Get a perfect six and be the best place to work

Lord Mark Price, founder of WorkL, says having a great boss drives high levels of employee happiness

I am often asked what makes a “Best Place to Work”? My answer is always the same: no matter where you work – having a great boss.

Having a great boss drives high levels of employee happiness, of which the winners of the inaugural Australian Best Places to Work Awards, powered by WorkL, all have.

Our research at wider WorkL, gathered from more than one million employees through our Happy At Work Test, shows a correlation between the score an employee gives to the question “I have a good relationship with my manager” and their overall happiness at work score. The reason is straightforward: great managers deliver all of the things that make people want to come to work and do well.

■ The full list of The Australian Best Places to Work 2024 is here.

The organisations who have qualified as Australian Best Places to Work score a huge 12.9 per cent higher for employee happiness, or overall engagement, than the average scores of all Australian organisations from WorkL’s Happy at Work Test. This is even more prevalent for disabled employees, who score 13.9 per cent higher at the Best Places to Work.

To be credible as a leader, you have to have technical qualifications and/or experience to win the respect of those you lead – vital if you are to coach people to develop and improve their performance – as they are the foundation on which to build management skills. Those skills are often referred to as soft skills but I’ve always preferred to call them core skills. Below are the six key things great leaders do, day in day out, which brings them loyal followers and allows them to achieve better results than their peers.

1. Reward and recognition

To begin with they pay their people fairly and have honest conversations about where their pay sits against others and elsewhere and how it can be improved. They understand all workers need a degree of flexibility in their working arrangements from time to time and work to accommodate that. But what great leaders do is notice when someone has done something well and take the time to praise them for it. Doing this regularly buys a licence for the manager to coach a team member when something hasn’t gone as well. The criticism feels balanced. So many managers forget the praise and only criticise.

● The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average Australian organisation by 11.3 per cent for Reward and Recognition.

2. Information sharing

Great managers keep their teams informed about all that is happening in their department and the wider organisation. The are able to effectively communicate the organisation’s plan. They help them feel “plugged in” and have a context for their work. They listen to the views and ideas of their team and where extra training or development is required they arrange it.

● The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average Australian organisation by 11.7 per cent for information sharing.

3. Empowerment

Great managers train their people and then leave them to get on with the job. They don’t micro-manage, they trust their people to deliver and when they do they praise them. And when they could do something better, they use it as an opportunity to develop them. They treat all employees whatever their background with respect and demand the same from others.

● The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average Australian organisation by 11.2 per cent for empowerment.

4. Wellbeing

Great managers care about the wellbeing of everyone in their team. They are interested in their health, their family and their life. They notice if a team member is looking anxious or depressed and look to support. Great managers create a safe and protective working environment where people can be themselves.

●The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average organisation here by 14.6 per cent for wellbeing.

5. Sense of pride

Great managers are able to explain why someone’s job is important to the department and the company so that an individual feels they are doing something worthwhile and of importance. That helps them feel proud about where they work and what they do. At its best, an employee would tell friends and family what a great place they work at and how they should also get a job there.

● The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average Australian organisation by 14.3 per cent for instilling pride.

6. Job satisfaction

Great managers are approachable. They are concerned about your career development and personal development. They will actively coach, recommend training and help you get the right job to suit your skills and personality. It is these six areas that dictate how you feel at work and all of them, to a greater extent, are delivered by your line manager. If the manager does the above, the department feels well run; if however any of the above are missing then the department will misfire and our research shows staff turnover and sick absence will be higher and productivity lower.

● The Australian Best Places to Work outperform the average Australian organisation by 13.4 per cent for job satisfaction.

Lord Mark Price is the founder of WorkL.