Blogs

Keynote Speaker Scott McNealy
Speaking at this year's 10th Annual Great Place to Work® Conference is Keynote Scott McNealy, Chairman of Wayin. For those of you unfamiliar with the co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems, I thought I would provide a bit of background on this impressive leader in workplace culture.

A Deep Commitment to Ethical Leadership

I was recently talking with a colleague about the ethical and moral choices that people need to make at work and the increased attention that many workplaces are paying to questions of culture and values in their hiring decisions. Our conversation prompted me to look through the materials collected at the Great Place to Work Institute as part of the Best Companies selection process.

Last year, we asked companies applying for the 100 Best Companies to Work For® list to name their top three priorities for 2013. While it's no surprise most organizations will be focused on healthcare, it was nice to see so many taking into account employees' overall well-being and work-life balance, knowing this is imperitive to keeping any workforce in tip top shape.

The Benefits of Critical Thinking
“Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better.” - Dr. Richard Paul
Perhaps one of the most valued features of the practice of meta-thinking is its ability to help one develop, whether in life or in the workplace.

What Great Leaders Have in Common

I was quite inspired this morning watching the President’s inauguration and listening to the many speeches and readings in honor of the great tradition of leadership transition that we celebrate on inauguration day. I was particularly taken by the many ways in which people called out for all of us to reach for a higher purpose in our work, our lives and our interactions with others.

Last year, we asked companies applying for the 100 Best Companies to Work For® list to name their top three priorities for 2013. While our list publication ordinarily reflects on what the Best Companies achieved over the past year, this year, we focus on where these forward-thinking, culture conscious companies are headed.

16 years of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® list and the franchise is still going strong.  When Great Place to Work initiated our relationship with FORTUNE magazine to select the country’s best workplaces annually, we hoped, but never realized, just how big the list would become.

Workplaces for people
We should design workplaces for people first, then for work. If we re-frame the typical workplace-employee association from a workplace being an environment employees go to do work, to the workplace is a product employees use to produce work, then we can observe how well a product serves its user.

Last year, we asked companies applying for the 100 Best Companies to Work For® list to name their top three priorities for 2013. While our list publication ordinarily reflects on what the Best Companies achieved over the past year, this year, we focus on where these forward-thinking, culture conscious companies are headed.

How to avoid low morale? By getting your employees excited! And you can’t do this with run-of-the-mill people practices like casual Fridays or annual bowling trips. After all, if your policies aren’t inspired, how will they inspire employees? So let’s step it up a notch.