Toxic workplaces. If you’ve ever worked in one, you know how easy it is to describe its dysfunction in a few quick words. Unhinged manger. Stalled promotions. Ripe for a class action. Three jobs for the price of one. Skimpy benefits. Stale coffee.
But what makes an awesome workplace awesome? That’s a lot harder to explain in a word or two, and even harder to make happen.
Amber Zeeb, the chief people officer and executive vice president of global employee services and infrastructure at the privately held Aya Healthcare, the largest health care staffing company in the U.S., has created a science out of developing and sustaining an awesome work culture.
Zeeb said there’s a strong business case for investing in the employee experience: “I think that employers that pay attention to that and recognize that get much more value out of their teams than employers that do not recognize that. And they have less turnover, less lawsuits. It comes full circle in the amount of benefits that it can bring an organization.”
Aya Healthcare is so good at keeping its approximately 5,000 employees content that it received the top prize in the San Diego Union Tribune’s Top Workplaces 2022 awards, in the large company category. It’s been named a top workplace for nine years. In July, Aya was named to Fortune’s 2022 Best Workplaces for Millennials.
In anonymous comments, workers praised the company’s corporate culture, benefits and unlimited PTO for full-time workers, its flexibility and work-life balance, its focus on preventing burnout and the way the company cares for all team .
Two principles shape Aya’s approach to workplace culture: First, caring for and respecting employees is common sense. How else are they going to focus and thrive? If “employees are unhappy, they’re not going to deliver an exceptional experience, right?” Zeeb asked.
Second, Zeeb said, “It has to start at the top.”
At Aya, that’s CEO Alan Braynin. “Alan has provided the autonomy and resources to deliver the experience that we have become known for. And I think that really is what it comes down to,” Zeeb said.
Here are four practices at Aya Heathcare that keep retention, and spirits, high.
1. Regularly solicit input and .
At Aya, employees generate ideas that inform everything from benefits to charitable giving to observed holidays. To stay in touch, leaders use regular polling. Polls get attached to newsletters. Employees also get sent satisfaction surveys that ask things like: “What would you like to see that is currently not being offered? What benefits do you really love? What would you like to see more of?”
2. Take the long view.
Zeeb likes to ask new employees why they left their previous company. She has noticed a surprising pattern.
The decision to leave “often starts with or comes down to a decision that was made by their employer that was super shortsighted,” she said. “A simple request was denied due to an arbitrary rule that didn’t exactly apply to them. Or the company was just not willing to invest in something that would’ve cost money, but long term could have actually prevented the employee from leaving.”
3. No is not a complete sentence.
So what does this all mean? That bosses should just let their reports push them around? Of course not, said Zeeb.
“I do not say yes to everything,” she said.
But when she does say no, it comes with an explanation. “Because it impacts A, B, and C and it’s not fair here and it’s going cause challenges here,” for example.
Offering insight and context helps build goodwill, she said.
4. Build openness to change into the culture.
Aya is not big on red tape. And it shudders at inertia.
“A lot of organizations can really get lost in the red tape of bureaucracy, in order to scale,” Zeeb said. But that can backfire and “inadvertently remove a lot of the human aspects of the employer-employee relationship.”
Staying flexible and lithe helped the company grow and thrive at a crucial moment.
During the height of the pandemic, Aya was hiring several hundred people a week. Remote training “was a huge challenge.” The increased demand for health care workers also required Aya “to reimagine how we recruit and deploy healthcare professionals,” Zeeb said. The company also rapidly evolved its digital tools and ways hospitals and providers can stay connected.
“Because Aya is so flexible and adaptable to change, we were kind of light years ahead of others in our industry,” she said.
