Money?  Perks?  Potential?  Attention?  Challenges?

Jason Calacanis, early investor in Uber, a company notorious for its poor workplace culture, interviewed Mathilde Collin, Co-Founder and CEO at Front, one of the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley and having a stellar 5.0 rating on Glassdoor with 26 reviews!  The video and podcast were published in September 2017 on Jason’s This Week in Startups.

During the interview, at around 47:15, Jason asks Maithilde, “How do you make people happy at work?  What are the most effective techniques?  Money?  Perks?  Potention?  Challengers?”

Transparency!

“From what I’ve seen, it’s transparency.  I believe that people are happy when they’re engaged, and when they know why they’re doing what they’re doing, and I feel like the best way to achieve that, especially — and it’s easier when you’re a small company, and more challenging when you grow up, but you should keep doing it — is to share everything,” says Maithilde.

She goes on to say, “We share everything at Front.  I do believe there are many reasons why people are happy to come to work, but if I could give one, I think people are engaged. They really care about Front because they know everything about what’s going on.”

Jason adds, “So transparency.  Being engaged.”

“Transparency makes them feel like a leader too, like they’re really valued if they can see all the information.“

Communicating at Scale, Especially for the Frontline 

How do you scalably create transparency in your workplace environment?  Do you have 1:1s?  Town halls?  We specialize in increasing communication between management and employees through an interactive workplace communication platform — a kiosk — that allows for two-way communication by collecting feedback from employees and by sharing announcements from management.

According to Quartz, almost 70% of respondents in a Gallup survey found “communicating in general” to be the hardest part about communicating with employees.  Only 13% of respondents in the Gallup survey said that their company’s leadership communicates effectively with the rest of the organization. Yet, for those employees who are able to share with management their goals and successes, they are 2.8x more likely to be engaged at work!

Communication is dynamic, it’s active, and it’s something that needs to happen regularly.  At Qlicket, we pride ourselves on our daily engagement rates, getting participation from 45% of the workforce every single workday through our kiosks, which are entirely optional, and 90% from our desktop app solution, which includes a skip button after a few seconds.  Before investing more in compensation and benefits, start by being more transparent — which will cost you less and also make your employees happier!