Top Takeaways from The Year’s Biggest Workplace Conferences

SVP of Leverage Concierge Cathy Leibow is a regular contributor to HuffPost. See Leibow’s recent article below, originally published on HuffPost.

What does it take to scale a company to 15,000 employees? How do you maintain culture? How do you grow responsibly?

At an inspiring panel at the Great Place to Work 2017 Conference in Chicago, Genentech co-founder Herb Boyer shared, “There was an evolution of the culture that was originally built for the scientists, and then by osmosis, it diffused into the whole organization. I think people began to realize that they were appreciated as much as the scientists were, and the scientists appreciated everybody that worked in the organization…It evolved over the years to a culture in which everyone felt that they were doing something meaningful.”

As someone who has built a career helping companies become best places to work, I could not agree more with Herb Boyer’s statements on the value of cultivating purpose, meaning and appreciation to drive business growth and success.

It is always inspiring to hear industry giants and thought leaders share their vision, challenges, and big ideas for the future, which is exactly what happened at this year’s Great Place to Work 2017 Conference in Chicago and the WorldatWork Conference in Washington DC. After attending multiple thought-provoking seminars and listening to a variety of best practices, here are my top take-aways from these events:

1. Branding Benefits to Culture Strengthens Buy-In: At the WorldatWork conference, one of the more interesting sessions I attended was conducted by Kristen Brown, Director of Benefits for JetBlue. JetBlue’s mission is safety, integrity, caring, fun and passion. I liked that they incorporated their name into the branding for their benefit programs – “Blue Benefits” – and designed a total rewards mascot called “Opty”. With over 20,000 employees (most of them at airports or flying in the skies), it is challenging to convey a consistent and strong message about benefits. By using brand names that are relevant to the population, communication becomes easier and more fun (which ties back to their mission statement).

2. Why We Need to Create a Great Place to Work For All (GPTW4ALL): The Great Place to Work conference’s closing keynote (“Why We Need to Create a GPTW4ALL’’) really summarized the entire conference. According to Michael C. Bush, CEO of the Great Place to Work Institute, it is critical to provide a culture of trust within company culture. This messaging needs to come from the top down in order to be successful. That’s why there were so many Chairmen and CEOs of major companies speaking at the conference about how they successfully transformed their businesses by making sure the needs of their diverse workforce are being met.

3. New Workforce Trends are Shaping the Future of Benefits: Both conferences included a lot of discussion about women inequality, the impact Millennials and Gen Z are having on the workplace, and how cultural shifts in modern families are reshaping workplace benefits. Positive benefit trends include more generous paternity leaves, flexible scheduling, student loan repayment support, and errand running services specifically targeted to busy working parents.

Up next, I will be attending the Benefits Forum and Expo in Boca Raton, FL this September, and presenting alongside longtime client, Ken McCollum, Vice President of NorthBay Healthcare, and ACI’s new VP of Marketing and Technology, Timothy Mutrie, on the topic, “How Unique Benefits Create Best Places to Work.” It has been incredibly rewarding to build a corporate concierge program with Ken McCollum that supports his passion in making NorthBay Healthcare a best place to work, and we are excited to share how any organization can create a successful best place to work action plan.