Putting people first

We’ve seen and heard businesses talk about a people-first’ culture. Most organisations will say — and aspire to — put people first, care about people and create a good company culture. Not everyone gets it right all of the time and it’s constantly evolving.

Post-pandemic we’ve seen lots of green shoots and positive shifts towards creating better work environments. Employee health and wellbeing has shot up the boardroom agenda and remote and hybrid working is the norm.

Sounds easy right? It’s much more complex than it sounds and many businesses are still grappling with the new world of work and the rebalance of business and people’s needs.

We’re really proud that this year Magnetic is featured in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work awards 2023, which recognises companies who are getting it right for their people. Delighted to be recognised and celebrated as an organisation with the highest employee engagement and wellbeing levels, here’s 5 things that we’ve learnt:

Have a strong employee value proposition. Employees are now more in-tune with what’s needed to succeed and keep a close eye on it. The great resignation movement accelerated the chat about meaningful, long-term change to workplace culture. While the unstable socio-political environment ( and the cost of living) put a bit of a stop to mass movement, workplace happiness is still high up on people’s agenda. Businesses still need to figure out what their employee value proposition is — and it needs to be strong.

For Magnetic we’re really clear on our employee value proposition. And it’s constantly evolving. Empowerment, excellent communication and listening is how we create an environment for our people to thrive. We’re on a mission to embed these three things into everything we do, fostering a happy, healthy team, where everyone realises their full potential and supports career growth.

Consider the employee experience. It’s no longer just about employee engagement, this has been replaced by the concept of the employee experience. Focussing on how your people interact and experience various HR touchpoints and everyday working practices you immediately find the friction points. By finding these friction points, you can instantly improve the employee experience, thus increasing engagement and putting employees first.

We’ve worked together to consider the employee experience and develop an environment, and employee value proposition that nurtures and inspires our brilliant team. Here’s a snippet of what this means:

• Creating an environment where output is valued over hours, for better engagement and work-life balance
• Making an all company bank holiday an annual tradition
• Allowing individuals to repurpose bank holiday days in line with their religious beliefs
• Expanding our compassionate leave to include days off for miscarriage (this applies to all genders) and menopause
• Making sure no one is sidelined because of where they work, or overlooked for promotion
• Reviewing our onboarding experience to make sure every single employee starts right and the employee experience is smooth.
• Introduce a way of checking in on people: Thrive is our quarterly pulse check-in that goes beyond engagement and allows us to understand how everyone is feeling and what’s working.

Care for people as individuals. Celebrate differences. People are what makes your business special. To be a people-first culture, it’s important to care about your employees as individuals: know what makes them tick, what makes them unique, why they choose to spend a big part of their day with you as a business and why you trust them to be your shop window and to represent you externally.

At Magnetic we come from all different backgrounds. Each one of us brings something special and we have created an environment that celebrates this and empowers people to bring their best self to work. And that starts with your people strategy: every single person who works in our business is valued in exactly the same way, and this is critical to the success of the business.

Take time and invest in communicating well. How well and how often you communicate with employees has a massive impact on how engaged people are. Here’s a few simple rules we stand by:

When you communicate, do it with purpose

• Give people what they need, when they need it
• Think about why you are communicating and the purpose of the message
• Keep your ears to the ground and understand how people are feeling
• Set the tone of your message according to how people are feeling — it’s all part of the employee experience journey
• Don’t hide from difficult conversations, be visible, approachable and honest about where things stand
• It’s fine for things to change and evolve — constantly review what’s working, what’s needed and change things up
• Your comms strategy, approach, messaging and channels need to be people-first.

Focus on Wellbeing. Research consistently shows that when employees feel their work is meaningful and they are valued and supported, they tend to have higher wellbeing levels, be more committed to an organisation’s goals and perform better. Open and supportive workplaces benefit everyone — employees, employers and the bottom line. By supporting staff wellbeing, businesses reap the benefits through enhanced morale, loyalty, commitment, innovation, productivity and profitability.

At Magnetic we have a Wellbeing champion in each team. As a committed group of individuals, the Wellbeing team’s mission is to create a positive work environment where everyone can thrive. How do they do it?

• Listen. Be the eyes and ears on wellbeing, and understand how to make things better.
• Encourage. Normalise open, supportive conversations about mental wellbeing.
• Facilitate. Arrange activities that gives everyone the opportunity to do something good for their wellbeing.
• Signpost. Support available as part of our Magnetic benefits.

Interested in joining a business that has a strong people-first culture? We’re hiring in London and Manchester, check out the roles on our people page.

Genine Hallett is Head of HR at Magnetic. We help some of the world’s best known companies design better futures. If you’re interested in joining us, get in touch: talent@wearemagnetic.com.