Patience and Perseverance

I spoke with the CEO of a 90 person company a few days ago about the process of motivating people. His company has been focused on the process for a little over three years and he described some of the ups and downs. His advice for those wanting to create a passionate workforce or who are in the process of doing so was to be aware of the incredible amount of patience and perseverance it truly takes to make it happen.

He said there were days when he thought all of this “human stuff” was a waste of time and effort. But he went on to say that once things fell into place and people believed that this was not a HR initiative or a theme of the month, when they believed that the entire company was on board with making it a great place to work, the results were undeniable. Managers trusted their people to do right. People believed their opinions mattered and their work was important. In the end, they obliterated the company goals.

Great Place to Work Institute, Inc. says a workplace is great when employees trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do and enjoy the people they work with. As I have seen and been told, to accomplish this is much easier said than done. And it doesn’t happen overnight.

The first step is to say you want to be a great place to work. The next step is to live it. And keep living it through the ups and downs.