The Success Blueprint: Entrepreneurial Insights for Achieving 'Employer of the Year'

We want to help empower those individuals to make informed financial decisions. Well, yes, they may not ever end up being business owners, but if they do, they're empowered with the knowledge to make informed decisions. One of the things that we need to understand is that, yes, there's professional development for them to get skills, but they also need the opportunity to grow in roles and to stretch their capability as well and to be challenged with new opportunities. When you're adding new team members, you need need to be real and honest, be very real about the job description, the expectations. Welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. My name is Bob Govreau. I will be your host today. This is the place, the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. This is the place where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success, from mindset to leadership and profits and revenue. This episode is titled how to be considered for Employer of the Year. And I want to share this one from me. This has been something that has been really, you know, near and dear to me. Been working hard to create an environment where people want to show up and come to work every day and be part of something bigger than themselves. And I'll go back to before I even started this firm. This was one of the core elements of why I left where I was working. I didn't feel like it was a super great work environment. I didn't feel like my work had a whole lot of purpose. In fact, my even my role was in an area that wasn't providing a whole lot of value to me, where I was auditing nonprofit organizations or government agencies or anyone who needed funding from the government ultimately. And for me, although that's very important, a lot of these nonprofits do incredible work, like hospitals and mental health organizations, and they need that audit to get that funding. I wasn't giving the value that I as an individual could do. Anybody could get them that audit report, I felt. But for me, I was focused on that small business owner. And ultimately, I wanted to create an organization that I was excited about that was making a huge difference. Again, those audits are needed for those wonderful organizations. But that wasn't really resonating with me. That wasn't getting my true value out. Empowering entrepreneurs to make informed decisions with good financial information. That's what got me excited, was that if I could help thousands of entrepreneurs and they were helping thousands of people, the exponential impact that we were creating around the world was gonna be amazing and so super proud that that is the foundation of why we created our firm and what I wanted to do from day One was create an environment where people were as passionate about what I do as I am. And I know that's maybe not realistic because I may be one of the most passionate accountants you'll ever meet in your life, but the fact that I work with so many incredible entrepreneurs and so many incredible professionals on my team, you know, continues to give me the energy I need to be successful every single day. And one thing about creating this culture and this environment was that I, I kind of always designed it to say I want to be considered the Employer of the Year. And it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is given all the time, but it's about the fact that we're creating an environment where people are respected, where they have opportunity, where they feel well compensated, cared for, they work in a trusting environment, and they feel like what they're doing is actually making a difference. And so what I wanted to do and, and share with you was, you know, we've won a few Employer of the Year awards. We've been on the top, you know, workplaces in the country. We recognize that we get employee satisfaction results like a net promoter score from our employees. That puts us at the top of our industry and top of our space. But what I wanted to do was share with you 10 key elements of what I feel like being considered for the Employer of the Year actually stems from. And before I say that, I know we're not perfect, but what I can tell you is we're committed to being perfect and to striving to be the best employer that we can be. We're never going to be perfect, but we'll damn well die trying to get there. And so I wanted to share with you the top 10 list of how you could be considered for Employer of the Year. Number one. Clearly define a vision that makes a difference. And, and for us, again, it's empowering entrepreneurs so that you entrepreneurs can go out and do your thing and continue to grow and invest and make a larger impact. And for us, it's being really close and understanding our why, our purpose of what our organization is doing. And if you haven't watched Simon Sinek and his start with why YouTube episode, check that out. I feel like if you were to start your organization off by getting very clear on your purpose and what you believe in as an organizational leader, that you will find that people will want to be part of it, and people want to follow you as a leader and be part of that organization because it's making a difference and its purpose is aligned with what their purpose is. As well. Okay. Number two, employer relations have changed. So the way that jobs were structured before, I know, for me, prior to Covid, everybody was in office. You know, it was nine to five. But things have changed. Covid changed that relationship with employers and employees. And people are demanding new added flexibility. And if you want to be considered a top employer, you have to be flexible in this. It's not meaning that you need to lower your expectations or reduce the outcomes. You just need to help work with your team or on how to create flexible arrangements so that they can do their job, but also take care of things that are important to them as well. So one of the things we've done in here is we've created a different type of work relationship. So we now have remote work opportunities. We also have in person opportunities. So remote employees who value being able to do their laundry, going for a walk during the day with their friend, walk the dog, to make lunch at home, you know, to be there when their kids come home from school. If that's important to them, then that's amazing. The expectations don't change in that role, but it gives them the flexibility to get those things done on their terms. And it also allows us to create a work environment for them so that we can manage expectations on how that happens. They get what they want, the organization and our clients get what they need out of this relationship as well. Then we've got the in person team, the in person team that wants to get out of the house during the day. They want to be surrounded by great people. They want to work in an innovative environment with music and laughter and collaboration. Being able to tap your neighbor on the shoulder and say, can you help me understand this so that I can get better. There's that opportunity for the in person. And sometimes people want to do both. You know, sometimes people want to work from home if the role allows it. You know, I know there's lots of you business owners out there who maybe are working retail and somebody is working the retail floor. You can't do that from home. You know, our customer service team can't really do customer service from home. There's elements of it that you can, but you kind of have to be on the floor to help support people that are coming in the door. And same with the retail side. So one of the things, if you want to become considered employer of the year, you have to create or look at the arrangements and allow flexibility for your team to be able to do things that also are important to them, make sure that they have the flexibility and space to accomplish those things, while also making sure that they still accomplish those outcomes that the organization needs, that the clients need as well. But it's, you know what, it's a changed environment. It's something that's super important. Number three, invest in them. You know, one of the things we've done the last couple years is we actually created a professional development budget and allocated that to each employee. I can't remember how much it is, but it's over a thousand dollars. It might be $1,500 per employee. So every employee knows that we want to invest in them continuing to improve themselves. So it has to be something somewhat related to their job performance. But, you know, if I had managers who wanted to go and become better customer service experts, that is definitely something that I would want them to invest in. And if they wanted to understand how to delegate work better, find that solution, and we will pay for it. We want to help support them making their job easier, making their life easier, and knowing that we're investing in them continuing to get better as well. So if you want to be considered as a top employer or as an employer of the year, you need to make sure that you put resources and, you know, walk the talk of investing in the betterment and growth of the individuals on your team. Number four, feel good causes. And this is our community engagement. And, you know, we talk about the mission and the vision and the values and, you know, what is our purpose, what is our why? And we surround ourselves with that. But then find something that's even outside of work that also fulfills your mission. So again, we want to empower entrepreneurs just like you to have really good information to make informed decisions with confidence, so that when you make these decisions, like reinvesting and growing and helping more people, ultimately, together, exponentially, we change the world. And that is super powerful. But one element of that is in our community, you know, empowering business owners might not necessarily mean you and I who are actively in business. It might mean in the youth, it might mean in students. And it can be really powerful to have a group of individuals on your team. Reach out to local organizations and say, you know what? This really means something to our organization. And there's two particular organizations that we've got initiatives on right now with. One is Junior Achievement. Junior Achievement focuses on the financial literacy of the next generation of individuals in elementary school and in high school, helps them understand basic financial concepts. This is something that's meaningful to us. We want to help empower those individuals to make informed financial decisions well, yes, they may not ever end up being business owners, but if they do, they're empowered with the knowledge to make informed decisions. And you know what, even if they're not entrepreneurs, the fact that we're able to share financial knowledge and trainings and expertise with these young individuals that are up and coming leaders, they might be your next operations manager or client service manager, or even the janitor that comes in out of school and takes that position. But, but if they have better financial literacy, they're gonna be able to make sure that they reinvest more in maybe in their future, which maybe makes their life, their kids life better. This is how we make a positive impact in people's lives and it's pretty powerful. The other organization we're working with right now is Trent University. And I am super excited this year that we're able to share that I've been accepted or actually nominated or promoted, put forward as their CEO in residence for the year, which essentially is, you know, putting a spotlight on me and saying, you know, here's someone who's been super successful in the business world. We want them to come in, we want them to be our CEO in residence, essentially the chairman of the business program for the year. But to help our students understand what opportunities there are in life after Trent, that non academic path, like what does real work look like, what does entrepreneurship look like, what does, you know, financial literacy look like, what does the mortgage environment look like? How do we succeed in life after education? All of those elements which again aligns with our mission that we want to empower entrepreneurs. And again, these are future entrepreneurs. Are they all going to be. No. But if we're empowering these individuals to make informed decisions, they, they're going to be able to make a positive impact in the world. And again that's something we're aligned with. So find your, your feel good causes. We have a committee on our team called our Community Engagement and I would tell you that this probably brings so much more joy than anything we do to our individual team members because they feel like they're part of something that's making a real difference, not just in the entrepreneurial space, but that we're able to actually make a positive impact on our community and the next generation of leaders. We're which is pretty cool. Number five, social fun time. So this has been something interesting that we've had to learn. When we've got a remote environment and we've got an in person environment sometimes, and then there's hybrid, but sometimes they aren't Able to connect all in the same way. So we have to understand how to have social time in a remote environment. And in an in person environment, sometimes they overlap. We bring everybody together once a year. But sometimes we just have to bring the remote team together in a remote space with the online team. But. But also let the on the in person team be able to go and have their social fun as well. So finding what social fun time means to each individual on the team and creating the environment where we can just enjoy being together with people. And yes, sometimes it's during business hours, sometimes it's not, but that's okay. Let's create an environment again where everybody wants to be part of it. That's what allows you to be potential employer of the year. Number six, constant feedback. This has been something that I've learned over the last year. As your organization continues to grow. And if you want, and I would say too post Covid feedback has seemed more and more important because people want to understand where they're going, what their career path looks like, how they're performing. So all of these elements, plus as your organization grows, you have less interaction with every individual. It's not necessarily your choice to do that. But there's now more and more people part of your organization, likely supporting more and more clients. There's a lot more things to be done and the time has not changed. You don't have more time in your life. So naturally your time being spent with team members is going to continue to drop. Now what that means is they don't have that general understanding in talking with you for every, every day for five minutes. Oh, what's going on? How's the business doing? You need to give them constant feedback and direction on how they're doing and how their contribution is helping the organization be successful in achieving their goals. Their goals, the organization's goals. They need to feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves and they need the constant feedback so that they know they're performing in the right way. And it's probably been more important than it ever has in the past. This is something that people need. So if you want to be considered for for employer of the year, you need to have a constant, consistent feedback process. And if you are looking for something like that, make sure in the comments here we're gonna have a link to our million dollar year program. Inside our million dollar year program. We have a schedule for you to have a meeting cadence with your team. We continuously update that. It's so important to have that ongoing communication so if you wanna join, that's just one of the values of our membership is we continuously evolve and our meeting cadence with our team, one that works and based on research from everywhere else. But we need constant feedback if you want to be considered for employer of the year. Number seven, opportunity for advancement and growing talent. So this needs to be something that if you want to be considered employer of the year. People aren't going to consider you employer of the year if they don't have the opportunity to grow. I already talked about the professional development side of things, but one of the things that we need to understand is that yes, there's professional development for them to get skills, but they also need the opportunity to grow in roles and to stretch their capability as well and to be challenged with new opportunities. If you're not growing as an organization, you're not providing that growth opportunity for those individuals. You can't. Because if you're not growing, it's not like all of our expenses are going down. In fact, if you've got people, the likelihood is that they're getting increased compensation every year. If your revenue isn't growing, you're losing more and more money. And yes, you might be still making it, but it's going to go down and down and down. And the expectation is that the team still wants to get more money. Right. But if they don't have the opportunity to move into a more challenging role or to advance, they will start looking external. So if you want to be considered employer of the year, you. You have to provide employees the opportunity for individual growth. Number eight, benefits. So yes, we've all know the standard benefits that are available. You know, health, dental, eye care, prescription medication, private healthcare, if you were to be in the hospital, massage therapy, chiropractic, all of that good stuff, Proactive healthcare solutions. Right. But there is one that I wanted to highlight and again, this has come up over the last few years, especially post Covid and it's been an evolution for years, the awareness around mental health. And it's very important that your employees feel like they're supported with their mental health needs. And I will tell you, as we continue to become more and more aware of, you know, how our bodies work, people are more aware of their need for mental health support. And this is something that means a lot to people. Even if they don't need mental health support. Knowing that you as an organization are supporting that means something to them. Because everybody knows someone who's been impacted by a mental health concern or they've gone through it themselves. So in your benefits plan, make sure people have access to someone to talk to. You know, we just added this to our benefits plan maybe six months ago as well, to give people the opportunity to talk to somebody who is a trained professional. You know, you can talk to your manager only for so long and a lot of that's going to be job related performance. And yeah, you might have friendship or connection, but if you actually need support, mental health support, from someone who knows how to help solve that problem, then you need to have that in your organization. And I think it's very inexpensive for the value that it creates for the employees as well as the care factor that you are demonstrating. Again, you're walking the talk by making sure you're adding this additional benefit to the package. So if you want to be considered an employer of the year, make sure that you have a mental wellness or a mental health benefit plan as part of the overall benefit system in your organization. Number nine, utilization and feeling challenged. One of the elements that I would say a lot of people don't want to be overworked, right? Most people don't want to be overworked. A lot of people take on a lot of added responsibility. And truthfully, those people, we need to be careful with them because they will burn out. And we don't want those people to burn out. We want to reward them with their willingness to support the mission and vision of the organization. We need to protect them a little bit. But there's two types of utilization. There's being fully utilized and there's being underutilized. Being fully utilized is good. It doesn't mean you're being overutilized. Being fully utilized means you're being. Your skills and your knowledge and your abilities are being put to the best sort of experience and opportunity that you have within the organization to showcase that. But the other side of this, and I think this is the dangerous side, is the underutilization. So someone who has talent, skills, experience brings a lot to the table, but they're never given the opportunity to really show it. And maybe they're under worked, which is not a great business plan to begin with, but they're underworked, they're underutilized, they don't feel valued, they don't feel like their contribution is making a huge impact in the world because they're not being given the opportunity to. And this is something that we need to encourage our managers to know, to understand is how to delegate work and put people in the best seats that they need to be in to showcase their talents. And to be performing at their top potential. Because what people want to do is succeed. People don't want to fail in their role. They need support. They need to be put in where they can be fully utilized to make the greatest impact. And when they're being fully utilized and they're performing at a high level, it also gives them the opportunity for advancement. It challenges them to be the best version of themselves. And if you want to take this to the next level, you have an accountability cadence in there where every person who has to be reported to so a manager supervisor, that you're meeting with your team on a regular basis and you're giving them that feedback and you're sharing with them exactly what they can do to be that high performer, to fully utilize their skills and to be a massive asset to the business that you can't afford to to do without. That allows the organization to be successful. That allows the individual to be successful, contribute to something that's bigger than themselves and also gives them the opportunity to advance and be challenged with new roles. And number 10, this is the last one, although I feel like you could probably add a hundred of them in here. The last one is it all starts with recruitment. Be real and honest. So what I mean with this is, you know, we all have an organization. If you don't have your core values defined, which was number one on the list, why are you making a difference? Why should people want to be part of it? You need to very clearly outline that and have that understood in your organization. However, the best place to share this is when you're recruiting people, when you're adding new team members. You need to be real and honest. Be very real about the job description, the expectations. But even more importantly, I feel is be very real about what your mission is, what your vision is and what your core values are. And make sure that that individual who's coming into the organization connects with all of those things. Because if they connect with those things, they will likely be a long term fit. Because the reason they're there is that your purpose aligns with their purpose. And, and if they're very clear on expectations as well, then they're going to know how to perform. When they come into the organization, they're going to likely come hot out of the gates and want to be a high performer. So you can channel that energy, but also that alignment. So make sure if you want to be a considered for employer of the year, that when you're hiring people, you're sharing very clearly the goal goals of the organization. The Mission, the values, the core values and the expectations for that individual. Be honest, be open, be real, share it with them. Because if they come in, it's something different. They'll very quickly lose interest. They won't have that same passion or excitement about being part of the organization because they don't have the same trust factor. So again, I'll do a quick recap. Clearly defined vision of why, what makes us different? Number two, employment arrangements have changed. You need flexibility, remote hybrid, in person. We need to have an opportunity for people to connect with what makes the most sense for them. Number three, professional development. Invest in your team members. Walk the talk. Make sure you're showing and demonstrating that you care about the potential development of them and their future career development as well. Number four, find good causes. Find community engagement. Something that resonates with the mission of the organization and something that you can do locally where your team can be empowered to take the initiative on this and go out and truly make a difference within your community. Really great. Number five, create social fun time. Allow everybody to. They don't have to be friends, but allow them to just create an environment where they can have fun together. Because those who have fun together continue to have each other's back and continue to want to support each other in building something bigger than themselves. Number six, constant feedback. This has changed over the last few years. The requirement now for new employees or even existing employees is that they get constant feedback. If you're not giving them constant feedback on how they're performing or how they're tying into their job performance, they will feel misaligned with the organization. They will start to lose trust and they will start to be essentially disengaged in what it is that they're doing because they don't see how they're contributing to the bigger picture. Number seven, opportunity for advancement, Growing talent. We need to continue to provide opportunity for our team. If we're not growing our organization. You've heard this before. If you're not growing, you're dying. This, this relates to those key team members. If you're not giving them opportunity for growth, they're likely going to leave you. We have to give them opportunity to continue to grow and advance into their true potential. Number eight, add a mental health wellness program to your benefits plan. Make sure that your team member has somebody to talk to, aside from their manager, aside from you, that if they have some serious mental health challenges going on, that they get the support they need to get through that to support them. Again, just like professional development, you want to Support them financially on coming up with these, with the areas where their mental health can be supported as well. So put the investment in. It's well worth it if you truly care about your team, because if you don't, you shouldn't be on this list anyway. But when you truly do care about your team, you will invest in things like this to help make their, their life, their mental and and their physical wellbeing a priority. And it needs to be number nine, make sure that they're utilized. Make sure individual team members are not underutilized. Utilize them up to the fullest extent possible, aligning their skills, their experience and their abilities to the work that they're doing and challenge them to be the best version of themselves. Push them, mentor them. You know, these are gonna be your top employees, are the ones that you can continue to push to be the best version of themselves to, to help support them, to give them more opportunity. This is something that is super powerful if you want to be considered employer of the year. And last but not least, number 10 was it all starts with recruitment. If you want to build the best team, you need to be honest and real. Share your core values, share your mission, share what their expectations are so that when they come into the organization they're fully aligned and there's been complete transparency. They know exactly what they need to do to hit the ground running. Guys, if this resonates with you, our million dollar year program is 100% for you. If you want to learn more about being a employer of the year or a candidate for that, make sure you join our million dollar year program. Very small investment, a ton of value. We have shared more than two years of trainings. You get access to a membership that has a mastermind opportunity with entrepreneurs just like you. Hundreds of people who are in here sharing these experiences because together we're stronger and we can learn from each other. So if you're interested in that, we've got a link below to join our million dollar year program. If we can help support you by empowering you with good financial information. If your books aren't up to date, there's going to be a link below that says book a call with our team. Jump on a call. Let our team explain how we can support you along the way. My name is Bob Govreau. This has been amazing. If you like this podcast, give it a share, give it a like, put a comment in there. We love to see your feedback. Make sure you're following us on whatever platform. If you're on Spotify or YouTube, make sure you follow us. You'll get access to the next episode release, which will be next Wednesday, because we release one every single Wednesday. So thank you for being here. I appreciate your time, your support. Hopefully there's been a whole bunch of value. Can't wait to see you next time.