Ancestry.com has created a unique culture for its mid-sized employee base. Located in Provo, Utah, the company's headquarters offers breathtaking views and a fun, family-like work environment. Like many others in his field, Ancestry.com's Zach Pino realizes that corporate culture, not compensation, is what attracts and keeps employees long term.
Culture vs. Compensation
For Ancestry.com, success has come from focusing on providing both culture and career opportunities to workers. Pino said he's found that when a business focuses solely on providing the most competitive pay and benefits, that company gets a more neutral attitude toward the company. It's important that a worker buy into the company itself, not just the paycheck.
As an IT manager, retaining employees is important to your credibility. It's not enough to simply be able to locate and recruit the best minds in the industry, but also to be able to keep those minds for more than a few months. There are a few things IT managers can do to increase employee retention.
Creating a Culture
When it comes to creating a culture that appeals to today's technology workers, "fun" seems to be the underlying theme. Taking creative approaches to daily activities is a great place to start. Bringing in food for staff meetings or gamifying training are a great way to involve employees in a memorable way.
BloomReach's Alissa Rogers emphasizes the importance of training, especially for younger workers. New workers consider training an essential part of developing a career and to remain competitive, businesses should offer that training as a job perk. In addition to other perks, managers can ensure worker longevity by creating an empathetic, efficient management style that makes workers want to perform well.
How can you create a stronger corporate culture to more closely bond your workers to your organization? Ice cream for the office? A company social mixer outside of work? Career development ?
Investing in culture and career is the key to attracting and retaining top talent.