Leadership behaviour plays a pivotal role in shaping employee experience, as highlighted in the Great Place To Work 2024 Regional Insights Report. Drawing from the feedback of 740,000 employees across local enterprises and multinational companies in Australia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam, the report underscores the significant impact of leadership on workplace culture.
Integrity-driven leadership has emerged as a theme among Best WorkplacesTM in Australia for 2024. Leaders in best workplaces don’t just talk about values; they exemplify it in their behaviour and how they relate with their employees.
One example of integrity-driven leadership is Recovery Partners. Great Place To Work® spoke to Alex Toohey, Regional Manager for Victoria and Tasmania, and Annette Boulamatsis, People and Culture Leader, about how making micro changes in their ways of working resulted in big wins.
Even without making major policy changes, Recovery Partners’ office in Victoria has seen significant improvements in employee experience. From 2023 to 2024, there was a 17-percentage point increase in employees saying it’s a great workplace from 75% to 92%. How is this leap possible in the absence of large-scale official policy changes?
Leaders shifted their ways of working in simple but powerful ways. First, by increasing the support they provide for consultants’ case files and making themselves available in 1-on-1 meetings with consultants.
100% of employees in Victoria reported being supported with resources for their jobs, a 25% increase from 2023, and evidence for the effectiveness of their 1-on-1s with leaders. “We do monthly reviews for every file. We do a sit-down meeting with me, the consultant, and the team leader (if they have one),” shared Alex.
Besides 1-on-1s and ad hoc conversations, teams managing different clients meet every month for a roundtable discussion about how challenging files can be managed.
“Each consultant will manage something slightly differently, so having everyone have their say on how they tackle a certain scenario helps people to look at the case in a different way,” Alex explained. “Even if they’re on track, maybe a different set of eyes on the problem helps with finding a solution.”
Alex’s recognition of the unique strengths of each member in his team is reflected in the survey results: 100% of his employees agreed that people who try new ways of working are celebrated, regardless of the outcome.
Leaders who listen to their employees’ perspectives, “provide opportunities for choice and input, encourage self-initiation, and avoid the use of external rewards or sanctions to motivate behaviour”1 are also known as autonomy-supportive leaders. In a meta-analysis of almost 33,000 people conducted by researchers in Australia, autonomy support by leaders at work is strongly linked to well-being, positive work behaviours, and lower distress.
Additionally, Recovery Partners has seen tangible improvements in client outcomes due to the increased support consultants have received. “We have had an improvement in our statistics provided by Worksafe based on the percentage of people that we have helped get back to work – there’s an increase over the past 12 months, which is great,” Alex shared.
Another simple but powerful practice is how leaders at Recovery Partners show appreciation and recognition to employees both formally and informally.
“We have a long-standing recognition system called the Yellow Jersey, a nomination for anything that someone does that is good. They typically come from leaders or managers, but anyone can send one,” explained Alex.
The Yellow Jersey nomination process ensures that favouritism is kept in check. “The final list will be given to the senior leaders, and they’ll pick someone so that it’s fair,” People and Culture Leader Annette shares. This ensures that winners vary every month, and everyone’s got a chance to be recognised – a practice affirmed by 96% of employees in Recovery Partners.
Alex added, “I try to give people shout-outs in the weekly meeting with the Victoria team, where everyone in the office or at home dials in. Someone might have done a really great job on a particular file, or we’ve got a really good outcome on the file, and I spotlight that.”
Regular employee recognition has slowly but surely nurtured the appreciative culture of the team, and everyone has started giving shout-outs to their teammates. It’s no wonder that there’s a 33% increase in employees in his team believing that every person has the chance to receive special recognition from 2023 to 2024.
Giving employees the opportunity to have choice and input in decision-making reflects active collaboration between managerial and non-managerial employees. At Recovery Partners, these decisions range from strategy (eg. ways of working) to smaller ones (eg. decorations in the office).
Remarkably, these shifts have led to significant increases in perceptions of equity among employees in Victoria. Even without financial policy changes, employees who feel they receive a fair share of profits increased from 42% in 2023 to 85% in 2024 – an incredible jump of 43 percentage-points. Non-financial solutions can address perceptions of pay equity; employees having more latitude in making job-related decisions provides a stronger buffer against the negative consequences of low pay satisfaction.2
“I had some really great leaders when I was starting out. I always felt as though I was respected and treated fairly. I guess I’m trying to replicate the leadership that they gave me,” reflects Alex. By simply tweaking the support and appreciation shown to his team, he has seen great gains in employee engagement and well-being. Micro-shifts in leadership behaviour certainly makes macro-level impact.
“Holding a Great Place To Work Certification has enhanced our ability to attract and retain staff and to help us achieve our strategic objective of doing great work with great people.”
–Kelly Ryan-Brown, Founder and Director
Recovery Partners is not only committed to helping thousands of Australian workers with rehabilitation, it’s also committed to its team members thriving at work. Partnering with Great Place To Work has empowered leaders to respond to employee feedback and tailor workplace practices to facilitate a culture of fairness, collaboration, growth and flexibility.
Bespoke demographics allow leaders to filter results for only the regions they oversee, something that benefits new managers like Alex. They get to see how teams are experiencing their leadership from the data and verbatim comments in specific areas such as communication and support. “To see what we do reinforced with data is really helpful to me. It’s nice to know we’re on the right track,” Alex says.
From 2019 to 2024, Recovery Partners have obtained Great Place To Work CertificationTM, a global recognition with established presence across 150 countries, and this year, Recovery Partners made the Best WorkplacesTM List in Australia for small organisations. “We always like to be certified and to display the badge that we’re a great place to work, because we know it and we want other people to know it too,” Annette says.
Discover what employees value about working at your company, and how you can boost retention rates and increase productivity and performance with Great Place To Work CertificationTM.
