The Role of Workspace in Talent Attraction and Retention
In today’s challenging economic climate, top talent is crucial for the long-term success of every company. For the last 3 years, attracting and retaining top talent ranks as the top concern for CEOs globally. This is only going to become more important in years to come.
Without high-performing people, your company will be less innovative, productive, and successful. However, attracting and retaining top talent is difficult. Finding high-performing staff and persuading them to work at your company can be a difficult, time-consuming, and costly process. Equally important is retaining your current high performers.
There is much more to attracting & retaining talent than a competitive salary. A great culture, wellbeing, and career growth opportunities are all essential. One often overlooked aspect is the importance of providing a great workspace experience. Your staff spend most or all of their working lives in your office. Making it an enjoyable and productive place to be is essential. A great workspace can become a magnet for talent. It improves employee wellbeing, engagement, and productivity. Ultimately, this inevitably leads to an improvement in overall business performance.
At Zentura, we’ve been designing and building high-performance workspaces for over 15 years. In our experience, there are 4 key ways workplace design can impact your talent attraction and retention. Here, we’ll explain why each of these areas matters for talent attraction and retention, and how you can improve them in your workspace. But first, why is top talent so crucial to the success of your business?
The Importance of Top Talent
It’s important to recognise the importance of high-performing staff in your business. A recent study found that high performers are 4 times as productive than average ones. For complex roles such as software development or management, the gap rises to 8 times.
The workspace needs of high-performing staff differ from average staff. It’s important you listen especially carefully to your top talent. Designing for top talent is not about slides and snooker tables. It’s about providing an engaging environment that helps them to maximise both personal and company performance.
First Impressions
Your office will be one of the key first impressions that prospective recruits get about your company, so you need to make sure it’s a good one. A survey of 1,000 UK office workers found that almost half of respondents agree that the room where they were interviewed would influence their opinion of whether or not to accept a job offer. Top talent have no shortage of options for new jobs, so you need to deliver a first impression that differentiates you from your competition.
So how can you improve the first impressions that your workspace gives? The two key areas are your reception and the area where candidates will be interviewed. Your reception needs to provide a welcoming, on-brand experience. For the interviews themselves, the area needs to be spacious and on-brand. Interviewing a candidate in a cramped, sterile meeting room will make them feel uncomfortable. It will also give a lasting impression that this is what your company is like.
Culture
Culture is as important to retention as first impressions are to recruitment. While a great workspace alone will not create a great culture, it is very difficult to produce a great culture without one. A great culture in your office will lead to your staff contributing more. They will also stay at your company longer, and collaborate better with colleagues.
There are 9 key components of culture. These are vision & values, processes, communication, leadership, learning & development, environment, recognition, compensation, and wellbeing. Your workplace model plays a big role in three of those: communication, environment and wellbeing.
Having a vibrant space that brings your brand to life space boosts employee morale and leads to higher satisfaction. Office design can also help support company culture by bringing your brand to life. A workspace that embodies your brand strengthens your culture.
Engagement
Employee engagement is the level to which your people are intellectually and emotionally invested in your company’s success. According to research by the Harvard Business Review, an engaged employee is 45% more productive than a satisfied worker. Teams with thriving workers see lower absenteeism, turnover and accidents. They also see higher customer loyalty. However, staff engagement is rare: just 9% of UK workers felt enthused by their work and workplace in 2022.
There is no 5-step formula to creating an engaged workforce. The path to better staff engagement looks different for every company. Having said that, there are several ways to start improving staff engagement at your company. To maximise your staff engagement, your office should embody your brand. As a result, your people will work in a way far more aligned with your company, and their results will reflect that. You should also promote collaboration to improve staff networks and create a variety of environments that give your people autonomy. This will allow them to work in the environment that suits them best.
Wellbeing
In recent years, both existing and potential staff are placing increased emphasis on their wellbeing. Their office environment is a crucial part of this. 87% of workers would like their current employees to offer healthier workspace benefits. When it comes to attracting new staff, it can be difficult to demonstrate your commitment to wellbeing, rather than just talking about it. A great workspace is one way you can prove to candidates you care about their wellbeing.
The key way you can improve wellbeing with workspace design is by incorporating biophilia. While people may think of biophilia as a few plants around the office and succulents on desks, biophilia is much more than that. It encompasses all the natural elements, finishes, and designs within an office. Psychologists have found introducing biophilia to your office can increase well-being by 47%.
Improving Your Talent Attraction and Retention
Keeping and recruiting the top talent you need has never been so difficult. In a competitive jobs market, only the companies offering the best staff experiences will have access to the top talent.
Your workplace has a crucial role to play in differentiating you from your competitors in the battle for top talent. This starts right from the moment a candidate walks in the door by providing a great first impression. It continues by providing an engaging culture that keeps them engaged and productive. And by keeping them fit and healthy, it maximises their long-term personal performance and wellbeing. As a result, your company will become more innovative and productive, helping you toward your company goals.
Want to know exactly how to adapt your office to improve your talent attraction & retention? Read How to Improve Your Talent Attraction & Retention With Office Design. There, we’ll walk you through 5 of our top considerations when we are designing workspaces for companies that are struggling to hire & keep the kind of people they need, and how you can implement them in your office.
Are you looking to learn more about how your workspace can improve your overall company performance? Read the 8 Ways Office Design Can Improve Company Performance. There, we’ll explain how your workspace can be an investment rather than an expense. We’ll go through the 8 most common benefits of redesigning your office and how you can maximise their impact on your next project.
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