Be trusting
I’ve always championed the notion that the holiday allowance as a policy is past its sell by date. Good people want to do what is best for the company, they won’t take advantage, they’ll appreciate that you trust them to use their sense and discretion around things like leave and travel expenses, they can manage this stuff themselves. Managers should be concentrating on team-building not admin.
Allow choice and discretion around employee driven remuneration packages and working practices – let people work when and where they want. Pay competitive salaries and encourage people to benchmark their worth in the wider marketplace. Treat staff like adults. Offer stock options as a trade off against salary, with options that vest immediately so employees can make their own decisions about what they hold and for how long. Netflix doesn’t have a bonus scheme: "If your employees are fully formed adults who put the company first, an annual bonus won't make them work harder or smarter”.
Set up CEO and senior management ‘pop-ups’, what you need to do is build alignment around success and motivation by showing your people how they fit into the bigger strategy of the organisation. Focus on what the company needs and how to communicate that to the employees in meaningful terms that talk to them about how the company is doing and what behaviours drive success.
I’ve long maintained that HR professionals need to think like business people. Ask yourself: “What’s good for the company? How do we communicate that to employees? How can we help every worker understand what we mean by high performance?”
Success depends on having a genuine feeling for culture, employer branding, learning motivation, reward and all the things that make an organisation tick. HR policies and practices should facilitate corporate growth, minimise “rules” and cultivate flexibility to encourage solid loyalty and engagement, thus creating long-term talent retention.