Our Mission and values
The Great Place to Work® Institute is dedicated to helping organisations understand and practice the qualities and behaviours that lead to the creation of great workplaces. This effort leads to improved financial performance for the organisation and enhanced quality of work life for employees.
Any company can be a Great Place to Work®
Our approach is based on the major findings of 20 years of research - that trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the best-performing workplaces.
From an employee perspective, a great place to work is one in which you
- Trust the people you work for
- Have pride in what you do, and
- Enjoy the people you work with
At the heart of this definition is the idea that a great workplace is measured by the quality of the three, interconnected relationships between employees and management; employees and their jobs; and employees and their colleagues.
From the management perspective, we define a great place to work as one in which you
- Achieve your organisational objectives with
- People who give their personal best and
- Work together as a team
The Great Place to Work® Institute offers services that help companies and institutions to build on their strengths and shows them where opportunities for improvement within these three key relationships will enhance their workplaces. The Institute's tools go far beyond typical employee surveys and appraisal methods to uncover a wide variety of management practices and attitudes that are often overlooked.
Enhancing the workplace brings in results
In a great workplace, how people are treated is important. Creating a great working environment is considered a valid objective of the company. This contrasts with the conventional business assumption that the only legitimate objective of a company is to increase profits. In a great workplace, both goals are seen as compatible. Indeed, good employers that create the best possible workplace may enhance a firm's ability to perform well financially. But they insist that having a great workplace cannot be merely another strategy to make money. Quite the reverse. Rather than stifling employees' lives to make money, a great workplace also sees profits as a means of enhancing employees' lives.
Some companies have been doing this for years because they inherently know the rewards such a culture will yield. Our goal is to help your organisation integrate this approach into its workplace and work habits.
Social implications
Great workplaces enrich the lives of the people working there. Everyone, after all, would prefer working in a pleasant working environment to an unpleasant one. Since most of us spend the greater part of our waking hours at work, this in itself is no small matter.
The quality of our workplaces has major social implications. We're all familiar with the symptoms of bad workplaces - the personal stress, the erosion of physical and mental health, the lower productivity. A society of great workplaces, where people have confidence in management and are respected, would be a superior place for everyone, and is a key long-term element of our mission.
