management firm, said her firm focuses on three key areas:
- Salary/benefit package: Leaders realize they have to pay a fair-market wage, though that number, Stellini pointed out, is “sometimes hard to determine.” Triangle spends “a lot of time” talking in the interview process about what candidates are currently making and what their expectations are.
“We constantly analyze that information and compare it to our current long-term staff. We make market adjustments quick and when we need to as opposed to waiting for the year. We know if we don’t do it quickly, we’re at risk of our top talent going to our competitors, who are very eager to hire our employees.”
- Career progression and career pathways: Triangle’s goal this year is to develop individual, “spelled-out” career plans for every associate.
“It’s a very daunting task, but we’ve started group-by-group,” she said. “I highly recommend starting group-by-group rather than be overwhelmed trying to do it for the whole organization (at once).”
- Overall culture: Work-life balance is a “hot-button” for Triangle, which has had to shift away from the traditional 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. work paradigm.
“Instead of focusing on start times and end times, we focus on the fact we have hired mature, professional adults,” Stelllini said. “We give them trust but we also hold them accountable. We focus on their job, which is clearly defined, in servicing our clients in the best way possible.”
Jill VanderZand offered an interesting perspective on navigating the modern workplace. As the vice president and human resources manager for Gun Lake Casino in Grand Rapids, VanderZand was the only speaker from the hospitality industry.
As such, she offered a unique point of view on wellness and wellbeing in the workplace.
“Anyone who’s been in the hospitality business or retailers (knows) when you have a 24/7 business or when your employees are working when everyone else is off and having fun, when you introduce wellness and wellbeing and work-life balance, it sounds very different for those employees,” she said.
At Gun Lake, she said, the focus is on the pillars of wellbeing, among them financial, emotional/social health and physical health.
“The mental health (pillar) is important,” VanderZand said. “Emotions are high, and our mental health and wellbeing is really critical.”
The casino has shifted its focus and core values, she said, to the “seven grandfather teachings” of the Gun Lake tribe. Those teachings — love, truth, respect, bravery, honesty, wisdom and humility – “will basically guide us in all of our decisions,” she said.
VanderZand called communication the key element. The casino communicates its wellness programs to employees, including having “ambassadors” to support various initiatives.
“We’re really trying to redefine what work-life balance is,” she explained. “We can’t offer a hybrid schedule, because we have to have our employees at the casino. So that means work-life means you can afford your life. We have a stable industry. Those are all different ways to reframe what work-life means. I think that’s going to be a nice change for us as we continue to grow.”
Engagement
Mike Van Ryn, vice president at Kalamazoo-based Ziegler Auto Group, offered a variety of ways Ziegler engages its employees. For instance the group, founded in 1975 and now with stores in four states with 2,600 employees:
- Created a culture team and called it our “champion task force.’ “This was 19 years ago, we didn’t even know what ‘culture’ was back then,” Van Ryn said. “We picked people who were positive and engaged, and we gave them ownership to come up with ideas for their stores and their teams. Its been fun to see that journey.”
- Recognition and appreciation. “I saw a quote that said, ‘great leaders appreciate more than they think they should, and then they double it.’ It goes a long, long way to recognize and appreciate our team members.”
To that end, Ziegler’s culture team came up with … “diamond drops,’ a kind of currency that allows employees to recognize and show appreciation for one another.
“It’s very powerful if you write a note of recognition to a co-worker,” Van Ryn said. “Sometimes it’s even more powerful than if you get it from your manager. We empower them, teach them how to do this, and it spread like wildfire.”
- Champion of excellence award, a peer-nominated honor given quarterly. “We made a luncheon around the reward, the winner didn’t know, and we brought their family to come in and surprise them with their award.”
Zieigler’s biggest honor, though, is its “Legacy Tribute.” The award, given to an employee who has left a leadership legacy, is matted and framed and consists of quotes from family, friends and coworkers.
“It’s a huge, huge deal,” he said. “Every time someone wins it, there are tears. It’s very meaningful.”
