These days, current and prospective employees want to know they’re working for a hip company. This goes way beyond offering a flexible work schedule and stocking the break room with a juice machine. Deloitte has released a new report about what business leaders should be doing to make sure their company stays current. Hot topics range from creating a positive current culture to making sure employees have the resources to engage in continuous, self-​direct learning.

CULTURE

Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 touches on corporate culture. In the report, culture is defined as “the way things work around here.” Nearly 90% of business leaders believe corporate culture is key to business success. Over half of business leaders are trying to change their culture because they want to hire the best people and keep them around.

One key example of culture these days is a focus on what people accomplish in their positions as opposed to the ‘face time’ they put in. This principle, when consistently applied across the board to ALL employees, attracts workers who want to set and achieve high goals. A toxic corporate culture gives lip service to face time, and allows a few ‘special’ employees to come and go as they please. This kind of culture demoralizes spirit and fractures the concept of team work. A strong leader will set a corporate culture that fits with the industry, will communicate the values clearly and regularly, and will ensure that the rules apply to all employees. Failing to do so will result in negative postings on sites like Glassdoor and make it more challenging to hire quality people.

LEARNING

In an era when technology impacts most jobs and is constantly changing, it’s difficult to stay current. The Deloitte report finds that 40% of execs believe learning is important and another 44% call learning a very important issue. The worry underlying this belief is that employees are not learning the kinds of skills they need in order for the company to remain competitive.

While a certain amount of company-​developed learning material may be important, most leaders are deciding to curate material from multiple external sources. Instead of focusing on a central learning function, the most forward-​thinking companies are discussing aspirations with specific employees and pointing them in the direction of external resources like massive open online courses (MOOCs), external certifications, and on-​demand micro-​learning programs.

The Deloitte study covers several other workplace changes execs are making to ensure they are optimizing their human capital resources. To see if you’re a trendsetter, check out the rest of the details.