How many organisations can legitimately state that their employees are ‘proud’ to work for them? It’s a pretty outstanding thing to be able to do. Having an employee who ultimately takes pride in their work brings many benefits, not only to themselves, but the customers they serve and in turn, the business or employer.
One’s self-motivation brings the desire to deliver a good service – it encourages self-worth and provides job satisfaction, but it can be hard to firstly create and then maintain such a culture.
An organisation that can provide its employees with the opportunity to encounter different challenges, who are given responsibility and the autonomy to thrive professionally, whilst being guided in a supportive and encouraging environment are all factors that improve morale and aid employee retention.
Key behaviours fostered by pride
Believing in the business that you are employed by, or in this case, being proud of where you are working, whether for ten years or ten weeks, influences key behaviours in a workforce:
- Feeling strong loyalty to their employer
- Increase in employees telling people who they work for
- Increases how often employees tell people the organisation is a great place to work
- Employees become brand ambassadors
- Increase in employees putting in that extra effort
- Increase in employees recommending employer’s products and services
- Decrease in employees actively looking for a job elsewhere
- Increased sense of community and belonging
How does worker and employee behaviour benefit the customer?
There are many advantages to a corporate culture that instils pride in the workplace, primarily:
- Increased workforce reliability and consistency
- Workers who care about doing their best – stronger work ethic
- Increased customer service levels
- Improved overall morale
- Dependable brand representatives
- Better value for money
How to Build Pride in the Workplace?
Building pride is a team effort, but it requires strong leadership and buy-in from the very top of the organisation. It also needs staff to feel truly valued and invested in by their employer. This leads to a common sense of purpose, where everyone understands and believes in what their organisation is trying to achieve – and understands their role in delivering success.
An organisation’s values should be clearly defined, and staff can then be recruited in line with those values. A strong sense of corporate social responsibility helps, such as opportunities to volunteer for good causes on company time. Even apparently small things like the way the office is laid out and decorated can make a big difference.
Taking Pride in Your Work – Proud to be Driver Hire, a Case Study
For nine years now, Driver Hire has continually achieved outstanding results in their annual Pride surveys which are sent to their candidates, clients and our own employees. How did the survey come about in the first place and what does it mean?
The obvious benefit to carrying out regular surveys is that it’s great to learn the opinions of your customers and employees, and the invaluable feedback gained can allow you to continuously improve your services and workplace environment. This was the core objective back in 2014 when the first survey was launched, but Pride goes beyond just feedback.
It’s not just how proud the employees of Driver Hire are that tells a story – because with hundreds of customers served nationwide and over 17,000 shifts worked in an average week, it’s important to ensure that they are taking pride in their work too. As an integral part of Driver Hire’s workforce and the glue that holds everything together, it was important that the survey extended to those who have worked for offices on temporary contracts.
The Real Impact of Pride
The behaviours influenced by pride mentioned above have become more than just theory to Driver Hire. On a national level the company has managed to foster a supportive and dynamic culture, which has also been successfully adopted and bearing fruit in their overseas Driver Hire Australia operation, plus other major successes have proved that their method has worked:
- 88% of candidates scored 8/10 or more when asked if they would recommend working for Driver Hire*
- 98% of people rated Driver Hire’s customer service as Excellent / Good (79% chose ‘excellent’)*
- Driver Hire was crowned Franchisor of the Year – Silver Winner 2022 for their ethical and supportive approach to franchising
- Driver Hire is ranked number 2 overall in the Elite Franchise Top 100 2023
- Parent company, Specialist People Services Group’s (SPS) turnover reached a record of £150m in 2018
- SPS Group was named in Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200 for the third time in February 2022, taking spot 113 on the list which ranks the UK companies with the fastest-growing international sales based on overseas revenues of £1m or more
- In 2018, Driver Hire was recognised as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces ranking 43rd in the medium category of Great Place to Work’s annual list of the best workplace cultures.
What may seem like just a simple feedback survey at first, can be an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to see, learn and grow.
That’s why we’re Proud to be Driver Hire. #dhProud
* Driver Hire Customer and Candidate survey results, December 2022
Author: Faye, Recruitment & Social Media Marketing Manager
As part of the group’s marketing team, Faye is responsible for Driver Hire’s social media strategy, and for advising a network of over 100 offices nationwide on best practice in recruitment and social media activity. Faye has worked in marketing within the recruitment, logistics and education sectors for 13 years, since graduating in advertising, media and design management.