5 things you never knew would improve your bottom line by Roger Philby, CEO, The Chemistry Group on 01-Aug-2012

To keep employees happy and healthy, we at the Chemistry Group have identified these five simple suggestions as key to improving productivity and efficiency in the workplace:

1. Nutrition;
2. Open work environment;
3. Interactive processes;
4. Hierarchy; and
5. A video game.

Nutrition is essential to output. Maintaining blood sugar levels keeps individuals focused throughout the day, so that the three o’clock lull is replaced by on-going innovation and creativity. We at the Chemistry Group run our own in-house nutrition programme, which places each worker under the guidance of a nutritionist through regular, face-to-face consultations. We also run a communal lunch initiative and place focus on refuelling with healthy, wholesome snacks such as fruit, nuts and seeds and salty popcorn as a treat.

"It’s not enough for us to have a mission statement of ‘We give everyone the opportunity to be brilliant at work’," says Lorraine Makepeace, Head of Amazing at The Chemistry Group. "We have to truly mean it. A brightly coloured, clean, open working environment has been proven to stimulate and inspire workers, helping them to achieve their full potential."

Integrating social media resources into the workplace can help employees to communicate with others in new and original ways. Software such as Salesforce Chatter can prove revolutionary in the workplace, by making business processes interactive and social, helping to reach targets and improve goals.

"For us, professionalism is about empathy, taking care to understand how the other person wants to be communicated with and engaging in that way," says Director, Simon Cooper. "A flat hierarchical system enables workers to interact and share ideas openly, enabling businesses to develop and grow. Alongside this, flexible working hours allow individuals to work from wherever they need to, making companies more adaptable."

We have created and devised video game recruiting which helps employers to distinguish suitable individuals for the job from a high volume of applications. We worked with O2 to create a virtual world where applicants had to respond to situations they might encounter in stores. Successful applicants entered the online application form, while those who were unsuccessful were informed and given relevant feedback. This in turn saved O2’s resourcing team 126.5 days in the first two months and within two months, the tool had been paid for. In just three years, the return on investment on the video game recruitment tool will be 1700%.

"Giving people opportunities to be brilliant can start with making sure your recruitment process hires those people who will thrive in your organisation, or re-energising and developing the great people you already have to be brilliant every day," says Roger Philby, CEO. "Having the very best people in the very best place in your organisation is not rocket science, but it might be chemistry."

"I noticed in 2010 that we always started the year in greater shape, pipeline wise, than we finished," concluded Roger. "We analysed it and polled our staff – simply put, they were tired, overworked and eating badly while on the run. They were going like the clappers in the first half of the year and drained in the second. The impact of the nutrition programme is that we now have a pipeline of £4m rather than the £2m it was before we started the programme."

For more information, please visit: www.thechemistrygroup.com.

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