My thanks to one of the bloggers I follow, Aaron Juckett of The One-Stop ESOP Blog, for pointing me to a new study by Hewitt Associates which uncovers some of the most conclusive evidence I've seen that poor employee engagement leads to an undesirable outcome for the top-priority stakeholder for many companies: shareholders.

As Hewitt explains on their website, since the onset of the economic downturn in July 2008, they have analyzed changes in employee engagement levels by quarter for more than 900 global organizations.  Juckett points to their most recent findings published last month, which show that

Organizations where 65% or more of employees are engaged had total shareholder returns 19% higher than the average total shareholder returns.  Companies with less than 40% of employees engaged had total shareholder returns that were 44% lower than the average.

I find this to be incredibly powerful, especially when I look back to a 2007 study by another leading workplace trends research firm, Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson after merging with Watson Wyatt in January), which we've summarized on our website.  That year-long study of 50 companies found that those with the most engaged employees had a 28% increase in earnings per share, while those with the least engaged workers had an 11% decline in earnings per share.

When we put the results of these two studies back to back, the payoff of employee engagement and team building on shareholders and other investors could not be clearer:

Likely due in part to layoffs and other workforce cuts made after 2007, shareholder returns for companies with the highest engagement – while still above the average – did drop 147%.  But look at the whopping drop of 400% in returns among companies with the least engaged employees.  Ouch, or as my Norwegian ancestors might say, Oofta!

These findings serve to advance the case that it's in companies' best interest to take up, or improve upon, their long-term strategy to motivate employees to create a more harmonious and productive workplace.

Related: Among the best practice articles that those who share their bad workplace experiences with us receive as part of our free, 20-page white paper is one on employee practices that increase competitive advantage.  Get the white paper by sharing your bad experience (and solution) here.

Could the current worker strike of the Mott's plant in Williamson, New York – as expertly covered last week by The New York Times – be to the workforce and the economy what the Google-Verizon deal is to advocates of Net Neutrality?  (That is, a sign of bad things to come?)

Check out this excerpt of the NYT article on the Mott's strike, which began almost three months ago:

The strike has become so important because of the prominence of the brands and because of its unusual nature: a highly profitable company is taking the rare and bold step of demanding large-scale concessions.

...

The workers ... are incensed that the company is demanding givebacks when it posted record profits last year and increased its dividend by 67 percent in May.

This represents what I'm seeing as a trend: companies – typically, large public corporations – holding onto profits after already making moderate to significant workforce cuts, as opposed to following their pattern in past economic recoveries and reinvesting the returns back into the business in the form of employee development strategies (including benefits).

However, if this plays out on a larger scale (other large companies taking a cue from Mott's if they're successful, regardless of whether there's union involvement), it could potentially lead to a deflationary outcome if workers' wages slowly spiral downward.  If that happens, companies could join workers in a lose-lose situation, because that would mean even less disposable income from most Americans to spend on their products and services.

Winning Workplaces takes the position that for the long-term good of companies and individuals, midsize and larger companies (especially) should change their workforce investment strategy from one of further cuts to one of sustained, smart investment.  Using employee engagement best practices, they can benefit quickly and over the long haul from the increased productivity, lower turnover, etc., that come from treating workers fairly, and not unnecessarily harshly, when it comes to what to do with their profits after bouncing back from the worst of this recession.

Related: Read this post which argues, based on business school research, that a consequence of deep workforce cuts is long-term industry lag.

On August 4 I told you about our new feature for email subscribers, a weekly people practices email geared toward improving your company's bottom line.  Tom Walter, CEO of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace Tasty Catering, commented on that post saying it's a great idea.

This week he shared specifics with me on exactly why he thinks business leaders should sign up for this free email (emphasis mine):

The Weekly Bottom Line-Improving People Practice email should benefit all business leaders.  The world has become commoditized.  The true marketplace differentiator is human capital.  I enjoy learning the Best Practices other companies use with their most valuable asset - their people.

An engaged workforce is typically harmonious, productive and profitable.  These Best Practices eliminate the need to manage.  We have replaced management with effective leaders armed with Best Practices, and the difference has been remarkable.

While Winning Workplaces surely plays only a small part in Tasty Catering's success, you can't argue that they're not doing a lot of things right in their staff engagement that comprises their highly productive workplace culture: As we shared in the company's award profile, in a very tough year broadly and certainly in their industry (2009), their employee leadership development and other strategies helped them earn above-average revenues.

Register now to start getting our weekly, bottom line-improving people practices email FREE in your inbox.

I had a "wow" moment yesterday when I was reviewing my post history in our Compendium software and realized today's post will be our 900th.  900 blog posts in roughly 800 days (our blog has been running since June 4, 2008) – that works out to about one new post per day on employee engagement and team building strategies to help small businesses create a more productive workplace.

In addition to the writing I do here to (hopefully) make your work life easier, I also follow over 100 blogs in Google Reader, choosing some of the best stuff from them to share here as well as on Twitter.  In all this time I've picked up on some important best practices when writing business blog posts – along with some things to avoid.

I want to focus today's post on the latter to help you draw in and better engage your readers, and – addressing what CEOs and others who hold the purse strings care about – get them to take a desired action that meets your goals or helps your bottom line.

Here's my top 5 list of things to NOT do when business blogging:

1. Truncate your RSS feed.  In layman's terms, this means setting up each new post so the reader only sees a bit of teaser text in their RSS feed (explained here if you don't know what this is), and must click through to your blog to read the full article.  I'm on the same page as Techdirt CEO Mike Masnick as to why this is a bad business decision.  I'm sorry, but I look at this the same way I do a pay wall: you're putting a barrier in front of me, and my gut reaction is to leave.
2. A "link dump" or "flashback" to an earlier week or month of posts.  I've seen a growing number of blogs do this, and although I do get why they do so (more targeted, quality links help with search engine optimization), it's really a disservice to the reader.  A link dump says to me, "I've found this collection of articles, but I don't care enough about your time to put any kind of analysis or framework around them...and I'm sure you have an hour to kill reading all my links until you get to the last one."  A flashback is even worse; usually it's a linked list of dates corresponding to posts – that tells me nothing about what I can expect to read by clicking through.  You have to ask yourself if even your most engaged readers will go with you on your stroll down memory lane.  I guarantee a huge percentage of them will not.
3. Use too much "inside" language.  There's a prominent blog I follow, which I won't name, where lately almost all of the posts are about the author's spouse – who is not relevant to the title (read: promise) of the blog.  This author has written some greater material over the years, but lately I've been tempted to hit "Delete" next to that blog for this reason.  The lesson?  Keep your first-time readers in mind and don't veer too far off course from the promise to your readers stated or implied in your blog title.  (Or, do it but then change your blog title/focus.)
4. Write too many posts per day.  Speaking of moves that are great for SEO but bad for the average RSS follower, don't publish so many posts per day that it becomes burdensome for your average reader to keep up.  How many posts/day are too many?  My number is five.  Tip: Survey your readers to learn the max that they're comfortable with, and don't go over it.  (Side note: A number of the blogs I've seen that publish what I consider to be way too many posts/day accomplish this volume by enlisting guest writers.  If your goal is build relationships with these folks and to get great SEO at the expense of the average reader's time, then by all means keep doing what you're doing.)
5. Write posts that are too long.  Frankly, this was not a concern of mine when I started writing here.  But the more I've written with the reader's time in mind, and seen this come up again and again as a blogging best practice, I've tried not to do this.  Right now, in my mind, this post is getting to be too long, and I'm at 734 words.  That's about 100 words shy of the average, feature-length article on getting employees engaged in our quarterly newsletter.  Too long for everyday consumption, so this list is ending...now.

What's on your list of pet peeves or things to avoid when blogging for business results?

Image credit: oz 2 designs

On her blog last week, Harvard Business School's Rosabeth Moss Kanter identified setting clear expectations about everything as one of four things groups want that leaders can't provide.  She writes,

No matter how much leaders try to define expectations, lay out the nature of likely events, or describe the steps that the group will be going through, it's not enough.

My question is, while it may not be enough to fully satisfy groups of employees for ideal workforce effectiveness – is it enough to move the business forward in a meaningful way (even if that means not sliding backward in a recession)?

The workplace team building and employee engagement experiences of 8 small businesses that applied for our Top Small Company Workplaces award this year – including 2 winners – show that building clear employee expectations from leaders into the strategy contributes to organizational success.  Consider that the companies I'll tell you a bit more about below:

• Have been in business an average of 13 years,
• Grew revenue more than $5 million on average from 2008 to 2009,
• Went from 50% being profitable in 2008 to 75% being profitable in 2009, and
• Decreased average turnover by close to 3% from 2008 to 2009.

Specifically, here's who the firms are and how they maintain their success, in part, by being intentional about setting clear expectations:

Awarepoint - Real-time awareness technologies to monitor equipment and people - San Diego, CA
"Awarepoint helps managers get the best out of our staff.  The in-depth performance review helps managers and employees have better conversations, set clear expectations and build useful development plans.  This method also helps our leaders learn to identify poor performance so that it can be dealt with quickly, while developing the solid performers and building the business."

Enhanced Recovery Corporation - Financial Services - Jacksonville, FL
"The Owners, VPs, Directors, Department Heads, and Operations Management Team are all committed to the continued success of all ERC employees.  From Peer to Peer feedback to our Open Door Policy, employees of ERC always have clear expectations and development opportunities.  All departments at ERC are committed to ensuring constant development of employees at all levels within the organization."

FMYI - Software - Portland, OR
"We have done a lot more than what's expected of a small company such as providing medical benefits from day one with only a couple of employees even though it wasn't required by Oregon law.  We also want to be more authentic and fully integrated with our sustainability commitment.  We will sustain employee culture through ongoing sustainability discussions (via Northwest Earth Institute courses), clear expectations written into job descriptions and reviews about our doer/helper culture."

NouvEON - Consulting - Charlotte, NC
"NouvEON's Talent Management and People Care Division has several platforms that allow us to set goals, dialogue throughout the year, establish clear expectations, and perform 360 reviews, as well as measure and track potential.  We map Performance AND Potential and communicate to our employees where we see strengths and gaps.  It is through open communication and candid conversation that we help individuals grow in their jobs."

NY Jets (Winner) - Professional football team - Florham Park, NJ
"When our current management development initiative started, the Jets were in the planning stages of our relocation from Long Island to NJ.  HR was able to add in a special section on managing change that prepared mangers for the huge changes employees faced with our relocation.  The training sessions consisted of 6 modules: The Role of the Manager, Setting Clear Expectations, Feedback Skills, Delegation and Motivation, Handling Performance Issues, and Managing Change. The initiative proved to be highly successful for all managers; the learnings from the trainings are still used by the managers today."

Portico Systems Inc. - Software - Blue Bell, PA
"People succeed when they care share their ideas, build their skills, collaborate with others, and move into the realm of confidence that comes with mastery.  The masters become mentors and guide others with wisdom and a desire to enable others with positive reinforcement.  This is the environment that Portico is cultivating as we grow the organization and the people who are working to succeed.  Employees are provided with clear expectations, direction and feedback from supervisors, and opportunities and monetary and non-monetary ways incentives to succeed."

Red Door Interactive (Winner) - Advertising - San Diego, CA
"Our culture has been one of open dialogue, learning and progression since the company was formed eight years ago.  The family and team oriented environment at Red Door Interactive fosters open communication, leadership, clear expectations and teamwork.  A visit to Red Door Interactive will clearly display the open environment since the office is completely devoid of doors; even the CEO. Internal committees encourage feedback and collaboration to maintain our culture and engagement."

Sierra w/o Wires - Computer systems and related services - Pittsburgh, PA
"Regular and real communication is essential to establishing any corporate culture, community and collaboration.  In our organization this type of communication ranges involving employees in the project planning and estimating, to regular team and one-on-one update meetings, and also establishing clear expectations for each employee on what needs to be done, when."

How clear are the expectations in your organization?  Do your people practices help or hinder this?

One of the reasons I'm excited to add the new email communication I wrote about yesterday to the mix of our subscriber offerings is because it's a win for us in terms of expanding our dialogue with the small business leaders and other folks in our network.

After I sent out this week's bottom line-improving people practices email yesterday, Collaboration King Founder Brandon Klein replied saying thanks, and shared a link to an interactive presentation he created that highlights employee engagement best practices for holding town hall meetings – a common theme among the small firms that have won our annual workplace award.

I've embedded Brandon's presentation below:

If you can't see it in your RSS feed, click here.

It may take you a few minutes to get the hang of moving around in it, but it is to your benefit to do so: he places many common town hall initiatives in a matrix that weighs cost vs. interactivity with workers – so you can find the initiative(s) that strike the right balance for your organization.  Additionally, Brandon places several of the same initiatives in a timeline, representing one scenario of a systematic approach to using town halls to keep employees engaged.

Related: As I am now following Brandon's Collaboration King blog, I added it to my Twitter list of the blogs I follow.  Check out my current list of 88 blog authors/business experts for both networking and insights.

Winning Workplaces is pleased to announce a new, free benefit for our email subscribers, on top of the ones they already enjoy such as our quarterly IDEAS newsletter, workplace topic surveys, and event and network news.

Last week we started sending out an update we're calling "Your Weekly Bottom Line-Improving People Practice."  The concept is simple: Based on qualitative feedback we've collected from our Top Small Company Workplaces award applications, we choose and send you real world company practices and the subsequent results they've seen that best demonstrate the payoff of employee engagement and team building.

To show you what I mean, here's this week's practice that went out to our subscribers earlier today:

• The Leadership and Learning Center
• Founded 1994
• Salem, Massachusetts
• Consulting

Practice/Result:

"Our employees design our people practices – everything from our benefit structure (employee committees create them) and benefit evaluation (twice annual surveys).  That is why turnover, which had been 30-40% in the late 1990s, has been in low single digits for the past several years."

If you'd like to start getting practice/result updates like this each week to help improve your business, click here.  It's free and you can opt out at any time.

Last month on TIME magazine's Curious Capitalist blog, Barbara Kiviat, citing the New York Times, argued that because

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have enrolled in federally financed training programs in recent years, only to remain out of work ... job retraining is a wash.

This position may make sense from a policymaker or an economist's point of view – and in fact the Curious Capitalist blog carries a tagline saying it's about the economy and markets as much as it is business.

Yet, based on the evidence we see from the applications for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award, small business leaders don't view retraining as a wash.  However, most* do keep tabs on it as a measurement of their failure to attract and retain the best people while aligning those people with the company's needs and deploying effective employee leadership development strategies.

In other words, while they value retraining, they see it as an employee educational investment of last resort.

Consider the responses to our essay question on how people practices contribute to the top line revenue and bottom line profitability from the following three companies:

KeyLogic Systems, Inc., West Virginia:
"At KeyLogic our product IS our people; which we hire through strong recruitment and employee referral programs.  We have a low turnover ratio which has impacted both the top line revenue (allowing for employee to customer continuity) and bottom line profitability by allowing us to focus more on developing our current employee resources through professional training as opposed to the high cost of recruiting, re-training and developing new employees."

Prenova, Georgia:
"Since our managers and executives interact with lower-level employees, they can impart much of their knowledge and information on an as-needed basis, rather than waiting for issues to be discovered (often because of a costly emergency) and spending large amounts of time and labor developing ways to distribute that information. Conversely, employees can quickly and easily access other team members capable of discussing issues, and receive retraining when necessary."

Pro CNC Inc., Washington State:
"Being very thorough in our hiring practices has also led to extremely low turn-over which certainly has an effect on profitability and revenue.  We don't spend a lot of time retraining new hires and can focus on the business of serving our customers."

*I should note that a few firms we've come across – as part of our workplace award as well as our consulting and speaking engagements – don't view retraining as an if-needed effort.  These rare enterprises actively budget for this as part of their staff engagement activities, looking to help those who want to continue working for the company, but in a different area.  They see retraining as a means to hold onto this talent and keep using them to drive results.

Related: Read our review of A Manager's Guide to Coaching, which is aimed at helping organizations decrease their time and money spent on recruiting in addition to retraining.

In a recent post on The Wall Street Journal's The Juggle blog, Jennifer Merritt asked if Summer Fridays still exist.  The "still" part of her question is informed by the realities of the economy forcing companies to cut benefits such as a part or full workday off, and companies that are tight on staff (again because of the economy) needing all the time they can get to best serve the customer or client.

In response to Merritt's question, Summer Fridays do, in fact, still exist.  Among the nearly 500 applicants for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award, 8 specifically referred to reduced hours or a full day off on Fridays during the summer in their applications:

1. The Leadership and Learning Center - consulting firm in Salem, MA
2. Sonoma Partners - software firm in Chicago, IL
3. McGraw Wentworth* - insurance benefits provider in Troy, MI
4. Family Heritage Life Insurance Company - financial services firm in Cleveland, OH
5. NogginLabs Inc - software firm in Chicago, IL
6. Maxons Restorations, Inc. - property damage restoration services provider in New York, NY
7. Rauxa Direct - advertising firm in Costa Mesa, CA
8. Affect Strategies - PR/marketing firm in New York, NY

*This company is a 2010 award finalist

In addition, a review of our 2010 applicants shows that many of them offer the following activities for employee engagement and team building on Fridays (in all seasons):

1. Happy hour
2. Healthy breakfast items – most commonly fruits and bagels
3. Staff lunch
4. Casual dress
5. Yoga
6. Massages
7. Fun run
8. "Praise Box" – measure to reward hard work with awards and prizes
9. Staff outings during sport seasons – most commonly football
10. Friday night movies

Think these Friday-themed people practices are just a waste of money?  Consider that another 2010 applicant, B2B sales training services firm Vorsight in Arlington, VA, told us that, "When we put in place our Friday company lunch and one on one coaching, top line revenue jumped 20%."

What other Friday practices do you do, or have you heard about?

I enjoyed this post by Susan Fronk on the America's Best Business Practices blog.  In it she argues that the one thing that can most positively impact your small business – over and above measures to grow revenue, cut costs, and deliver excellent customer service – is finding and keeping great employees.

She provides more value later in her article by sharing three ways small businesses can build a more productive workplace culture by attracting and retaining great employees:

• Do a good job of recruiting and hiring,
• Create a great working environment, and
• Build relationships with your employees and foster relationships among employees.

I thought I would expand upon Fronk's informative post by sharing with you some specific ways that Winning Workplaces' 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award winners find and keep great employees:

1. Hire slow.  It's not uncommon for job candidates to go through as many as 8 interviews before a hiring decision is made.
2. Hire for cultural fit.  This includes not just when a position is open, but generally when someone looks like a good fit for the organization; a number of firms prefer to keep their feelers out and plug someone in when they come across that person.
3. Grab top talent from competing firms.  Top talent is top talent, and our winning small companies are unabashed about leveraging a bad economy that has forced competing firms to shed staff to their advantage.
4. Systematize the orientation/onboarding process.  Many companies do a good job during the middle period of an employee's tenure, but few are exceptional at the beginning, a critical time for new hires.  Our Top Small Company Workplaces really excel here by doing things like mentoring and scheduling meetings with the CEO to ramp up the new employee's understanding of and commitment to the organization.
5. Managers have frequent contact with their subordinates.  For many small companies, managers only interact one on one with employees, to review performance and also their top concerns/hurdles, every three months.  Our award-winning firms typically do this every two weeks to a month.  This helps better engage employees for greater commitment, and also helps firms react to emerging issues sooner.
6. Invest in employee leadership development.  The Top Small Company Workplaces share a belief that they are best served when their top talent stays to fill and create roles of increasing responsibility, and they have seen results from their action on it including process improvement, product innovation, and better customer service – not to mention mid- and top-level employees who stay longer, keeping recruiting and training costs down.  As far as their specific leadership development strategies, see this post.
7. Give employees a voice in the decision making.  Lots of companies have an open door policy, but this no longer cuts it if you want to foster two-way communication that results in greater employee engagement and productivity.  Our award winners give their employees a voice by holding daily huddles and frequent (at least once a month) all-hands meetings.  In addition, many of them open up their books and explain the company finances so people gain a crystal clear understanding of how their role affects the top and bottom line.
8. Do employee recognition.  I've blogged before about how recognizing your staff can be meaningful and still inexpensive.  Often times a simple, face-to-face thank you or small gift personalized to the employee can make a powerful impact.
9. Be generous in providing time off.  More employers need to come to the realization that being flexible around employees' personal and family obligations makes for a more committed and productive worker.  Paid time off should be a primary consideration, but if that's not in the budget, being flexible – especially for unanticipated obligations – through measures like cross training will help immensely with retention.
10. Empower workers down to the lowest levels to make good spot decisions.  This involves a lot of trust from leaders and some additional training, but when it works it makes a dramatic impact on business results.  Just think how much happier you've been when you've called a vendor and you didn't need to be transferred up the phone/responsibility chain to have your issue resolved.  The same sense of satisfaction can mean the difference in whether your customers or clients come back to you and refer you to others.

Is there a measure you think should be in this list?  If so, I welcome your comment on it below.

If you have 90 minutes to spare, I have something that's a great use of your time when it comes to expanding your understanding of the payoff of employee engagement and workplace team building activities.

Below is a video of our President's presentation last month at an Entrepreneurial Roundtable hosted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

If you can't see the video in your RSS reader, click here.

The presentation kicks off with our own Gaye van den Hombergh explaining why companies should care about creating great workplaces (starting at 7:30) and the qualities we see as critical to Winning Workplaces, along with some of the people practices used by winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award, which were featured in the June issue of Inc. Magazine (starting at 29:00).

Starting at 44:00, Gaye led a panel featuring leaders of this year's two Chicago area winners: Marvin Klein, Founder, PortionPac Chemical Corporation; and Tom Walter, President & CEO and Tasty Catering.  As you absorb the lessons learned and insights of these two leaders, consider their workplace culture practices, which I've listed below respectively, that have led them to success – even in this tough economy:

PortionPac

Selected workplace best practices:

• Offers personal and financial support for employees on a case by case basis
• "Front to Back Day"
• Offers experience to improve personal confidence and communication skills
• Employees have a high degree of autonomy

Business results:

• 2009 revenue up 7% from 2008
• Over the same period their competitors suffered double digit losses

Tasty Catering

Selected workplace best practices:

• Personal financial crisis fund fed into by employees
• Healthy free meals provided to staff on a daily basis
• If an employee comes up with idea and is willing to put in the effort, the company will help finance and support the endeavor

Business results:

• While sales fell in 2009 vs. 2008, it experienced only half the decrease of its industry and remains profitable
• High average employee tenure of 7.5 years

What are your takeaways from watching this video?

It takes time, commitment by company leadership, and at least some financial investment to make significant inroads to implement employee development strategies to create more leaders at all levels within an organization.

So why should a firm go down this path?  What's the ROI?

An article on Newswise this week based on a new study published in The Leadership Quarterly provides answers to these questions.  According to the employee engagement research of Kaiser Permanente by faculty at three California-based universities,

the more effective both the CEO and head of a department are perceived to be; the more [employees] supported the change in strategy.  ...   Moreover, the data showed that leaders are more likely to be effective in getting employees to achieve organizational objectives ... when the employees are shown that their leaders are united in supporting the strategy.

In other words, as the title of the Newswise article suggests, the number and competency of leaders in an organization contribute directly to the effectiveness of both senior leadership and the strategies they seek to carry out to achieve desired business outcomes.

With this in mind, I wanted to share the most popular posts among readers of our Employee Leadership Development blog – the ones that have helped them most to think about and act on the process of creating more leaders among their workforces.  Check them out:

1. The Connection of Flexibility and Training to the Bottom Line
2. 10 Best Practices: Transitioning to Work at Home
3. Updates: Resource Interactive's Work Environment, Comment to Our Post on Zappos' 'Leaving Bonus'
4. Employee Engagement: A WorthWHILE Metric
5. 30 Employee Development Strategies to Boost Productivity
6. BNET: Strong Workplace Cultures a Boon for MBO Leaders
7. Five Proven Strategies for Retaining Top Talent
8. Friday Nugget: Don't Underestimate the Importance of Learning
9. How a Small IT Firm Creates Knowledge Leaders, and the Company ROI
10. Job Swapping Extends Beyond Non-Management Employees

How does a focus on developing leaders factor into your overall employee practices?

Photo credit: CAREEREALISM

I wanted to share with you two upcoming events for which Winning Workplaces is a promotional partner.  You will surely gain valuable insights at both of them to help you implement employee engagement and team building activities for a more productive workplace – especially at the latter event, whose programming is all about that.

SJF Summit on the New Green Economy: Early Bird registration ends this week

What: SJF Summit on the New Green Economy
When: September 14-15, 2010
Where: Durham Marriott Convention Center, Durham, NC
Event Website: www.sjfsummit.org

Register now for SJF's second annual Summit on the New Green Economy: Accelerating Growth and Impact.  The SJF Summit will be a dynamic gathering of entrepreneurs, investors, government and community leaders  sharing inspiring successes & practical tools and exploring strategic partnerships to build the green economy with opportunities for all.  The event will feature keynotes from Bruce Usher, former CEO of carbon trading firm EcoSecurities, and David Orr, distinguished professor at Oberlin College describing the innovative Oberlin green economy initiative, as well as many more.  There will also be a Cleantech CEO panel and concurrent sessions on the latest in cleantech investing, emerging capital market innovations, green jobs and green economic development strategies, and carbon markets.

Creating Competitive Cultures: Register by August 31 and save $300

What: Creating Competitive Cultures: New Leadership Strategies for Building Great Companies
When: October 27-29, 2010
Where: Denver Marriott City Center, Denver, CO
Event Website: www.competitivecultures.com

Inc., the magazine for growing companies, has partnered with Winning Workplaces to discover and recognize private companies with exemplary workplaces that motivate, engage, and reward employees. Honorees will appear in the June 2010 issue of Inc., and the achievement of these companies will be commemorated at the 2010 Inc. and Winning Workplaces Conference on Creating Competitive Cultures (C3).  At C3, you'll learn about innovative approaches from award-winning companies and extraordinary entrepreneurs, the inspirational tools and processes they deploy to build teams and workplace environments that have a lasting impact on financial results and personal satisfaction.  Creating Competitive Cultures presents the newest leadership strategies for developing the best possible company culture, one that results in a loyal, motivated, inspired, and focused team.

What workplace improvement events, in person or virtual, have you already attended this year?

I'm adapting Mark Twain's famous quote in the title of this post because I feel the need to provide a counterpoint to Mike Shipulski's "obituary" of imagination – in an organizational sense – on the Blogging Innovation website today.  Writing as if imagination were a person, Shipulski says,

In recent years (imagination's) health declined as the two new thinking systems, lean and Six Sigma, tricked companies into severely constraining their thinking, and, eventually, there was no longer a place for her.

I'm someone who thinks that regardless of the adoption of a management approach such as the two he lists above, imagination is still alive and well.  I think its vitals are especially strong (in keeping with the obit analogy) in small businesses, where because of wavering if not falling consumer confidence and spending, reduced spending by many of the larger companies they serve and are served by, and in many cases insufficient support by lending institutions and the government, and other factors, firms and their leaders and managers have had to get incredibly imaginative in recent years.

The following articles on our website show how imagination factors into the payoff of employee engagement best practices in terms of a more productive workplace:

Ask An Expert - Vacation Days: Real vs. Perceived Time Off
"The GreenPages example shows that organizations' leadership are only limited by their imagination in how they approach time off for their workforces."

Success Story - JFK Medical Center
"Many of the programs at JFK, which has been widely recognized for its enlightened workplace approach, are beyond the reach of smaller employers.  However, some programs would be feasible for a small workplace with some leadership imagination and sensitivity."

Perhaps more to the point of the current relevancy of imagination, the term showed up several times in the qualitative feedback of applicants for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award.  In response to our question How do leaders in your organization foster a sense of community and collaboration among employees?, TXS Industrial Design in Texas wrote:

On a personal level, with interaction and interest of management, TXS may sometimes resemble "The Office" with humor and humility, sickness and health, birthdays and weddings, celebration of babies and joyous occasions and an occasional party or FoosBall tourney to spark imagination.  Our family of employees feel secure in their jobs and the longevity of the workplace.

In answer to our question asking for an example of an employee learning initiative, Maryand-based Orbit Logic Incorporated wrote:

We do an annual survey to see how employees feel about their job and the work environment.  One of the best suggestions to come out of that survey was an employee lunch and learn.  We really liked the idea, so we ran with it.  The topics are varied, ranging anywhere from benefits overviews to marketing to software development overview for non-developers.  It is very easy for people's imaginations to run wild with information.

Finally, fulfilling our requirement of describing the workplace culture of their organization and the key people practices that support that culture, California-based Perfect Fitness wrote:

Our company, Team PERFECT, is on a mission to serve everyone who desires a life lived to the fullest extent of their imagination, to serve those who realize that's the point of living anything less, and we haven't truly lived.  You have nothing to lose but your own self-imposed limitations, and you can gain anything you dare to imagine.  We believe that by sharing our understanding, you will become as passionate about your potential as we are, this is how we are teammates to all, teachers to some and students of others.  We know of no greater reward in life than helping others unlock their success and achieve their dreams.

Related: The CEO of one of our 2009 award winners, Chicago-based Radio Flyer, explains in this video on our YouTube channel how the company's workplace values of fun and imagination allow them to better resonate with their customers – parents – and foster greater employee commitment and innovation.

The business justification for employee engagement focused on their continued, on-the-job learning is easy to understand.  It's a win for employees who increase their skills and become more marketable in their careers; and the company wins because their talent has a greater ability to perform at top levels and to innovate, and it's less of a risk and more of an opportunity to promote from within (saving money on recruiting from outside).

Yet, there are myriad options when it comes to educational employee development strategies.  Where should a small business start?  Maybe a more important question is: Considering each investment in this economy needs to generate several times its amount back in returns, what learning initiatives are most effective for small firms?

Luckily, Winning Workplaces has some real-world answers to these questions to share with you to help you decide how to invest when it comes to this important area of human capital strategies.  Our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award application asked applicant companies to give an example of a learning initiative they found to be particularly effective.  Here's how our 20 winners this year responded:

1. A Yard & A Half Landscaping: We spend the equivalent of 1-2 weeks per year offering paid training days for field employees.  Because of the democratic educational setting, by the end of the day, people were helping each other across work crews, and on two occasions, younger employees stepped in to coach crew leaders on machinery that was still unfamiliar to them.
2. All4: For our staff that are in the beginning of their careers and are developing their core consulting and technical skills, we have developed a skills matrix which allows them to know exactly what metrics must be met in order to be promoted to the next position. 
3. Alternative Solutions HomeCare: One interesting program ASH put into place in 2009 was the Dream Manager Program.  Tackling head-on the growing problem of employee disengagement, the program explores the dynamic collaboration that is unleashed when people work together to achieve company objectives and personal dreams.  We had so much positive reaction to this program that we will be continuing it in 2010.
4. Biomark: A couple of years ago we did a several-day team building training.  The effect is that when we employ an idea or theory from this training in our everyday work environment, everyone knows what we are trying to accomplish and is engaged in the process.  This has paid dividends in workplace happiness, turnover, and job performance.
5. Chroma Technology Corp: A few years ago Chroma underwent a full company Lean Manufacturing initiative.  Every employee attended a 2-day workshop and seminar about the fundamentals of Lean Manufacturing.  In addition, 25% of the company was directly involved in two different Lean Mapping and Value Stream courses and projects.  This resulted in $1 million material savings in the first year.
6. Daphne Utilities: We include a large number of our employees in public events involving interaction with our customers.  Here, they work side by side with upper management in events like street festivals and charity fundraisers.  This helps them hear the message being put out from the highest levels, allows top management to get to know each employee a little better, and helps to motivate our workers to take public pride in their work and their company.
7. Dealer.com: We launched uFuel in 2009, a customized online learning management system that was implemented over a 14-month period.  uFuel contains interactive simulations, measures success and knowledge gaps, and creates training programs for areas of improvement.  This learning initiative has been extremely effective at keeping all employees at the leading edge of online marketing best practices and ensuring consistent service for clients.
8. Dixon Schwabl: Our employee development includes an initiative launched by our CEO in 1998 to enhance overall employee communications and allow employees to appreciate each other's differences.  Based on Myers Briggs indicators, it helps frame leadership development, coaching, internal training opportunities, and cross-training.
9. Ginger Bay Salon & Spa: Beginning in 2008 and throughout 2009, we spent significant time with our leadership team opening our books and helping employees understand our financial statements and review our financial performance.  We believe that Open Book Management is likely the main reason that we were able to post results that were not only stronger than our competition, but reflect growth in all areas of our business.
10. MAYA Design: Teaching – many of our employees teach at local universities and we find that allowing this as a paid benefit helps employees learn more about their jobs, how to manage and work with others, and better communication skills.
11. NY Jets: In 2008, the Jets embarked on a first of its kind management development initiative entitled "Take It or Lead It".  Both Business and Football managers partcipated in the sessions.  When this program started, the Jets were in the planning stages of our relocation from Long Island to New Jersey.  HR was able to add in a special section on managing change that prepared mangers for the huge changes employees faced with our relocation.
12. Optimax Systems: The implementation of Job Instruction Training which ensures direction provided from internal trainers is consistent and measurable for effectiveness.  This has allowed us to make sure that people "get it" when instructed on a specific task.
13. Patagonia: Our Employee Development Program temporarily assigns employees to other positions in circumstances where an employee may be out on an extended leave (e.g., maternity leave, an environmental internship, etc.).  Employees participating in this program attain new job skills, have the opportunity to meet more people in the Patagonia community at a new location, and significantly ease the transition back to work for the employee they've replaced.
14. PortionPac Chemical Corp: For 22 years we have held a "Front to Back Day".  Management, office and sales staff spend the day working in the factory.  The "Front" staff gains an appreciation for the skills, talent and physical work that go into making PortionPac, while the factory staff are able to showcase their accomplishments and the attention to detail that goes into making each Pac perfect.  The event fosters communication and suggestions that go back and forth as to how our products can be made better and how the "Front" staff can make life easier for the "Back".
15. Red Door Interactive: We believe that promoting opportunity to change your role at Red Door has prevented talented employees from leaving the company to pursue interests and additional responsibility elsewhere.  Emergent practice areas such as social media and search marketing now comprise over 30% of our total service revenue, and those practice areas are led by people who identified new opportunities and invested in becoming experts by playing to their strengths.
16. Return Path: Most recently our CEO developed and delivered an "Effective Presentations" course.  Content is broken down into small, easily absorbed chunks and reinforced to create a solid foundation that is common for all new hires.  This builds not only a shared vocabulary in our unique business, it builds a shared context.
17. Tarlton Corporation: Our most innovative training program is called Increasing Human Effectives (IHE).  The philosophy behind this training is to help our employees grow personally through this process, which will allow growth professionally.  If they believe in themselves, anything is possible!  Happy employees are productive employees.
18. Tasty Catering: We have 11 advisors/consultants that work with our teams.  Advisors are in the following areas: Banker, Financial, CPA, HR, PR, Marketing, Legal (one for the company and one for the shareholders), IT, Culinary, Dietician and Sales.  The staff benefits by receiving advice from a recognized expert in the field who has larger and smaller clients.
19. The Sky Factory: To further our understanding and experience of the creative process as it applies to our daily work and to the building of the company, we prepared an all-company course with an art historian.  After viewing hundreds of art images and engaging in extensive dialogue it became evident that the process of building a company can (and should) be the same as that of creating a beautiful and lasting work of art.  This notion became practical when a designer aptly observed the skill of a production worker's multiple LED solders.  The fine quality of his work was especially significant because of a recent multi-million dollar fire caused by sloppy work from a competitor's LED system.
20. Van Meter Industrial: One effective learning initiative in our organization is our Foundations training program.  New employees attend this day-and-a-half course near their 90-day milestone anniversary with our company.  Feedback from employees has shown this is fun, interactive, and important training that provides a true insight to our culture, gives the basis for understanding what is important to our company, and sets the tone for who we are and what we represent.

Related: Dive even further into learning activities that will benefit your workplace culture, and your bottom line, by reading our Success Story on ShoreBank.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

One of the things I love about my job is turning to small business marketing experts for tips I can use to improve our various online communication vehicles to better serve our core audience, small business owners and leaders.

Some of the folks who have served me well in this area include:

• Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival,
• Lisa Barone, who writes for Small Business Trends,
• Chris Brogan at New Marketing Labs, and
• John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing.

I've mentioned Jantsch a couple times here recently, including in this post where, based on research from his new book, he ties a productive workplace culture to a company's referability.  However, most of the content on his Duct Tape Marketing Blog focuses on specific software programs, and tips and tricks for using them, that lead to better business results for small firms.

One of these that I picked up by just reading Jantsch's blog posts is that he uses a piece of code provided by Apture that allows readers scrolling down his pages to keep tabs on the site they're on (helpful given the distracting nature of our modern work and workplaces); quickly and easily share the page with their Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and via email; and do a search for related terms on other websites, including for books and other products on Amazon.

As our website has a number of pages that also require the reader to scroll down to get all the team building and employee engagement best practices, I thought it would be helpful to install this same code.  So now when you visit our website you can do the following:

• Highlight nearly any word or phrase to further explore our articles.
• Share our articles on Twitter, Facebook, and via email at any point while you're reading.
• On text 40 characters or less you can hit Ctrl+c or Command+c on your keyboard to instantly perform a search.  (You can also search by typing a term in the box on the right of the Apture bar that will follow you down the page.)

So visit our site today to check out this new feature.  You will find this especially helpful in our Library and Ask An Expert sections, which feature the bulk of our original workplace improvement content that requires scrolling based on its length.

As Inc. Magazine's profile on our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award winner PortionPac Chemical Corp got a lot of attention in terms of showing the payoff of employee engagement at a manufacturer – an industry that has been especially hard hit in this economy, and which is not typically known for great workplace practices – today I wanted to share a bit more about another manufacturer: NewAge Industries, one of our 2010 award finalists.

Specifically, I wanted to enlighten you on five practices that leadership of this Pennsylvania-based provider of disposable pharmaceutical processing systems uses to increase competitive advantage.  For 56-year-old NewAge, one solidly quantitative way to define "competitive advantage" is their share price increasing 219% since 2005, while those of their two biggest, publicly traded competitors dropped substantially over the same period.  In addition, the company has never carried debt.

Here are five of NewAge's staff engagement activities that stand out for their revenue-generating and employee retention potential – again, particularly with respect to what other manufacturers are doing right now:

1. Bring on temporary producton employees for up to three months before hiring decisions are made.  This helps NewAge determine if someone is the best cultural fit for the organization, especially when viewed through the lens of employee leadership development potential.
2. Use tough times like these to launch an educational initiative aimed at helping employees understand and address their personal finance concerns.  At NewAge, the CEO in coordination with the accounting department recently hosted five, one-hour sessions with all staff on this.  As a result, many workers have closed the gaps in their personal finances.  This ultimately benefits the company because less financially stressed employees are more productive.
3. Weave cross-training firmly into employee practices and the workplace culture.  Leadership's goal here is to avoid over-hiring in busy times and rampant layoffs in slow times.  They fundamentally believe that this cycle that's so typical of companies is flawed, and they have the numbers to show that their steadier approach works (2009 was their sixth record-breaking year in a row for profits).
4. Pay workers for referrals.  NewAge employees receive a $1,000 bonus for any successful referrals they make.  Management has found that this practice helps to reduce hiring costs and results in higher quality applicants, since employees value the work culture and don't want to be responsible for spoiling it.
5. Put a twist on your tuition reimbursement program and subsidize both work- and non-work-related learning.  NewAge reimburses each employee up to $2,500 annually, and the tuition can be used for any type of learning, whether or not it is directly related to one's job.  Leaders' rationale is that the act of learning anything new and different can spark innovation – not to mention foster employee loyalty.

What people practices, in addition to those mentioned above, do you think directly impact and boost competitive advantage?

Our past annual conference speaker Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal wrote a blog today on a notable development when it comes to the intersection of workplace culture practices and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  Shellenbarger notes that with Australia now requiring their employers to offer paid leave, the U.S. is now "alone among developed nations in offering no financial support for new parents post-childbirth."

The 12 weeks of leave that our government does mandate, for both eligible new mothers and new fathers, is unpaid.

Where the government is in supporting unpaid versus paid leave is a stark contrast to what the applicants, finalists, and winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces competition offer.  Here's what we see in our employee engagement research of this pool of 497 total small businesses:

• 100% of the 20 winners offer paid time off (PTO)
• 100% of the 20 finalists offer PTO
• 97.6% of the remaining 457 applicants offer PTO
• 11 (2%) of the 497 total applicants go further and specifically offer paid paternity in addition to maternity leave (above and beyond general paid leave)

Why do these organizations, which are small and lack many of the resources (including financial) of big companies, make this kind of investment as part of their employee benefits packages?  Certainly it keeps them competitive on the recruiting front.  Yet, considering their overall people practices allow them to keep workers for a long time – 7 years on average among our 2010 winners and finalists; 4 years among the remaining applicants – they see being generous in supporting time off for personal as well as family commitments as a means toward achieving industry-best retention and employee leadership development.  This in turn directly affects their ability to maintain and improve both customer and vendor relationships.

Related: This article on our website describes the push for paid sick leave legislation in the U.S., including some of the major players involved.

Summarizing this recent article on the Blogging Innovation site, SmartBrief on Leadership urges business leaders to "scrap the idea box."  And indeed, the article's author, Innovation 360 Institute President and CEO Kamal Hassan, shares 10 reasons that underscore his view that "they can do more harm than good."

Yet, I submit that, like many people practices to create a more productive workplace culture, an idea (or suggestion) box's success or failure comes down to leadership's commitment to it.  For example, how frequently do they call attention to it?  And what do they do with the feedback that's generated?

So before you scrap your idea/suggestion box, ask yourself if you've gotten maximum mileage from it – and if you're using the box in the right format for your work culture.  For instance, our Top Small Workplace Point B, which has a geographically diverse workforce that works exclusively at client sites, gathers employee ideas as part of its robust company intranet.  It relies on technology and has no physical suggestion box.

Here are some other approaches to the idea/suggestion box from our website:

• 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, the organization of our Best Boss Brian Scudamore, didn't stop at posting a suggestion box – the company created a system for logging the suggestions, assigning them for consideration, and following up on them.
• At Sullivan International Group, the CEO (our Best Boss finalist Steve Sullivan) reviews all suggestion box ideas himself.  We've seen this practice in several other companies we've honored through the years.
• Use the suggestion box as a means to an end of another workplace practice – an employee award.  Our Success Story on BOWA Builders shares how the company presents an award to the employee whose suggestion box feedback is most utilized.
• Your suggestion box can take a form other than a physical or virtual box.  Guest writer Allison O'Neill suggests "a team talk, regular brainstorming session or paper survey" in lieu of a traditional suggestion box.

Related: This post contains a tip by another of our Best Bosses – one of the best places to put a physical suggestion box in your workplace for best employee engagement.

I am getting a ton of great workplace culture and employee engagement best practices information by reading Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, the new book by Tony Hsieh, CEO of the hugely successful online shoe and clothing store Zappos.

For example, when the company was five years old, Hsieh asked one of his employees to create a Culture Book.  A more involved version of this practice by our small business honoree Rackspace, as with many people practices, the Zappos culture book turned out to be more about the journey than the end product.

I'd like you to gain the same insights, directly from the "horse's mouth," as it were.  So I'm inviting you to comment below telling me how your business strives to deliver happiness.  Doing so will enter you in a drawing to receive a FREE copy of the book.  I'll select and contact the winner at the beginning of July.

So have at it, readers.  And, Happy Friday!