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Creating a great workplace where staff are excited to turn up to each morning may have something to do with a huge paycheck.<\/p>\n
But how do small business do this on a budget and without the flashy pool tables, expensive chillout gaming zones or lavish Christmas parties on a tropical island?<\/p>\n
The secret is quite simple says Zrinka Lovrencic, Managing Director of workplace and consulting firm Great Places To Work Australia which recently named the best Aussie workplaces \u2014 employees need to feel at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great workplace is one where you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do and enjoy the people you work with,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to give your staff a reason to stay. It\u2019s not about the money. It\u2019s about making them feel valued and part of the team \u2014 knowing that they are part of the success or failure of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ronnie Altit, GM of collaborative IT Services firm Insentra which finished eighth in the GPTW list, said as a small business owner he had a unique opportunity to create a great workplace culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe benefit of starting my own business has been the opportunity to create a workplace that does all the things I loved when working for someone else; removing all the processes, behaviours and things I hated and implementing the things I wished for,\u201d he told The Huffington Post Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterestingly, the things I love are the same things others love: safety, trust, high achieving, being treated like an adult, having my concerns listened too and addressed, consistency in behaviour from the CEO through to management \u2014 one voice, one culture, one team, one dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA great workplace is not just about financial or other rewards, rather it is about creating a safe environment for people to be the best that they can be.\u201d\u00a0\u2014Ronnie Altit<\/p>\n
Altit said flashy perks may attract some employees, but they are superficial.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great workplace is not just about financial or other rewards, rather it is about creating a safe environment for people to be the best that they can be and to do the best they can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur people are my number one priority and that is not rhetoric \u2014 it\u2019s fact. Nothing takes precedence over our team. Without them we would be nothing and would have no clients. We created this culture by being real, consistent in our behaviour (words are just words) and truly caring for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Justin Dry and Andre Eikmeier, Co-Founders of uber cool online wine retailer Vinomofo, says hiring the right people in the first place is key \u2014 and being upfront about the kind of culture employees are walking into.<\/p>\n
The pair\u2019s \u201cno bowtie, no BS\u201d approach to their business as one for wine lovers but not wine wankers has always been upfront. Customers love being part of the cool tribe that eschews the need to talk about notes of pear on the palette and even began the tradition of calling themselves \u201cmofos\u201d and \u201cmofettes\u201d thanks to their unique business name.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s from this base that most of their employees have emerged.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAround 90 percent of the people that we actually employ are currently mofos. So they get the culture of the business before they even apply for the job. They know what to expect, they know what we believe in, they know they are going to work hard but it\u2019s going to be super fun at the same time,\u201d Dry told HuffPost Australia.<\/p>\n
Vinomofo\u2019s staff have also bonded over the company\u2019s philanthropic initiatives \u2014 they became the first workplace to foster a rescue dog and each month they \u201cVinobomb\u201d around 10 people who are nominated by the public for doing incredible work in the community or globally but who rarely receive any kind of recognition.<\/p>\n
Altit says all employees know the ground rules from the very first interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts from me interviewing every candidate and being very clear about the behaviours we recognise and those that we do not tolerate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Altit says managing your workplace culture is all about the execution. Small business owners simply can\u2019t take their eye off the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly believe the reason cultures change as organisations grow is because the leaders of the business start to focus in different areas and forget to focus on the most critical aspect \u2014 the people who make stuff happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Altit says the company shares the success and accomplishments of its staff, but also invites feedback.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage all of our staff to let us know if they have \u2018a pebble in their shoe\u2019 so we can shake it out before it becomes a blister \u2014 it\u2019s much easier to remove a pebble than to heal a blister,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Altit believes in being completely transparent with his staff, even when others disagree.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to create a great culture, especially as the business grows, you must remain true to your values and maintain the level of open relationship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the years I have been told that what I was doing didn\u2019t really fit \u2018best practice\u2019 and as we grew would definitely not be sustainable. I call bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altit says Insentra offers a flexible workplace where the team is measured on their output, not the hours worked or location.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a well accepted system but sometimes you need to remind staff of the boundaries when new staff take off at 2pm and don\u2019t tell anyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lesson we learnt is that whilst you can provide benefits such as flexibility, it is very important to provide the framework and to educate the team how to use the benefit appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/21\/2021\/02\/27d51374af_31MnP2IBWCL.png\" "\\"View")
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Read the original article here ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Creating a great workplace where staff are excited to turn up to each morning may have something to do with a huge paycheck. But how do small business do this on a budget and without the flashy pool tables, expensive chillout gaming zones or lavish Christmas parties on a tropical island? The secret is quite… Continue reading How Small Business Can Create A Great Workplace On A Budget<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-workplace","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}