Employees matter – they breathe life into an organization and help make a real, tangible place for it in the world. And there are some organizations that are taking this to heart and doing their best to create a work environment that allows their employees to thrive. Every year, Kincentric, a global HR advisory firm, recognizes these Best Employers. 

Seizing the day in The Era of Opportunity

How does an organization become a Kincentric Best Employer? To become one, firms should focus on creating a positive work environment and culture that drives employee engagement, agility, effective leadership, and talent development. This may involve implementing policies and practices that support diversity and inclusion, work-life balance, learning and development, physical and mental health, and open communication. 

By sifting through thousands of collected data points, Kincentric found three defining qualities that not only result in organizational success, but also helped businesses win the coveted Kincentric Best Employers tag:    

1. Engaging Leadership: Showing up and showing the way 

Being a leader is more than being a person who heads a team, a function, a business, a practice, or an organization. Kincentric best employers know that great leaders lead by displaying “Engaging Leader” behaviors – they stimulate and inspire their teams, own responsibility, maintain composure, demonstrate concerns for others, mentor and coach their team members. They show their teams the way and help them be their very best selves, every day. It is no surprise then that strong, resilient, and caring leadership is among the top characteristics that helps a business achieve the coveted Kincentric Best Employer status and importantly, business success. But, practically, what does good leadership really mean?

A real-world Kincentric Best Employer example to illustrate this: A leading financial services organization encourages its employees to ask questions, raise doubts, and clear concerns without fear of retribution. Taking all the feedback into account, the leaders take measures to implement new processes while altering existing policies that are problematic. All this is regularly communicated to the workforce under the initiative ‘You Said, We Did’ to ensure employees know that their voices are being heard and real actions are taken.

That, in a nutshell, is effective leadership. It puts employees front and center from a policy-making perspective. “The key is ensuring a completely safe space where the employee understands that the leader is all-in on finding a win-win solution,” says Anurag Aman, Market Leader for Kincentric India. 

2. Agility: Driving Innovation and future-ready mindsets

The world of work has been in a constant state of flux over the last three years. Organizations have had to think on their feet to come up with productive solutions to every challenge – from lockdowns to an entire workforce learning to work from home, to the setting up of an efficient hybrid work model. Not forgetting the incorporation of DEI initiatives, and the need to constantly re-skill and upskill the workforce to remain competitive! All this has meant that employers have had to be agile enough to think outside the box to come up with the right solutions.  

A great example of being agile and aware is Elsevier – a Kincentric Best Employer in India, and century-old global leader in information and analytics that helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes. The firm was intentional about making structured efforts towards improving diversity and inclusion. Currently, 48% of their workforce is female, and at the executive level, that percentage rises to 56%.

Having foresight, recognizing what the business needs from a forward-thinking perspective, and then actively working towards those goals – this is what makes an organization a great employer. 

3. Talent Focus: Becoming more human at work

Kincentric Best Employers are also the ones taking the road less travelled when it comes to managing their talent and are demonstrating that the time for human-centric talent management is NOW. As Kincentric’s Global Practice Leader - Michael Martin says in his piece Prioritize Your People, Not Your Process, “We are seeing heightened appreciation for valuing and creating space for the “whole person” in the workplace, and for leaders at all levels, leading in an authentic way.”

Case in point - one of the fastest-growing life insurance companies (also a Kincentric Best Employer) launched a succession planning program to boost career progression within the organization. Their program, assesses and develops employees’ talent for the next stage of leadership, and has resulted in a massive 65% of company’s critical positions being filled internally – further demonstrating that employees do perform better and feel a deeper sense of belonging when they can clearly visualize their career progression and have access to the necessary upskilling opportunities. 

Unlocking the power of people and teams

From the examples above, the best companies are invariably those who believe in people, teams and their collective power – the power to affect change not only from within the firm, but also the world at large. 

CEOs and CHROs, who have been on the journey of being a Kincentric best employer or already been one, know how leadership impact, agility and talent focus matters when it comes to tackling real world business and people challenges. Above all, it’s much more than just scoring well on specific metrics but about people, company culture, the employee experience and employee value proposition (EVP). It is about creating a safe place to work, thrive and be inspired while accelerating organizational agility to become future-ready. 

Observations, backed by research 

Kincentric’s research further substantiates the fact that higher engagement does result in lower attrition, better customer satisfaction (higher Net Promoter Score) and higher Total Shareholder Returns (TSR). 

While there are employers struggling to build an engaged and resilient workforce, some already are delivering excellent eX (Employee Experience) – these organizations also ranked high on innovation as well as collaboration. 

Start your journey to high performance

Organizational success is no longer just about the bottom line – it’s about people too.

The Kincentric Best Employers program is one of the most rigorous assessments of its kind, offering unprecedented insight into businesses that prioritize people-first approaches to success. It differentiates on people factors, incorporating high employee engagement, agility, leadership, and talent focus.

Assessing alignment across organizational intent, people process design and employee experiences makes the evaluation truly insightful and actionable. Additionally, an independent, distinguished jury is always on board, offering deep knowledge and expertise.

To get to know the true state of your organization and learn how to help your business implement a people-first approach for sustainable success today, contact us.

About Kincentric

Kincentric, a Spencer Stuart company, helps organizations unlock the power of people and teams to ignite change and drive better business results. With decades of experience and specialist expertise in areas such as culture; employee engagement; leadership assessment and development; HR and talent advisory; and diversity, equity and inclusion, we use data-driven insights to architect solutions that add value, enhance agility and increase organizational effectiveness. For more information, visit kincentric.com.