Playground or workplace? The Millenial office

How far would you go to encourage employee engagement?
The days of 9-5 jobs-for-life are consigned to history. The Millenial generation that now make up the majority of the workforce are undoubtedly affecting working practices to the extent that the office of today would be unrecognisable to an employee from even a generation ago.

Silicon Valley trailblazers
With low unemployment comes demand for the brightest and the best, with companies having to actively strive to attract top personnel. The Silicon Valley trailblazers were the first group of employers to look at work differently, creating a fun environment where friendships could be nurtured inside the office as well as out of hours. The ‘Googleplex’ Google HQ for example is furnished with giant rubber balls and slides in place of stairs, while staff have the use of swimming pools, multiple sand volleyball courts and free gourmet food three times a day. Fleets of the famous Google bikes are available to zip around the huge campus. Everything is geared to ‘create the happiest, most productive workplace in the world’. Why? Why would one of the world’s largest companies go so far to make their work environment so appealing?

Happy employees are productive employees
The answer to this is in Google’s aim to make their company the ‘happiest and most productive’ place to work. Happy, committed, engaged employees benefit their bottom line. ‘Companies with engagement scores in the top quartile [have] twice the annual net profit of those in the bottom quartile,’ according to Engage for Success, a not-for-profit organisation aiming to encourage companies to engage employees in order to increase UK productivity. Corporate drones chained to desks may well complete their tasks in time, but they will have no compunction to stay late to finish a project or to raise their hand if they see where efficiencies can be made.

Google and their ilk realised early on that potential hires no longer feel the need to keep their work and home personas separate but rather see work as an extension of their social lives. Numerous chill-out areas, cafeterias and sports facilities encourage this, creating a fun, social ambience where employees are happy to spend their working day.

A company with such a strong commitment to employee engagement not only sees advances in productivity, but also creativity and loyalty are increased. The best ambassadors for any company are engaged employees, who are also less likely to leave and have to be replaced, with all the attendant costs this entails.

How to engage staff without Google’s resources?
Engage powered by Schoop will not fit a swimming pool in your office, nor will it serve gourmet food to your staff. It will, however, give you the means to communicate your corporate mission to all employees, encouraging them to buy into company values and feel an integral part in the organisation, not just an overlooked cog in a machine. Book a demo with us today to find out how Engage gives you the tools to improve your company’s employee engagement.