What makes somewhere a great workplace?
Often, when I’ve spoken to people about what they look for in an employer, the initial focus is on the benefits and perks that make a workplace more flexible, convenient, or fun – but this is only part of the picture.
A substantial salary, generous employee benefits scheme, subsidised gym membership, and free onsite canteen might be enough to convince someone to join a company – but is it enough to get someone to stay?
It’s important to make sure that employees are well looked after and rewarded for their service; this is something that all companies should be able to achieve. But to create a great workplace – the kind of place that attracts, retains, and inspires the very best talent – requires more than just the fulfilment of basic, intrinsic human needs.
My experience working in human resources for over 20 years has shown me that the foundations of any great workplace lie within a company’s culture.
With this in mind, I would like to highlight what I believe to be the magic formula for making somewhere a great workplace. I would also like to share some insight into how we are putting this into practice at Domino as part of our three-year strategic plan, in a commitment to ‘continue to make Domino a great place to work’.
Chris Webb, Group HR Director
The purpose of a purpose
A great workplace cannot exist without a strong company purpose.
What is your company’s core reason for being? What unique and positive impact can you have on the world, and how do you intend to achieve this? Find the answer to these questions, and you have your purpose.
You might be asking how this relates to making somewhere a workplace – let me explain.
Developing a coherent purpose helps to motivate and inspire employees, and, as such, is an essential part of any successful organisation. As human beings, we are inherently social, and so having a unifying belief that aligns us with our colleagues, and with a business as a whole, is crucial to feeling valued.
One of the biggest pitfalls in drafting a company purpose retrospectively is creating something which isn’t true to the business. A purpose needs to be honest and believable to be effective.
With this in mind, I’d like to share Domino’s purpose – each word of which was chosen carefully and meticulously, with input from across the whole organisation, including our executive team, general managers, product development teams, and our marketing and sector experts to name just a few. In short, it was developed by Domino, for Domino, to adequately reflect who we are as a business.
“To apply industrial printing expertise and reliable solutions to help the world’s manufacturers be sustainable and cut waste while attracting, informing, and protecting consumers.”
I see our company purpose as the driving force behind all that we do at Domino – it reflects the importance of our employees and our history of expertise, describes our commercial strengths, underlines our commitment to our customers on a global level, and provides a roadmap for our future development and aspirations as a business.
Living by company values
Company values are the principles that drive a business – those underlying philosophies that support the purpose by emphasising what a business and its employees stand for.
Values also provide insight into what each member of an organisation can expect from their colleagues and the business as a whole. When developed carefully, and truthfully, company values should act as a mirror for individuals, to assess how their actions echo those of the company that they work for. In this way, company values should resonate individually with each member of an organisation, providing an opportunity for self-reflection and learning.
With this in mind, I’d like to give you some insight into Domino’s company values, and how these have been developed to truly reflect who we are as a business, and provide a clear understanding, and appreciation, of what it means to be a part of the Domino family.
As a global company, we are fortunate in being able to leverage the knowledge and experience of a great number of brilliant minds all around the world, but this can only be done by working together as one collective Domino.
This is why we strive to foster a culture of collaboration in all that we do, to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to express their ideas and to help improve the business. Collaboration helps to broaden perspectives and challenge conventional wisdom so that we can reach better outcomes, together.
One of the ways that we aim to collaborate more effectively is by listening.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is in the value of listening to the thoughts, ideas, and concerns of our colleagues and customers. As an employer and a business partner, Domino can only succeed if we are willing to listen and learn from the combined experience of all those who work for, and with, Domino.
Internally, we are working to strengthen our expertise, by developing experience in all those areas that customers turn to Domino to provide knowledge and understanding. This includes global regulations, Industry 4.0 and smart production, sustainability in manufacturing, and waste reduction. To take a recent example, Domino’s acquisition of Lake Image Systems came as a result of our commitment to further develop our expertise in the field of vision inspection, because we recognised that quality control and data validation is of key importance to our customers.
This focus on building employees’ expertise represents an opportunity for everyone at Domino, as we embark on a journey of learning and development and invest in the great Domino experts of the future. All Domino employees, whoever they are, and wherever they work, can be sure that they will receive the support they need to develop and grow.
Domino’s commitment to ambition is another part of this. We recognise that we have a strong legacy, and we want to make sure that we continue on this trajectory – and progression doesn’t come without challenging the status quo.
Employees need to be free to challenge the normal way of doing things, to share ideas, put forward suggestions, and not be afraid of making mistakes. We recognise the value to be found within a fresh perspective. We have an open mindset culture and set ourselves challenging goals for continuous improvement to keep evolving our business for growth.
Our fifth company value is reflected in a promise of responsibility. We have a responsibility to our customers to deliver on our promises and fulfil our role as a great business partner, we also have a responsibility to our stakeholders, to all those within the Brother group, to the communities in which we operate, and to the environment.
None of this can be achieved without our dedicated workforce.
In this way, I see our primary responsibility as being to our colleagues, to ensure their safety and wellbeing, and provide an environment where they can learn and develop, to be the best version of themselves, for their own benefit, and that of the business.
Joining the Domino family
An honest purpose and a set of clear values together provide a shared framework and mindset for employees, a magic formula which, when done right, positively impact the employee experience and provide the building blocks of a truly great workplace.
As a fairly new face at Domino, I can clearly recall the reasons why I first decided to join the business. Domino is a successful and strong company, with plenty of opportunities and a commitment to learn, improve, and grow. From the start, I could see the journey that Domino was on and could visualise where we needed to go and how I could play a part in making the journey a reality.
Anyone who joins the Domino family has the opportunity to become a part of this journey, which is a truly exciting position to be in.
As a Domino employee, you can be sure that, wherever you are in the world, the people you work with will be committed to the same purpose, and will have the same values, the same commitment to each other and to the outside world, and the same understanding of what Domino aspires to be.
Of course, as an employer, Domino offers competitive salaries, and a generous employee benefits scheme – but this is just one small part of what makes Domino a great a place to work. A much bigger part of this is having something that we all share, we can all believe in, and we can all work together to achieve.
The proof is in the dedication seen across our workforce, which is one of the defining features of Domino as a business, and one of the many things that makes Domino a great workplace.