The
Great Work Blog

Being a great place to work is more than winning a “Best Place to Work” competition and displaying the trophy in your reception area. Organizations are discovering they need a great workplace to create and maintain a competitive advantage in their market. Great places to work differentiate themselves by attracting exceptional talent and outperforming the competition.

Every company and organization wants that, right?

We recognize this in our tagline: Great Work Deserves Its Place.^TM It’s what drives us to create exceptional environments where our clients can perform their great work. And we want you to have a great place to work. Even if you’re not a client of ours, you can use the resources below to improve your workplace.

Employee engagement has received a lot of press over the last several years. There's a good reason. Roughly one-third of the global workforce is disengaged. Leaders cannot ignore this because it translates into a bottom line issue for companies. According to a study by Towers Watson, this results in a 32.7% decline in operating income for companies with low levels of employee engagement. Meanwhile, companies with high levels of employee engagement enjoyed a 19% increase in operating income.

What can we do about this trend? It turns out, how we design the spaces we work in can affect employee engagement. Christine Congdon, Editor of 360 Magazine & Director, Global Research Communications, discusses new data from the Steelcase Global Report and how leaders should create a Resilient Workplace to help employees become more engaged.

Workplace issue #3: Engaging Talent

Attract, Develop, and Engage Great Talent

Successful businesses today need a place where people really want to work. Without that, they will struggle to draw and keep their top talent. So, what makes an office engaging? Skype surveyed users and decision makers in the U.S. to measure how companies are using workspace and technology to engage with highly sought-after tech pros:

• 62% of firms say about a third of their employees spend 40% of their time working remotely
• Decision makers say flexible and remote work options help them attract the best talent and keep them on staff
• The top three factors determining job satisfaction are salary (identified by 55% of respondents), the quality of the work environment (37%), and flexibility to work outside the office or at home (33%)

Our Story is Part of Your Story

After more than 50 years serving businesses in Houston and Austin, Texas, we have seen a lot of changes occur in our markets and in workplace culture. Since 1962, the workplace has changed dramatically, but one thing has stayed the same. 

Businesses face a laundry list of challenges.

In Houston right now, many businesses are dealing with the drop in oil prices. The Houston economy is more resilient than it once was. Higher education, medical and technology industries continue to grow, but there is still a ripple effect from the decline in upstream oil and gas. In Austin, our customers are facing an entirely different challenge: the battle for talent and quality office space. While residential and commercial development is still strong in Houston, it is BOOMING in Austin. Companies are vying for talented workers and premium square footage as startups continue to grow and west coast businesses flood into the state's capitol.

Companies and organizations in both Austin and Houston are looking for answers to their differing business dilemmas. If you're one of them, some of these answers can come from looking within the four walls of your office. We have a couple of articles that will show you how.