By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
This is a continuation of a blog post on how The Container Store unpacks employee engagement.
While The Container Store does great community outreach and disaster relief work, what surprised us most in this interview was the company’s laser focus on its employees.
Here are the ways The Container Store prioritizes its workforce:
Employees first.
A-Team.
No HR needed.
Recession-proof strategy.
Conscious capitalists.
Keep reading for the details on how The Container Store puts its values to work...
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
Kate Olsen and I had the chance to chat with Audrey Robertson, VP of cultural programs, community relations, and social media, about the company’s digital and cultural impact programs.
While The Container Store does great community outreach and disaster relief work, what surprised us most in this interview was the company’s laser focus on its employees.
Keep reading to discover how the company prioritizes its workforce...
By recognizing outstanding achievements in volunteer engagement by businesses, VolunteerMatch announced the winners of its annual Corporate Volunteer Awards.
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
It’s not surprising that Millennials like beer. Everyone likes beer. Okay, maybe not everyone, but many, many people enjoy a cold brew. Through their core business values, profit model, and internal organization, one company is drawing Millennials left and right: New Belgium Brewery.
Through a series of “happy accidents” Katie Wallace found herself at New Belgium. The employee-owned business embodies happiness itself. I had a chance to chat with Wallace about her work, and why the company operates the way it does. All quotations are from Ms. Wallace.
Being human. Jordan’s background in social work and marketing has brought a human touch to a business that is all about people. For starters, she insisted on New Belgium being employee-owned, with an open-book management policy.
“Honoring our humanness – we’re not machines – unlocks this amazing power in the business, making us more profitable and successful in the long run.”
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
This is a continuation of a Follow Friday Feature with Sodexo.
Sodexo is a massive global quality of life services company, reaching 75 million people on a daily basis. In spite of its size, Sodexo is committed to the local communities it touches, keeping its 425,000 employees engaged, communicating those core CSR values, and giving back.
I was able to learn more about how such a big company communicates its CSR values, through an interview with Neil Barrett, Sodexo’s Group VP of Sustainable Development. All italicized text is that of Mr. Barrett’s.
Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow Plan is structured around four pillars and sets out 18 defined commitments.
This structure governs who we are, what we do and how we engage with our clients, consumers, suppliers, and communities, in fact all of our stakeholders in order to be a responsible company.
But that is a lot of initiatives to remember, so in order to share them with the general public, we looked for common themes and came up with those four communications priorities, based on what our research said people cared about most...
The four macro themes of Sodexo’s CSR communications are:
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
Sodexo is a global quality of life services company, reaching 75 million people on a daily basis. In spite of its size, Sodexo is committed to the local communities it touches and keeping its nearly half a million employees engaged in its mission and values..
Through an interview with Neil Barrett, Sodexo’s Group VP of Sustainable Development, I was able to learn more about how such a big company can be so personal. All italicized text is that of Mr. Barrett’s.
On being a local, global company:
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
This is a continuation of yesterday's post.
Let’s face it: Engaged employees are the best. I don’t mean the best at their jobs—although that can be true—I mean the most spirited, zestful people.
TalentZoo recently explored the ‘5 I’s’ of employee engagement. Definitely check out the post in its entirety, and find part II of our take below.
1) Inform.
2) Inspire.
3) Instruct. As we’ve mentioned before, everyone can use professional skillset enhancements—especially Millennials. By providing employees with clear directives and leadership opportunities, you set them up to succeed.
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
Think about some of your favorite people. Why do you like them so much? Do they frequently smile or have something nice to say? Do they like to laugh? Are they passionate? Not that these characteristics are requirements of engaging people, but more often than not, people who are passionate about something, anything, are more engaged at work.
Let’s face it: Engaged employees are the best. I don’t mean the best at their jobs—although that can be true—I mean the most spirited, zestful people.
TalentZoo wrote a piece on the ‘5 I’s’ of employee engagement. Definitely check out the post in its entirety, and find our take on the 5 I’s below.
By Kate Olsen | @Kate4Good
1. Pick the Right Partner(s)
2. Equip your Workforce
3. Have a Policy
By Allison McGuire | @Calimcg
When announcing the program back in 2009, CEO Andrew Witty remarked, “There will be a real opportunity … for those people who really feel they want to give something back to society to do that. It is a great chance for our company and the individual to add tremendous value which otherwise cannot be bought.” He elaborates on PULSE and its benefits here.
I had the opportunity to learn more about the program from GSK Investigator and PULSE volunteer, Nick Falco. For six months, he worked alone at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Abuja, Nigeria. Check out our conversation below, and Falco’s cool Tumblr cataloguing the experience here.
