LAS VEGAS — Strong workplace culture and a
positive employee experience are two ingredients for creating a great place to
work.
That’s according to TV personality and
businesswoman Martha Stewart, who said it’s important to value and invest in
employees if employers want to retain them. That's especially important since
companies are challenged to find workers with unemployment remaining low and
the war for talent raging on.
It’s imperative to value employees at all
levels of an organization, she said.
“There are jobs for every kind of person,” she
said Sunday, speaking at the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual
conference in Las Vegas. “In our company, I valued the ladies who made the
coffee and cleaned the kitchens as much as I value the executives sitting in
the board and conference rooms.”
Stewart founded media and merchandising
company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which recently sold to brand
licensing, acquisition and development company Marquee Brands. Stewart said the
acquisition has taught her how HR plays a big role in helping workers adapt to
change.
“You have to take it upon yourself to make
sure everybody is in a good place,” she said. Good leaders in your HR
departments prioritize listening, she continued. They will learn, accept change
and focus on developing employees and your workplace culture.
It's crucial to reinvest in your workers and
encourage them to stay up to date with current events — both in the news and on
social media, she added.
“You have to keep abreast of what is going on
and pay attention to it,” she said. “Not everything is good. Not everything is
useful, but everything should be acknowledged.”
Having a well-written employee handbook also
helps, she added. There is great value in defining company culture through this
tool.
“It really helped people understand what the
culture was,” she said. “You have to have that total understanding between you
and the employees so they know what they’re in for.”
She also feels strongly about encouraging
diversity in the workplace. Stewart, who spent five months in jail in 2004 on
charges of obstruction of justice, stressed that it is important to reach out
to prospective employees who may have a criminal record. The message dovetails
with SHRM’s recent initiative, Getting Talent
Back to Work, which focuses on getting those who were previously
incarcerated back into the workplace.
“I learned a lot in those five months,” she
said of her time in a federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. "Making
the best of such a horrible event in one's life — it's hard. You must have the
inner strength to look forward and not back."
In addition to second chances, she said ageism
is playing a role in the loss of talent. The average age of employees at her
company is 30, and Stewart said she particularly values the opinions of younger
workers who bring a fresh perspective.
“I had always liked working with younger
people,” she said. “Embrace the young, embrace what they bring to the party and
learn from them while teaching them the old tricks.”
But it’s not just about the younger employees,
she also advocates to keep workers from retiring before they’re ready.
“I think that’s such a waste of talent,” she
said. She encouraged companies to rethink their bylaws and encourage workers to
continue their careers.
“[The employee’s] knowledge and what they can
contribute is invaluable,” she added. “[Employers lose] that institutional
knowledge they take away with them when forced into retirement.”
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