How does the Great Place To Work award actually work?

A Great Place to Work is a place where employees develop, where people trust and support each other, where collaboration is fun and where people are proud of their work. The path to becoming a Great Place to Work is via the Trust Index™ and the Culture Brief™. Only those who meet the minimum requirements are certified. However, if you want to be recognized as one of the Best Workplaces™ - one of the best employers in Switzerland - you have to meet an additional requirement.

The basis of the Great Place To Work award

The Great Place To Work award is more than just a certificate. It is an award based on an established model with evidence-based standards. Trust, practiced values, leadership quality, potential development of all employees, value creation and innovative strength are the six dimensions included in the model. Trust is at the center and thus also the foundation of an excellent workplace culture. We therefore also speak of a trust-based workplace culture.

In addition to trust, it is also important to really live the values - i.e. the principles and the way in which employees work together on a daily basis. This is the only way to make a workplace culture authentic. The third pillar is leadership quality. Walk the talk is just as important as creating a sense of purpose, respect, care and fairness towards employees. If the cornerstones of trust, practiced values and leadership quality are in place, employees can really develop their full potential. In other words, all employees can develop and use their talents in the best possible way.

This leads us straight to the output variables of a trust-based workplace culture: value creation and innovative strength. On the one hand, value creation occurs in the traditional sense through more efficient use of resources (e.g. money, materials, time), but on the other hand also through, for example, a better customer experience because employees are intrinsically motivated and perceive their work as meaningful. The power of innovation, on the other hand, is strengthened by the opportunity for employees to really contribute their potential. If innovation is seen not just as a buzzword but as a genuine corporate value, employees are trusted and leadership quality is upheld. In 2014, for example, Ford began turning its employees into inventors and encouraging innovation through internal challenges and incentives. The result: in 2016, Ford had more patents in the automotive market than any other brand. Important detail: Ford supports its employees in realizing their ideas. The Ford Global Technologies Chief Executive said: "Once a person becomes a true inventor, they're going to invent again and again"

But how is trust measured in a workplace culture?

To measure trust in a workplace culture, employees are first surveyed using the Trust Index™. The Trust Index questions are based on the five dimensions of an actively practiced, trust-based workplace culture: credibility, respect, fairness, team spirit and pride. A total of 66 questions on the dimensions are answered using a 5-point scale. In addition, there are two multiple-choice questions on leadership quality and innovative strength, two open questions on the employer's strengths and potential areas for improvement and six demographic questions. This results in a total of 75 questions.

The 5 dimensions of the Trust Index with sample questions and the 5-level rating scale.

Which internal measures for workplace culture are already in place

The second step is to determine the organization's perspective on workplace culture by recording processes and guidelines using the Culture Brief™ and Culture Audit™. The Culture Brief includes all the facts, figures and general information of an organization. This also includes the breakdown of employees by years of service, gender and position. This makes the structure of a workplace culture visible. The Culture Audit, on the other hand, deals with measures that have already been implemented and that shape the workplace culture. These are divided into nine design fields: Inspiring, Informing, Listening, Recognizing, Developing, Showing Care, Hiring and Integrating, Celebrating and Involving. The respective measures in the individual fields are evaluated according to diversity, originality, employee involvement, human touch and coherence of the concepts.

Analysis of the results according to need

After the survey, the data can be analyzed and processed in different depths. In the standard evaluation, the employee perspective (from the Trust Index) and the organizational perspective (Culture Brief and Culture Audit) are compared. In this way, initial discrepancies between the perceived and the designed workplace culture can be uncovered. This evaluation can be broken down to individual dimensions and questions.

An even deeper insight into the workplace culture is provided by the impact analysis, in which the Trust Index questions are categorized in a strengths and potential matrix.

If desired, the level of detail of the analyses can be increased, for example by breaking down results to individual teams.

The grand finale: from Great Place To Work certification to Best Workplaces

A distinction is made between the Great Place To Work certification and the Best Workplaces™ award - one of the best employers in Switzerland. Organizations achieve certification if they achieve at least a score of 65% in the Trust Index and submit the completed Culture Brief. The certification can be awarded monthly and is valid for one year from the date of publication. If organizations achieve a score of at least 70% in the Trust Index, they qualify for the Best Workplaces award, which is awarded to one of the best employers in Switzerland.

However, the culture audit, i.e. the part with the measures already implemented for the workplace culture, must also be submitted for this. If the organizations also meet the minimum requirements in the Culture Audit, they are recognized as one of the Best Workplaces™ in Switzerland at the annual award ceremony in addition to being certified. The great thing about this: a greater signal effect and unlimited validity!

Making success visible: Communication and promotion of certification

Both the certification as a Great Place To Work and the award as one of the Best Workplaces are cause for celebration! We support organizations with various elements, above all our communication package with company profile, logo package and social media posts. We also offer various ready-to-use items with the Great Place To Work logo that make success tangible: In addition to stickers for notebooks or on company cars, we offer seating cubes suitable for any meeting room or the small version in the form of squeezies that fit on any office desk (and incidentally are great for helping to reduce stress when squeezing). Together with partners, we also offer the option of videos, social media campaigns, poster campaigns or online banner advertising. But these are just a few of the options - there are no limits to your imagination when it comes to communicating the awards!