What Does it Take to Build a Vital Organization?

For the past few decades, leaders have been working toward two ambitious goals: to build thriving, growing businesses and to improve employee engagement and retention. In other words, growing their businesses and nurturing their people.

These may seem like two separate goals – the business is within the realm of the CFO, while people are the CHRO’s domain. But what if we start looking at business and people goals as intertwined elements in one shared ecosystem? What if we build organizations where the business and the people are blooming and thriving? Where what’s good for the organization is good for employees, and vice versa?

When the business is thriving, and the people who work within it are thriving, we see a vital organization.

The ultimate goal is to reach peak vitality, creating thriving, sustainable organizations that will grow and blossom for the long term.

A Blooming Garden

You can think of a vital organization as a lively, humming ecosystem — a garden in full bloom. In the greenhouse of the organization, plants are thriving, the air is abuzz with pollinators, roots grow deep, colorful new flowers burst open, and promising green shoots emerge.

Benefits and Compensation

A vital organization gives employees what they need to survive and thrive, despite the climate. All employees have their basic needs fulfilled — just like plants need water, sunlight, and fertilizer, people need employee benefits, a healthy environment, and fair compensation to keep thriving, growing, and contributing to the organization's vitality.

A vital organization is diverse. Different employees — at different career and life stages, with different needs and goals — require different kinds of support. Some may need specific nourishment or specific support in certain seasons or to continue to bloom year-round.

Recruiting and Hiring

A vital organization attracts pollinators. The most vital employers see recruiting costs drop dramatically as the ecosystem attracts new employees through news of its business wins, thriving environment and referrals from current employees.

A vital organization always has new seeds sprouting. New hires are carefully integrated into the organization, sheltered and nurtured until they can grow on their own.

Learning, Development, and Mentorship

A vital organization has rich, fertile soil with a root system that feeds employees. People want to grow in their careers, improve, be mentored and build the business. Even if they leave, they can imagine returning someday to the thriving ecosystem that nurtured them. It’s a place that supports them and feels like home.

Employee Engagement

A vital organization is interconnected. No single employee can succeed on their own; instead, employees build connections with each other and with the broader organization to thrive. Just like plants cooperate to enhance the health of a forest, a vital organization weaves together human connections to strengthen each person’s talent, optimize their time and increase their impact on the ecosystem.

The Vitality Scale

The journey to becoming a vital organization is a complex one. Just like a garden plot doesn’t go from barren to blooming overnight, thriving organizations take time and thoughtful tending to transform. A vital organization is always evolving.

Where is your organization on the vitality scale now?

You can think about vitality as a scale. In the middle is the status quo: a stable, sprouting state poised to grow. At the least healthy end, organizations are wilting and are in danger of dying. On the healthiest end, vital organizations are thriving and primed to keep evolving

Wilting

Wilting organizations are in decline. For leaders at wilting organizations, the choices are clear: change course or risk severe consequences. Leaders may ask questions like:

• What is most important to keep alive? What can we save? What are the non-negotiables?
• What could we get rid of in order to make this organization stronger?
• Could we replant part of this organization somewhere else in order to survive?
• How could we find new ways to drive value and thrive?

Stressed

Stressed organizations are at a negative inflection point. They’re experiencing high turnover, losing high performers and key customers, and are struggling to keep the core business going.

The stressors on the organization could be internal (a decaying culture, low engagement, lackluster leadership) or external (competition, regulatory changes, market volatility).

Stressed organizations need an infusion of care and resources to turn around and escape wilting.

Sprouting

At the status quo, organizations are in a neutral phase. This is the middle ground, where organizations are making active investments and plans to shift into a period of growth, motion, and vibrancy.

Sprouting organizations are considering change, preparing the ecosystem to make room for growth, investing time and thought, identifying obstacles, cultivating trust, and weeding out potential challenges so the organization has space to flourish.

Blooming

Blooming organizations are at a positive inflection point. They’re growing stronger, better and more resilient. That growth and improvement is fueling additional growth. The organization is optimizing and gaining energy and momentum. People want to be a part of the culture there.

Vital

At the peak, organizations are vital and thriving. The people are empowered and unencumbered. The business metrics are strong. The brand has a solid reputation.

Vital organizations show characteristics like:

• Above-average profitability.
• Impressive productivity and efficiency.
• Diverse staff.
• High employee satisfaction and pride.
• High retention rates.
• Best-in-class customer experience.
• Top Net Promoter scores.
• A powerful employer brand that recruits top performers to the organization.

What actions can organizations take to become more vital?

People and Technology

First, make the human experience as frictionless as possible. Create the conditions for the organization to grow and develop.

• Assess the needs of the workforce. Understand what people need to be present, productive, and supported.
• Set policies that support people and help them thrive.
• Proactively guide the organization through periods of change.

Employee Benefits

Next, consider how benefits could support and nurture the people of the organization to move toward the more vital end of the scale.

• Understand your people – not just in averages, but in terms of individual needs.
• Identify the segments of the employee population that are most susceptible to distractions and turnover and give them the specific resources they need to be productive. Just like different plants in a garden need different amounts of water, sunlight, and fertilizer, different employee groups will need unique support (like divorce support, student loan relief or backup childcare coverage).
• Invest in the long-term vitality of the workforce by supporting retirement planning. Ease employees’ worries by helping them plan for the future while supporting them today.
• Communicate clearly with employees. Develop a communication strategy that informs every employee about the unique and personalized ways the organization can support them. Make every employee feel like they’re the hero of their own story. Show employees how their workday can be better when they access powerful benefits that save time, effort, and frustration.

When you think of your organization as an interconnected ecosystem, it’s easy to see that what’s good for employees is good for the organization as a whole. Supported employees create growing, productive, profitable organizations.

Green Thumb

How could your organization move up the vitality scale? Consider these examples from two organizations that took specific steps to invest in the vitality of their people.

How an oilfield repair company met employees’ specific needs

When you give people the benefits they need and want, you create an organization with strong roots that can bloom and grow.

Leaders at an oilfield repair company wanted to give employees the tools they needed to be present and productive during their demanding work shifts at far-flung locations. The company partnered with HUB to do a QEX assessment of employees and their most pressing needs. The results warranted a non-traditional approach to employee benefits. Instead of giving employees the opportunity to commit more to their retirement accounts, HUB identified two new opportunities to support employees: work boots and truck warranties.

By practicing “precision buying,” the company invested in the resources employees actually needed to stay engaged and prepared for work and removed the burden of employees’ most common worries.

How a tech company evolved its one-size-fits-all benefits plan

When HUB first partnered with the software company TeamViewer, the company was already paying 100% of employee medical plans. But leaders knew they’d need to go beyond that commitment to attract and retain employees in the competitive tech industry.

TeamViewer made a dedicated effort to fertilize their employee garden by understanding employees as individuals and what the company can offer each employee. They used HUB’s personalization tools to understand their employees’ needs. One unique way TeamViewer is supporting its employees: family-forming benefits, which support an employee from pre-conception to menopause. 

As a result of offering more personalized benefits, TeamViewer’s turnover is down and employee satisfaction is up. The company has grown from 115 to almost 250 employees — through the pandemic and at a time when many tech companies are laying people off. The company’s leaders have realized that providing benefits is not just about the bottom line — it’s about evolving benefits to be more meaningful to each employee.

How any employer can support its people during “lifequakes”

Not every employer can offer a robust menu of benefits to every employee. But every employer can make sure employees feel supported during life’s most difficult times.

For example, not every U.S. employer offers paid parental leave. But every employer can:

• Make sure employees who are expecting a child know their rights under FMLA.
• Package all available solutions under disability insurance, medical coverage, and EAP (employee assistance program).
• Proactively communicate with employees so they know who to call and how to access their benefits.
• Explore other resources they could offer employees, including lactation support, telehealth access to pediatricians, diaper delivery service, discounts on baby formula, and helping the employee re-engage when they return to work.

When employers put their employees at the center of their benefits strategy, amazing things happen: People bloom, grow, and plant themselves more firmly within the organization that has nurtured them.

Learn how HUB International’s Employee Benefits Advisors can help your organization flourish.