Leading People
Gerry Murray talks to leading people about leading people. Get insights and tips from thought leaders about how to bring out the best in yourself and others.
Leading People
What Defines a Great Place to Work?
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On this episode of Leading People, we promise you’ll uncover the keys to building an exceptional workplace culture with our distinguished guest, Koen Dewettinck, CEO of Great Place to Work Belgium and a professor at Vlerick Business School.
During our conversation, Koen walks us through his fascinating exploration into organizational psychology and shares his insights on creating environments where employees feel truly valued. This episode is your chance to learn how the power of the employee voice can redefine success in any organization.
Great Place to Work is on a global mission to redefine workplace culture, and Koen introduces us to the tools and insights needed to achieve this transformation. From its origins in the U.S. to expanding into 180 countries, including Belgium, we discuss how this pioneering organization measures and enhances workplace culture.
Koen also shares how their evidence-based approach, complemented by workshops and tools, supports organizations in building robust cultures grounded in trust, credibility, and integrity. He offers insights on aligning theory with practice to support continuous growth and highlights the importance of personal development opportunities.
Finally, we learn about how Great Place to Work celebrates exceptional workplaces, showcasing organizations that excel in creating high engagement and a great work environment.
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Listen now to this insightful conversation that could transform your approach to leadership and organizational culture.
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Welcome to Leading People with me Gerry Marais. This is the podcast for leaders and HR decision makers who want to bring out the best in themselves and others. Every other week, I sit down with leading authors, researchers and practitioners for deep dive conversations about the strategies, insights and tools that drive personal and organizational success. And in between, I bring you one simple thing short episodes that deliver practical insights and tips for immediate use, whether you're here for useful tools or thought thought-provoking ideas.
Speaker 2:Leading People is your guide to better leadership.
Speaker 1:What makes a workplace truly great? How would you rate where you work and if you're a leader, what could you do to make it an even better place to work? Koon de Wetink, CEO of Great Place to Work Belgium and a professor at Vleric Business School, joins Leading People to reveal the key ingredients of high-trust leadership and thriving organizational cultures. In this episode, Kuhn shares why the employee voice is the most critical factor in workplace success, the leadership behaviours that create a high-trust, high-performance culture, and how evidence-based culture management can help organisations attract and retain top talent. Are you ready to discover the strategies that turn good workplaces into truly great places to work? Let's hear what Koen has to say. Koen de Wetink, welcome to Leading People.
Speaker 1:Thank you thank you, Koen. You're the CEO of Great Place to Work in Belgium and you're also a professor at Vleric Business School, so one of the top business schools in Europe. But first, before we get into Great Place to Work and your work as a professor, so my listeners can get to know you better, how did you get here and today? Were there people or places or events or epiphany moments that stood out on your journey to where you are today, and why did you choose a career in academia?
Speaker 3:Very interesting question, jerry. I basically started off studying psychology probably to try to save myself, I guess, as many of us do. I went into psychology, then moved into work and organizational psychology. Afterwards I basically already that's 25 years ago I joined the business school very business school. Then I went for a PhD looking into how can we motivate people and what are the best ways to do that, came back, went to the US, came back to Belgium and since then I would say my passion has been about how can we create environments, working environments where people really feel engaged and passionate and where they're also contributing to a great level, and so I've been looking into many drivers of that. Part of it is the impact of the leader, part of it is the impact of the team, but also the HR angle, looking into how organizations can set up systems, processes and tools and solutions that boost engagement and performance. That has been my area for many years. Part of it research, but also lots of teaching towards HR audiences, but also a lot of people management courses across the globe.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so it was at Case Western or somewhere you studied in the US. Yeah, okay, it's quite a well-known school, exactly Western, or somewhere you studied in the US. Yeah, okay, it's quite a well-known school.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So if we looked in at Great Place to Work and we look at the core mission of Great Place to Work and perhaps just reflecting what you've said, maybe you can also talk about what inspired you personally to lead the Great Place to Work in Belgium. So what is the core mission and what inspired you to get involved in that?
Speaker 3:Great question, gerry. Indeed, because for many years I've been involved in helping organizations, and especially leaders, in becoming better in terms of how to deal with people. I would probably call that a little bit the kind of push strategy. With people, I would probably call that a little bit the kind of push strategy, and I think Great Place to Work for me is another way to try to achieve and accomplish the same things, which is helping companies to become better and greater, and so Great Place to Work is a very nice complement to it, because it's a vehicle that helps us to support companies in basically getting an idea, grasping, measuring their culture, improving their culture and also creating community of organizations that can inspire each other. So for me it is quite complementary. The ultimate goal is the same one, but the way to get there is completely different.
Speaker 1:And just for our listeners and even for myself, how long has Great Place to Work itself as a concept? Because, belgium, I take it, you're running a kind of a franchise. Is that right, yeah? So where did it originate from and how long has it been around?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Great place to work is basically american. It's indeed a licensee model. I think we are currently operating in about 180 countries, so it is really a global organization. It started about 40 years ago and, of course, it has gradually grown. In belgium, it's already here for more than 20 years, and actually that's also where the link is between my academic career and great place to work, because it's actually Vleric Business School in Belgium that holds the licensee for this region, and so that's how these things came together.
Speaker 1:So let's get into what it means to be a great place to work, because, you mentioned earlier, you're looking at the impact of leaders, you're looking at the impact of the teams they lead and the HR function, and I have listeners out there who fit into all those categories, because I know many of them. They write to me and stuff like that. So just to inform those out there who may not be so aware of this, from your perspective, what are the key elements that make an organization a great place to work? And maybe then we can also you can dovetail that into sort of what's the approach of great place to work? What are sort of the criteria you're using to evaluate organizations?
Speaker 3:Okay, If I may, I would split it up in two parts Maybe. First of all, try to explain a little bit what are we doing with Great Place to Work, what is the kind of activities, what is the support that we are offering towards companies to become better, and then the second part I would say is then looking into what is the criteria that we are losing, uh, using sorry, not losing, using in terms of defining what a great place to work is. So first, what we do is basically we measure the strength of the culture in an organization, yeah, and so we measure it, and we also certify organizations that are doing a great job, and companies can use that certification in terms of strengthening their employer brand. That is one aspect of what we're doing, but I think an equally or probably even more important part is beyond the branding, is basically offering a platform to organizations to measure and improve their culture. So what we are actually doing from Great Place to Work and we do that through a global platform, one unique platform we are surveying employees about their experience in their company, and if a sufficient amount of people are sufficiently positive about their experience, we would certify that organization as a great place to work. So this is, I think, a very important aspect, because you could say we are offering a certification, but the certification is based on the employee voice. Yeah, so we are doing partly auditing of what, what hr processes and tools companies have in place, but the main part of the certification is basically how people really feel on a daily basis, the atmosphere within the company. I think that's a very important aspect.
Speaker 3:The second element is the measuring and the managing part.
Speaker 3:So it's not we are basically offering we have a global platform, we have access to that platform, but we can also give access to that platform to our customers.
Speaker 3:So basically, we are offering them an opportunity to measure their culture, but also to do deep dive analysis and to go further, even to do some pulse surveys and so on. So it's basically, let's say, an opportunity to manage culture in a more evidence-based way. Yeah, and that's sometimes a little bit forgotten about what great place, what great place to work, has to offer, but it's becoming a more and more important element. And so, next to the certification because some companies would say we want to strengthen our employer brand, please certify us so that we can show it to the outside world more important is companies that go on a journey together with us and we do kind of zero measurement and we also organize workshops together with stakeholders involved, which basically helps the organization to, yeah, use bottom-up feedback towards further improvement. Okay, and that, I think, is what we are basically doing in terms of the services and the support we give to companies.
Speaker 2:On Leading People. The goal is to bring you cutting-edge thought leadership from many of the leading thinkers and practitioners in leadership today. Each guest shares their insights, wisdom and practical advice so we can all get better at bringing out the best in ourselves and others. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share a link with friends, family and colleagues and stay informed by joining our leading people linkedin community of hr leaders and talent professionals the question is and that brings us to the second part how do you define a strong culture?
Speaker 3:how do you define a great place to work? And the good thing there is that it's really a very rigid methodology. It has been developed over those 40 years and it's a kind of normative model, you could say, where we believe that there's a few important elements that define a great place to work, and one of them is the high trust leadership. You already mentioned the importance of leadership. I can go a little bit deeper into what it really means, but one part is high trust leadership, which is how do employees appreciate the connection between them and their leadership and management in the organization? The second part is how do people relate to their job, the meaningfulness in the job. And the third element is how do they relate to the people surrounding them, how do they relate to the team, and that part is called camaraderie. Okay, and so camaraderie is how do people relate to their colleagues? Pride is how people relate to their job, and then, indeed, we have that trust element in terms of leadership and maybe to fine tune that a little bit more, there is three characteristics.
Speaker 3:One is the credibility. To what extent do people tell us we have the feeling that our top management knows what they're doing, that they are sufficiently communicating about it and that they also act in an integral way. To what extent are they basically walking the talk? That is the credibility aspect. The other aspect of leadership, trust, is respect. To what extent do people have the feeling that they get sufficient support in terms of training, equipment, appreciation, but also to what extent do they feel that management really cares about them? And that's the respect element. And then the third element that links to high trust, leadership, is fairness. To what extent do people tell us that anyone within the organization is, let's say, yeah, has the same chances, is dealt with in a similar way, whether there's justice in the company, whether there's equity, whether the benefits are shared in a proper way, and so on and so on?
Speaker 1:no-transcript okay, and a question that kind of comes into my head because we're not going to name any companies or anything during this, because it's uh, you want to keep the fairness aspect, I guess and at the same time, what sort of feedback have you got from companies who go through the process? Maybe they start off and they have a certain they're at a certain place or they've got a certain perspective on this. Maybe they think it's hard work or whatever. What sort of feedback do you get, particularly for the ones that go on the journey?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, maybe, coming back to the fact that I don't want to mention any names, because the appreciation to all of our customers is so high, because what I feel is, the companies that we have the opportunity to work with are genuinely and I think that's that's a critical element they genuinely take care of their people. They truly believe that by taking care of their people, by by creating a nice working environment, that that really makes the difference, and so, and and they also take a vulnerable position because they are willing to truly listen to their people in an unfiltered way, yeah, and so it takes guts for a company also to, to, yeah, be open towards the feedback that people are giving. So that's why I I I appreciate all of the, the companies that that are working with us, and I don't want to differentiate too much between those that are maybe a little bit higher or a little bit better or a bit more of experience, but but I think that's a key element they, they truly believe that listening to their people in a systematic way and using that feedback in terms of continuous improvement really makes a difference, and I think that's what they all have in common. Industries differ, right, but we see that if you go back to those five dimensions, that back to those five dimensions, that ultimately it makes a huge difference for a company and it is very, I would say, powerful levers to work on strengthening your culture.
Speaker 3:And so what we typically do because most of our the companies we are working with they we embark on a journey together. It's not a one-shot kind of measuring and then you show to the outside world that you got certified. No, basically, the kind of standard procedure is that we work together for three years, we do a measurement, we give the feedback to the different layers in the organizations. We can also facilitate the bottom-up exercises, trying to go into solutions in terms of and the opportunities for improvement that were identified. And so it is actually a journey.
Speaker 1:It is, let's say, a way to to keep a finger on the pulse in terms of what is the atmosphere within the organization and I guess that also helps avoid this idea of lip service, or what would you call it today, people washing or whatever you want to call the term today which makes it look like we're trying to be a good place to work as a one off exercise. Exactly, deep down, if they don't do the journey aspect, because things will, challenges will come along, et cetera, and you know, organizations will have to adapt and if the measures are robust enough, the adaptation should also maintain the status of a great place to work, right. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And that's also the good thing, because it's a global platform. We can also provide a lot of opportunities for benchmarking, where companies can compare with others into more specific elements. But also you have the historical, the historical perspective, and people can compare with how they they, how they did last year or some years before.
Speaker 1:So it creates all kinds of opportunities to really take a deep dive into, let's say, the culture and how it is evolving within, within the organization you've been looking at my questions, because my next question is how has the concept of a great place to work changed over time, particularly with the rise of things like remote working and hybrid models?
Speaker 3:Yeah, what you actually see, and that's another element that I maybe need to find. The model has not changed a lot, so I think it has been validated over and over again and there's more and more research also linking how our company is doing in terms of the great place to work, assessments, and what is the impact in terms of being attractive towards candidates. Maybe even more important, being attractive towards candidates, maybe even more important, being attractive to the right candidates, because what we actually see is that the cost per candidate decreases by having the label right. But we also look into more bottom line how well our company is doing and there's more and more evidence that indeed, it seems to help to be certified and to work on your culture, to be also more successful as an organization. So, as such, the core dimensions of the model, they did not change that much, but we also provide an opportunity for the companies we're working with to, yeah, also assess other elements beyond our model.
Speaker 3:So actually, again, I'm referring to the platform we have all sets of standard questions, but you can also customize questions and items linked to all kinds of topics, yeah, and I can imagine if you are going hybrid and you want to find out a little bit more about how is your company or your people, how are they experiencing this, then we can also insert this in the survey.
Speaker 3:It will not be taken into account for the certification, but, of course, the data becomes available to the company and they can start working on it. So, as such, the core model did not change over time. As such, the core model did not change over time. It has been fine-tuned and it has been further and further validated to make sure that the items are the right and the most valid items to be asked. But, of course, we also create flexibility for companies to tap into the topics which are more relevant to them, specifically by giving them the opportunity to customize the survey, specifically by giving them the opportunity to customize the survey, and they can even send out surveys themselves if they want to, and that's also an opportunity. So, basically, you could say that we are offering a tool to do culture management in an evidence-based way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to ask you a little bit about one of the things you just said. In terms of evidence, you said the cost per candidate decreases. What drives that?
Speaker 3:Well, what you actually see is that and of course, there's lots of research that tries to tap into this one this is maybe a bit more based on my experience working together with our clients, maybe a bit more based on my experience working together with our clients what we typically see is that there's not necessarily a huge increase of candidates, but, one way or the other, better candidates, and that's why I would say it's probably not that all of a sudden you have much more candidates, employees knocking on your door, but one way or the other, um yeah, it's the better ones that you're getting in. So what you actually see is better people knocking on your door, but, of course, the cost of the acquisition is also reduced yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:so, um, I I have to ask you this question because I'm sure my listeners out there are wondering about this how does Great Place to Work compare with some of the other models out there, like Top Employers, nps, gallup, because now that I've heard you talk about it, are there some overlaps or do you do something different? Are you kind of competing with each other for these you know for, for business with these companies, or what? What have you noticed?
Speaker 3:that I think it's a well. There's a few elements. First of all, if you look into one aspect of what we are offering, which is a certification which links to employer branding, there I think the big difference is that we are basically using the employee voice and many of the the other labels, let's say are not doing that. What most of them are doing is they talk to hr and they're asking hr about what are you doing and based on that kind of assessment, which can be very useful, but based on that assessment, you would get certified or not. What we do is whatever practices you have and we also have smaller companies maybe that are, you know, are less sophisticated in terms of HR approach but what we are looking in is to the experience of the team members, the employees within the organization. So I think, in terms of credibility at least that would be our claim we'd rather, uh, believe the employee rather than the one setting of the systems. But on the other hand, of course you can imagine, the value towards hr is much bigger because you get feedback, which many of the other models, yeah, you just map what you're doing without seeing what the impact is on the people in your company. So I think that's an important distinction using the employee voice towards certification and recognition. Employee voice towards certification and recognition.
Speaker 3:I sometimes would say we're not only, let's say, improving and making your facade more attractive as a company, but we're also helping you to manage your backdoor. It's not only telling how attractive you are, but it's also helping you to become more attractive on a daily basis as a company, as an employer. So that's one aspect. The other aspect, indeed, yeah, we are offering this opportunity to do surveys, to ask questions to people, to analyze those in depth and also to help you to improve.
Speaker 3:I think what is specific about what we are offering is a kind of yeah, it's software as a service, it's a package that basically empowers you yeah, to do it yourself. Yeah, so we believe that our contribution is not necessarily doing the analysis and helping you to do the analysis. Of course, that's part of it, but we basically think that we can help you in strengthening your culture and also it's your job to be done. So I think it's also a little bit of a different perspective. The data that we are gathering, that we are collecting is is fully accessible to the companies themselves and they can do analysis, they can do whatever they want to do, a highly sophisticated platform that has been developed on a global scale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that kind of then dovetails a little bit into a question around and this relates a bit to the quality of the candidate as well around the employee experience, and the question really is what are some of the big trends or shifts that you're noticing in workplace culture and employee expectations, and what are some of the trends in terms of what organizations and companies are doing to become even better workplaces? In response to, because we have, you know, with the younger generation, there's always this talk about generational aspects and, whether it's true or not, that's always debatable.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah, because there's a lot of the juries out on that. For those of us who are getting a bit older, sometimes we can also look at TikTok videos and Instagrams and all sorts of things, exactly. So this kind of thing comes up every so often, but it's it's not even the generational thing, it's just what are the trends out there around employee expectations in terms of the experience of going to work. Because you mentioned meaning, one of the criterias, apart from high trust leadership, is that there's meaningfulness in the job and they can relate to the other people.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1:You're listening to Leading People with me, gerry Murray. My guest this week is Koen de Wetink, ceo of Great Places to Work, belgium. Coming up next, koen shares why the best workplaces don't just measure culture, they manage it. No-transcript. So stay tuned for these game-changing insights.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think that's true. If you take a bit more of a holistic perspective, I think the meaningfulness is becoming a more and more important one. I mean, we're spending a lot of time on the job and people start thinking about you know what is behind this, what is the kind of contribution that I'm making in my job, together with my colleagues as part of the organization. I think that's a dimension where we although it's already a long time in our model, but this has, let's say, become more and more important, so the expectations are also much higher. Being purpose-driven is nice, but it needs to be credible, and if it is credible, I think it's basically a true source of, of engagement of people, and it's also a source to attract and to retain people. So for sure that this one has increased in terms of importance.
Speaker 3:I think another element that we see consistently popping up is, um, yeah, it's about how can you grow yourself as an individual within that organization, and again, this is becoming more and more an important element that basically has a fundamental impact on people's engagement.
Speaker 3:We see that companies are more and more offering career guidance and, yes, there's an individual responsibility and we all have to shape our own careers.
Speaker 3:But what we see in those great places to work is that they really put a lot of effort at different levels in terms of setting up processes, but, I think, even more in making sure that the direct leaders, the supervisors, the managers, that they also take up an active role, an interest and an active role in shaping the careers of their people, and this is becoming really a key element, not only to retain people but also to attract them, I would say. And maybe a third element that we see more and more popping up is, yeah, the individual, the individualized care. Yes, there needs to be fairness, there needs to be consistency in terms of how we are, let's say, dealing with people in our company, but at the same time, we need to deal with them as individuals, and that sometimes also asks for more personalized care, coaching, career coaching, but also other kinds of coaching, and indeed we see that this is really something that has been growing a lot the last years if we look into our great places to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been watching a lot of the uh reports and analysis and and even with clients I work with um. You know, like 30, 40 years ago it was all about could you make it up the ladder today? I mean, it was kind of logically flawed because most organizations like pyramids so that there's few, fewer and fewer ladders to go up, and so a lot of people got stuck in kind of well, I just go to work and or I get paid at the end of the month and younger people realize they're. The climbing the ladder is not what many of people don't want. That today because it comes with a lot of.
Speaker 1:There's a lot, an awful lot of unhappy managers and leaders out there. We have to recognize we talk about engagement and managers need to engage. Sometimes managers don't feel engaged themselves, so we can't beat them all the time, but a lot of people are going. I don't really want to. I just want to go in and do great work and have great colleagues produce stuff that I feel proud of and that. So we're seeing and hearing a lot of that out there and the question I have for you now is how do you foresee the role of leadership evolving in creating great places to work and meeting these expectations over the next years. What advice would you give leaders who want to build better workplace cultures?
Speaker 3:Yeah no.
Speaker 3:I think there's maybe two elements that I would like to emphasize here. The first one is put the people first. In all the kind of processes that we have you talked about growth perspective, career management that's what I see those companies doing the starting point is what is your ambitions as an individual team member, as an individual contributor? And then the next question is how can we find opportunities within the organization? Is, how can we find opportunities within the organization, being it jobs, being it projects, being it whatever that will fit with your ambitions? And I think it's starting from the individual and then trying to see how can we create a context that is best fit, which has been completely different in the past, where we had the context and the question was how can we fit people into it? So I think that would be my first thing People first in everything that we're doing in terms of the experience that we are providing to our people.
Speaker 3:The next thing, and it's a very basic one, and that's also, if you look into best workplaces, certified companies, because best workplaces, that's companies that are not only certified but that also go for competition to say we are the best. So if you then look into how are companies that are not certified, the certified and the best workplaces. Where are the biggest differences? Well, it is a very basic, fundamental thing. It goes back to that credibility that we've touched on before. Walking the talk extremely difficult, yeah, walking the talk. Transparency, clear communication, listening to people and using their input to really change, also as an organization. I think this is really key element.
Speaker 1:It has been there for a long time, but I think it's becoming more and more important yeah, and it was just struck me as you were talking about the individual, understanding the individual and what they want to to get out of work. It really does require a coaching style of listening. And you know, rather than saying, coon, I think you'd be good at this, and poor coon saying I better agree with my boss because, whatever now it's saying, what we see is this uh, how do you feel about what you're doing? Where do you see yourself evolving? What you're able to do, what are the things that really light, light you up and float your boat every every week? What are the things that drag you down in terms of energy? And these are the kinds of questions but a leader has to be open to listen to what they hear. Now they can't, they can't respond probably positively to everything, but they certainly can show a willingness to explore it right, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and at the end of the day, because if I take a bit more my academic angle now again, and if I look into performance systems and so on, and if you then look into what is now basically driving their impact, well, often it comes back to what was the quality of the conversation? What was the quality of the conversation, what was the quality of the connection when people are sitting together and are discussing about what are we doing, what do we plan to do and how can we do it even better in the future. It comes back to basic elements, but it is still a very difficult thing to implement, to realize and to make reality on a daily basis and how, just as we get closer to the end of the conversation.
Speaker 1:You know you worked in this area for quite some time and you do have some people around you that help you, and that. How is your own approach to leadership evolved by being involved in this? That's?
Speaker 3:an interesting one For me. It's, of course, a great opportunity to be on both sides of the same thing, right? Because you're doing research, you try to figure out what is engaging people, what is the best context like? But you also know that sometimes there's a gap between theory and practice. But of course these things should be aligned with each other and that's how I try to look into it. You know there are certain ideas. I've worked with thousands of managers and leaders over the years. I pick up certain ideas and things, I experiment with it myself. I basically try to, let's say, walk the talk myself a little bit too.
Speaker 3:I find it not so easy to really make it very explicit in terms of how things have been changing, but I would probably say that it's also a bit of kind of maturity that is happening over time. You experiment, you try out things and there's always new things to learn and to improve on. So, yeah, for me I always consider to be at the beginning of the learning journey, because there's so much more to improve on, to try out, and we are working with people. I mean, it's never easy. It can be extremely rewarding and I also find it very rewarding, but you know there's always surprises, difficult circumstances that you have to deal with, so for me, it's more kind of you know. Yeah, although things might mature a little bit, there's still so much more to learn and to improve on. So, um, I think modesty is a very good one in terms of looking towards our own leadership style right, yeah, that's great, great um insight there.
Speaker 1:Um, so, coming to the end, um and I'd ask you to maybe not be modest for a few seconds, but what are some of the key insights that you, or takeaways, you'd like our audience to take away from this conversation? If there's one or two things you'd like people to walk away with now remembering what are those things that you would like them to take away, well.
Speaker 3:I think put the voice of the employee first for me is a key element. It is. It asks for a bit of a vulnerable position, but it is so rewarding if people within the organizations generally have the feeling like our management, our, our managers, our leadership is truly listening to us and taking, yeah, our experience into account. I think it is the starting point. I also see see it as a journey, also as an organization. It's not about we have that stamp and now we're good. No, it is also continuous improvement. I think that's the second one. And the third one is don't expect HR to compensate for bad leadership, because, at the end of the day, that's where it boils down to, and I think that's a key element that we should never forget. How sophisticated we get is typically not the best indicator in terms of how well we are doing, but it's getting the fundamentals right and not forgetting about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think from the point of view of the listener, you've talked about evidence-based approach. You've talked about evidence-based approach, and so I'm going to assume that that's pretty well evidence, research, that that's what you've seen over the years around putting employees first, etc. What's next for you, koen, and a great place to work in Belgium.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, you know, there's the supporting side towards companies, but there's also the celebration side, right, and so we have one huge event. That's our only big event we have every year. That's where we are celebrating the best workplaces, and so March 11, again, we will gather in Brussels and there we will reveal those companies that are not doing only good, but are doing great, those that are doing exceptional in terms of creating high engagements and a great place to work. So that's something I'm looking forward to to put our customers in the spotlight, because I think they truly deserve it, right.
Speaker 1:And we're recording this in 2025 because I know that people listen to these podcasts later, but this is an annual event yeah, okay, it's not like just one off this year and, if you've missed it and you're listening to this at some other point of the year, look forward to next year's event and the year after and the year after that.
Speaker 3:Yeah it's a yearly celebration of great places to work, always lots of fun, inspiration, great opportunity to network with some other companies and hr professionals. So I would say more than welcome, whatever year we're in yeah, and who could go to that?
Speaker 1:anybody can go to three year link in your website. Yeah and yes exactly.
Speaker 3:It's an open event, so if you go to great place to work belgium there you will find that yesterday we've opened the the invitation.
Speaker 1:So anyone who's willing to join is more than welcome, right so, finally, how do people get in touch with you, coon, and uh, you know what's the platform that they can reach out and mention. They heard this podcast and they'd like to link with you very easy, great place to work, belgium.
Speaker 3:We have a website and there's contact details. There is a whole team that is willing to answer any questions anyone might have, or if there would be an opportunity to support you in strengthening the cultures of anyone who's listening. We, we are more than willing to do so and I think the website is the best place to go. Of course, we're also on the other platforms, but that's the easy entrance, I would say.
Speaker 1:And LinkedIn. You're accessible, of course, of course, yeah. So as ever, koen, thanks a million for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with our listeners today. Well, jerry, thanks a million for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with our listeners today.
Speaker 3:Well, jerry, thanks a lot for your time, for your interest, and I hope that we will ignite some eagerness on your listeners side to go even further and having more courage in strengthening all those places to work.
Speaker 1:Coming up on Leading People.
Speaker 4:Imagine you're having a meeting and you're getting really frustrated because you're in a meeting with someone that you just it was a bit of a conflict, and you go out of that meeting and it can be online or it can be in person, and then you go straight into the next meeting and if you don't understand what that first frustration has brought into how you're feeling, you're going to walk right into the next meeting. And if you don't understand what that first frustration has brought into how you're feeling, you're going to walk right into the next meeting with that bristling, with that frustration, and you may not think that anyone else is picking that up, but there's going to be a ripple effect to the next meeting.
Speaker 1:You're going to contaminate the next meeting.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Yeah, it's a good way of describing it.
Speaker 1:Next time on Leading People. We're joined by leadership experts and bestselling authors Mandy Flint and Elizabeth Vinberg Hearn to explore what it really takes to be a supercharged leader In a world that's constantly evolving. Leaders must learn to lead themselves first before they can bring out the best in others. Mandy and Elizabeth reveal why self-leadership is the foundation of great leadership, how to manage your energy and state of mind, and what small changes can have the biggest impact on your leadership effectiveness.
Speaker 1:You won't want to miss this insightful conversation. And remember, before our next full episode, there's another One Simple Thing episode waiting for you A quick and actionable tip to help you lead and live better. Keep an eye out for it wherever you listen to this podcast. Until next time.
