Good to Great Business – What differentiates the Employer of Choice?

Companies today dangle all sorts of unique ‘carrots’ in a bid to attract the best and brightest. All the more so as the Gen Y workforce grows. These high-performance and high-maintenance multi-taskers increasingly eschew monetary incentives for better Work-Life balance. Employers are realizing that you can’t just make the employee work; they have to want to work.

How can organizations move beyond merely acknowledging the importance of Work-Life Harmony, to making it a viable – and profitable – option for their employees and the company as a whole?

As a non-profit organization with limited resources, Focus on the Family Singapore has found our solution in a well-executed Work-Life strategy involving two key features:

Education and Training
The Heart of Success workshop that educates staff on the importance of Personal Work-Life Effectiveness is an important component of our Training and Development programs. This helps the organization operate at a sustainable pace for long-term growth and also sends a strong signal to new hires that our Management takes their personal welfare seriously.

Measurable Outcomes
Organizations can experience dismal take-up rates on their Work-Life programs despite having an array of options available. Employees typically feel reluctant to tap into these resources as they worry about being perceived as less committed or worse still, getting penalized! It is thus crucial that Management evaluates employees on the deliverables (quantity and quality of work done) rather than the number of hours they spend in the office. Setting KPIs empowers each employee with the flexibility to achieve their targets regardless of how or when they choose to work.

The results for us are tangible. Our team of mostly Gen Y staff is highly motivated and passionate, which has translated into better delivery of our family life programs and a great place to work!

Joanna Koh-Hoe, President of Focus on the Family Singapore, is a recipient of the Work-Life Leadership Award 2010. Focus on the Family Singapore is a local IPC charity dedicated to Helping Families Thrive and received the Work-Life Excellence Award 2010. Log on to www.family.org.sg for information on The Heart of Success personal work-life effectiveness program.