How to Create a Company Culture that IT Employees are Thankful For
Top technical talent will stay at your company a lot longer if they’re thankful for the culture you’ve created. If you want to create a company culture that inspires gratitude and thankfulness from your valuable IT employees, follow these 12 steps.
1. Based on Values: When an employee feels like they share the same values as the company they work for, they’re more likely to stick around. If you want grateful technical employees, make sure their values align with your company’s values during the hiring process.
2. Share the Big Picture: More than ever, technical professionals want to contribute meaningful work and the best way they can do this is if they’re clued in on the big picture for the company. Rather than just assigning tasks, IT employers should focus on communicating the big picture first and then explaining how each employee’s work fits in.
3. Prioritize Work-Life Balance: Expecting employees to constantly show up early, stay late, work on weekends, and work when they’re on vacation is a recipe for disaster. If you want thankful technical employees, you need to prioritize work-life balance.
4. Offer Training Opportunities: As technical employees gain experience on the job, they’re also typically learning in their free time. Help your employees learn and grow by offering training opportunities. This practice is sure to inspire gratitude, longevity, and added value at your organization.
5. Emphasize Both Hard Work and Fun: Working hard is important but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun along the way! Companies that emphasize both hard work and fun on a daily basis have cultures that top technical professionals are thankful for and grateful to be a part of.
6. Celebrate Wins: Don’t let wins slip by unnoticed or unrecognized. If celebrating employee wins, successes, and accomplishments becomes ingrained in your company culture you’ll have an easier time retaining technical employees and they’ll be thankful to be a part of your company.
7. Encourage Fast Failure: When there’s no room for error or mistakes in a company’s culture, everyone is walking on eggshells. If you want your technical employees to be thankful, you need to encourage failing fast and failing often. Embrace those mistakes—and the lessons learned along the way—as part of the process if you want to inspire gratitude and help your IT employees grow.
8. Charitable Initiatives: Giving back can go a long way! If your company has charitable initiatives like paid time off for volunteering, charitable outings or fundraisers, or participates in local community events you’ll foster a culture of thankfulness, gratitude, and service.
9. Listen to Ideas and Input: Want to know what most IT employees are thankful for? Bosses who listen to their ideas and input. If you want your top technical employees to be happy, having an open door policy to new ideas is a great way to start!
10. Offer Competitive Compensation: At the end of the day, it’s hard to be thankful for a job when you know you’re being underpaid and undervalued. Your technical employees will be thankful for competitive compensation and much less likely to jump ship.
11. Hire Intelligently: Taking the time to evaluate your IT team’s needs, hire appropriate support, and choose the best fit for your organization both in personality and skill can go a long way to creating a cohesive, content company culture where everyone is thankful!
12. Provide Growth Opportunities: If you want to inspire gratitude and you want your top technical employees to stay, one of the best things you can do is provide growth opportunities to them along the way. That way, when they’re ready to spread their wings, they don’t have to fly away—they just have to fly to a higher perch within your company.
It’s the season of thankfulness and gratitude! If you want to foster a company culture that inspires these feelings in your top technical employees year-round, make sure you’re doing one or more of the aforementioned 12 things.