Blogs

Last week, the 900 attendees at the 10th annual Great Place to Work Conference voted Cirrus Logic the Grand Prize Winner of the Great Place to Work “We ♥ Our Workplace” video contest. Cirrus Logic received the Grand Prize, a $5000 award to be donated to Cirrus Logic’s charity of choice: The Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM), an organization that provides affordable care services for Austin's low-income, uninsured working musicians.

CEO Chris Van Gorder Keynotes at The 2013 Great Place to Work® Conference
After months of preparing for (and looking forward to) our annual Conference, it feels like Day 1 flew right by. We are now halfway through Day 2, and our team is heady with inspiration and content to share with you over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I would like to share with folks who were unable to attend this year's event the highlights from this morning's Keynote.

This year marked the first Great Place to Work® Healthcare Summit, where nearly 100 leaders from healthcare organizations across the U.S. discussed the importance of a strong workplace culture in the complex and ever-changing healthcare industry.

As I sat outside on a perfect, sunny day in Silicon Valley, watching dogs play in the grass, and men in suits ride by on brightly colored bicycles, I found it hard to believe what I was hearing. A group from Great Place to Work had just finished a tour of Google’s Mountain View campus, led by three members of Google’s People Operations team. “It’s not really about the perks,” they insisted. Sure, I thought, as I adjusted my chair so I could get a better angle on the outdoor volley ball game that had just started up, and slipped out of my jacket to get some sun on my arms.

People who know me know that the start of the Great Place to Work® Conference is my second favorite day of the year.  That the Great Place to Work Conference would rate more highly than Christmas, my birthday speaks volumes about this event - and perhaps about my passion for our work.

5 Things that Differentiate Great Place to Work’s Best Companies Lists:
With so many “Best Companies” lists out there, you may question if participating in our list is worth the effort.  Let me break down for you why our Best Companies to Work For lists still set the gold standard.

3 Steps to an Innovative Workplace

Building a “Culture of Innovation” is certainly a hot topic these days, and rightly so; hiring great innovators almost universally coincides with being both successful and a great workplace. However, with all the information floating around on the topic, it still remains elusive.

Are your employees brand ambassadors?
What you do within the confines of your office is important, but so is what you do when you step outside. We all attend events and represent our companies. The way you treat those you interact with outside the company is a direct reflection of your organization’s culture.

Management Practice Area 1 of 9: Inspiring
Workplace culture can be a fuzzy concept for some, which is why Great Place to Work® has designed a framework for examining company culture. The key to this framework is frontline management; our 9 Practice Areas are the critical areas where managers have a direct impact on workplace culture. Today we review Inspiring.

Robert Levering, Co-founder of Great Place to Work® speaks at last year's Annual Conference
Robert Levering, Co-founder of Great Place to Work® gave the opening keynote at last year's Conference, in which he reflected on the company's first twenty years. In doing so, he shared his belief that by 2032 – another twenty years from now – great workplaces will be prevalent and fully mainstream.