Some of our past posts have stressed that it's a good idea for you to improve employee engagement and other people practices in your organization by adding a formal social media policy.  Reasons for taking this step include enhancing your ability to engage both existing and potential customers as well as promoting better cross-generational communication among your workforce and avoiding employee litigation.

But what does a comprehensive and effective social media policy look like?  Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton of Eaton International Consulting shed a lot of light on this last week in a post for Social Media Today.  Based on her review of over 150 such policies for a wide range of firms, including both for- and not-for-profits, she shared 16 dimensions in a "lessons learned" context.

What I find especially noteworthy about a number of Eaton's policy considerations is how they align with the building blocks of a Winning Workplace.  For instance:

• "Encourage honesty and transparency" and "Respect others" promote Trust, Respect and Fairness
• "Encourage a conversational tone" and "Seek permission and ask for help" promote Open Communications and Learning and Development
• "Discourage disputes" promotes Teamwork and Involvement
• "Time allocation" promotes Work/Life Balance

As our research and that of others who study highly productive workplace cultures show, to the extent that companies can reinforce great-workplace characteristics in their policies and procedures, they tend to enjoy better business results as they inform, enrich, and empower their people.  Eaton's social media policy framework is one example of this phenomenon in action.

Related: We recently shared this video by social media marketing expert Laura Roeder on our Facebook page, in which she argues that you will best engage existing and potential customers (and convert that engagement to sales) by turning to current employees.  This approach, of course, hinges on having in place a useful social media policy.

The following is a guest post by Drake MacDonald.  Drake's brief experience in construction introduced him to the field's many shortcomings.  As an online writer and editor, he works to promote construction management education in the hopes of improving industry standards of communication and organization.

In the construction business, it is crucial for supervisors and employees to have a symbiotic relationship in order to build a healthy work culture.  However, in order to create such an environment, each construction management company must consider what can be done to develop a supportive workplace, how to inspire trust and leadership within the team, and how barriers that may inhibit productive transactions can be removed.  While this process sounds complicated, in actuality it is fairly easy to implement.  Simply utilizing the following ideas will allow you to establish a work environment that is not only healthy, but efficient and productive at every level.

The first step in creating a healthy work culture is for both employees and supervisors to be open to hearing and utilizing the ideas of any member of the construction team.  To ensure that all ideas are being heard, construction owners can encourage workers and supervisors to submit their ideas formally to the construction office.  Company owners should also encourage employees to share their ideas with their supervisors and other team members.

Secondly, although purpose is important to construction, it is also important that supervisors and employees utilize a process approach to managing each construction site.  When construction management is focused on process, team members are much more likely to meet the expected standards and complete each stage of construction with success.  Furthermore, the process approach allows construction work to be completed with greater efficiency and quality.

Thirdly, it is important that team members on the construction site have peer support and trust during the building process.  This can be facilitated by following through with all work orders and process standards.  Likewise, all members of the construction team should learn to cooperate and collaborate with each other on a day-to-day basis.  This means that each team member needs to be accountable for their work and must treat other members of the team with respect.  However, even with the most agreeable team, it’s inevitable that issues will arise that interfere with the construction process.  When such an instance occurs, it is crucial that the issue is addressed promptly with the entire team.

Ultimately if you incorporate collaborative behaviors, open communication, and a process approach into your construction company, you can easily build a healthy and profitable workplace culture.  Remember that construction teams can also focus on creating healthy work environments by utilizing economically green tools and materials that benefit the industry, workers, and clients.  With such a culture, construction safety is inevitable.  Furthermore, when you utilize these techniques, you can be confident that your team is giving their best.

Related: For even more employee engagement and team building strategies aimed at increasing job satisfaction and overall performance within the construction sector, click here.

I am pleased to share with you the following guest post by Anita Campbell.  Anita is the Founder of the Small Business Trends website and CEO of BizSugar, an online community of small business owners.  Today she tackles a topic of concern when establishing great employee engagement and workplace team building strategies: not crossing the friend line with your employees to your business' detriment.  Enjoy!

Everyone wants – has a need, even – to be liked.  It certainly makes going to work every day a lot easier if the people you work with like you.  And because we spend so much time at work, it's only natural to want to cultivate friendships with the people we're with for so many hours every day.  The rules change when you're the boss, though.  There's nothing wrong with being friendly with your employees.  But you do have to draw the line, or maybe a few lines, to also avoid damaging your professional relationships with them, and to keep their respect.  Here are a few tips on how to maintain that delicate balance.

Don't Get Too Personal

You've probably read or been told that you should set boundaries with your employees.  But what does that mean, exactly?  It would be awkward to actually sit your employees down and go over a list of what subjects are okay to talk about, and which ones are taboo.  But it can also be difficult to establish those lines in a more subtle manner.  How you set those boundaries is up to you, but one of the most important things to avoid is getting too personal.

From time to time, your employees may have to reveal certain personal information to you if it's about something that may affect their work.  Having surgery can mean time out of the office, for example.  Or maybe they're getting a divorce, and must remove their spouse from their insurance coverage.  There's really no getting around that, as uncomfortable as it may be for everyone involved.  But those types of revelations should only go one way.  Need to be away from work for medical reasons?  That's all you need to say.  Getting a divorce?  Try to keep it to yourself.

Just like you wouldn't broadcast your problems on a business networking site, you don't want to let your entire office know what you're going through.  Your employees need to have faith that you are there to manage and help them, and although you want them to see you as human, you must try to maintain their confidence in you, and in the company.  Breaking down in the office because your spouse left you will damage that confidence.  Take time off if you need to, but keep your personal life personal.

Now, as with many rules, there is an exception to this one. If you're a small business owner, and you only employ a few people, it may be more difficult to separate your personal life from your professional one.  A startup can oftentimes create a camaraderie and a sense of ownership that employees in larger companies don't feel.  You may all be spending long hours in the office together to get those client proposals done, or inviting your employees' ideas and contributions to get your startup past one of the inevitable hiccups you'll run into.  If that's the kind of relationship you've built with your employees, you may feel more comfortable revealing some of the more personal details of your life.  Just remember to maintain your position as the boss at the same time.

Don't Get Drunk in Front of Employees

You'd think this one would need explaining, but think back.  Before you were promoted or started your own business, did you ever see one of your bosses get drunk at the company Christmas party, or the company picnic?  It happens more often than you might think, and much more often than it should.  Learn from those experiences, and don't be that boss.

It's okay to have a drink or two with your employees from time to time.  Most people will probably have a drink at a holiday party or other company event.  Or maybe you'll go out after work to celebrate landing a big contract.  Just don't overdo it.  Your employees do not need to see you slurring your words, or losing control in public.  It can be embarrassing, and make it very difficult for them to respect you once you're back in the office.  And let's face it, no one likes to have to babysit someone who's had a few too many.  Never put your employees in a position where they have to monitor you, or take your keys away from you.  It's asking too much of them, and putting them in a very awkward position.  No one appreciates that, least of all the people who are supposed to be able – and want – to look up to you.

Don't Play Favorites

Of course you're going to like some employees more than others.  There'll be one person you just click with, someone with whom you'd be very good friends if not for the work situation that requires keeping a little distance.  Because you can't hang out with that person the way you'd like to, you may try to compensate by treating that employee a little better than the others.  If you think you're being subtle about it, you're wrong.  The other employees will notice it, and it will cause problems.

Having several employees can be very much like having a family, especially if that's the kind of culture you've worked to build in your company.  Like a family, there will be some sibling rivalries, and competition for your attention as the pseudo parental figure.  Don't encourage it.  Everyone needs to work together, not against each other, and if it becomes obvious that you favor one employee over the others, the employees on the outs will band together against the favorite.  It's just human nature.  And nothing destroys morale more quickly in the office than feeling unappreciated, or as if the work being done doesn't really matter.  Treat all your employees equally but fairly, which also means that when one of them isn't performing, you take the appropriate action – even if it's your favorite.

The main answer is, yes, you can be friends with your employees, just not the same kind of friends you are with your non-work friends.  Be friendly, be fair, but keep the focus on work, morale, and productivity, and you'll get much more out of your employees than you would if you tried to make them like you all the time.  In other words – be the boss.

Related: As the boss, you may be concerned about getting too chummy with your staff to keep an eye toward building trust in the workplace. Yet, as we write about here, research shows a possible link between budding friendships among your staff resulting in more highly engaged employees when it comes to dealing with leaders and managers.

One of the hallmarks of a harmonious and productive workplace culture is little to no litigation initiated against a company by current or former employees.  Winning Workplaces looks at this as part of a larger question about government, civil, or criminal complaints in our annual Top Small Company Workplaces competition.  In 2011, only 2% of winners and finalists and 3% of the other applicants for our award had had employees bring forth litigation.

We evaluated our 2011 award applicants for the year 2010, so this means a total of 5% of all firms were the subject of related complaints or investigations.  This is consistent with what we saw for our 2010 award applicants (for the year 2009), as I wrote about here.

And yet, as Jason Carney, Human Resource Director for WorkSmart Systems, an Indianapolis-based PEO serving clients in 37 states, shared with me, complaints filed in 2010 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) grew 7% over 2009, to just shy of 100,000.

What are the companies who apply for our workplace award doing to safeguard against employee litigation (and legal trouble in general)?  They are largely following these steps that Jason outlined, which speak to these firms' exemplary people practices:

1. Policy development: Have good policies in place and regularly update employee handbooks.  Policies should including one addressing social media participation, specifically mentioning that the terms of the policy are not intended to interfere with concerted protected activity.
2. Ongoing informal education: Guide your employees to changes in federal labor laws.
3. Formal training: Ensure that your employees are well versed in company policies and federal guidelines, such as unlawful harassment prevention and wage and hour law proficiency.

One additional insight related to these steps Jason shared is that while many companies might view their implementation as routine in terms of forms creation and updating, or just doing the right thing as any company would strive to do, the reality is that they are a powerful set of trust building activities that promote better communication and, ultimately, greater productivity.

Related: If you didn't see this article when we first published it, check out guest columnist and attorney Paula Brantner's checklist to help startups avoid cutting legal corners which could prove costly later on.

Last week I was combing CNN.com on my lunch break.  When I first came across author Max Barry's article "Why I fled the office cubicle," I thought it was going to just be about how this 20th century feature of workplace culture and design can hinder employee engagement and ideation from the bottom up.

It is about that, but Barry also takes aim (I think unnecessarily) at human resources professionals:

The difference between people and human resources is that people have brains.  ...  Human resources are basically office equipment with legs.  They're talking furniture.  In fact, they're worse than furniture, because at least furniture stays where you put it.

Ouch.

In stark contrast to how Barry sees HR, here's how I painted this critical business function in the context of our Winning Workplaces in 2009:

For the most part, among the small firms we've honored for their outstanding employee engagement that improves productivity and the bottom line, HR leaders morph from paper pushers to planners and implementation specialists, along with the CEO, of team building activities that fit and reinforce the work culture.

Below are five specific examples of this, among the small firms we've honored and profiled over the years:

1. Leadership Advisor and Key Decision Maker

Ginger Bay Salon & Spa, Kirkwood, MO
HR Representative: Sasha McGuire

"I'm part of the leadership team here, and we meet weekly to collaborate," McGuire says. "My boss, the owner, is very open to my feedback.  For example, I make the decisions around staffing, and she trusts me and consults with me.  I make the recruiting schedule, and make selections.  The owner is involved, but trusts me to do my work well."

2. Self-Directed Workforce Director

New Belgium Brewing Company, Fort Collins, CO
HR Representative: Jenny Briggs

Philosophically, NBB's intention is to develop a workforce that, at all levels, is self directed, makes reasoned decisions and is inspired to pursue their passions at work.  The company provides a menu of opportunities for all staff including: a process for employees to establish their own work objectives, on-site internal training, tuition for external education, a job shadowing program, and participation on one of NBB's committees.  Many of these activities are directed by Briggs and her 10-person staff in Human Resources.

3. Productivity Enhancer

High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi), Reston, VA
HR Representative: Eleni Antoniou

The firm's staff benefit from peer learning through Learning Cafe presentations that are given every two to three weeks. Occurring over the lunch hour in a format akin to brown bags, staff members have the chance to receive in-depth training on a particular computer program or even learn a skill not tied to the workplace.  Antoniou, director of HR, has presented several topics, including goal setting and getting the most out of performance reviews.

4. Relationship Builder

Optimax Systems, Inc., Ontario, NY
HR Representative: Alejandro Mendoza

Mendoza's duties include helping to administer Optimax's successful mentoring program, which is core to the company's developmental process and helps maintain its unique workplace culture.  All new employees are assigned a mentor for a minimum of 90 days and there is a structured timeline of events that are expected to take place during this time period, including: much one-on-one time, monthly lunches, introductions to all staff, orientation to computer systems, understanding the bonus program, etc.  "Instead of a boring HR orientation, this mentoring relationship helps new employees understand our environment and what is expected in a far more effective manner," says Mendoza.

5. Emergency Responder (Culture Maintainer)

Ipswitch, Inc., Lexington, MA
HR Representative: Betty Lang-Holmes

Lang-Holmes had been on the job for one week when tragedy struck her software company, Ipswitch, Inc.  An employee's well known significant other passed away unexpectedly.  As vice president of human resources, she acted quickly.  "We invited a licensed counselor from our EAP to host bereavement seminars the very next day," she says.  "Now, there's no stigma attached to getting help when people need it."  In fact, at only $65 per employee, Ipswitch's EAP investment, and oversight by HR, amounts to just pennies compared to the costs of losing a valued associate.

Related: Our Leadership Conference with Inc. starting June 15 is a fantastic opportunity to learn about cutting-edge employee practices for greater team camaraderie and company productivity – the kinds of practices you can leverage your HR staff to implement, increasing your ROI from them!  Hurry – the $300 early bird disount is only available until May 6.

Citing Edelman PR's 2011 Trust Barometer, yesterday the Whole New Web Blog argued that marketing success cannot be obtained without building trust with your customer base.  A separate, new post by Erik Deckers of Professional Blog Service shares findings from a MarketingPower.com report which show that companies appear to have an opening, in favor of customers' friends, to be the most trusted source for information which leads to a purchase.

Picking up on Deckers' post, the trick to benefiting from a decline in purchasers' trust in "people like themselves" (aka, friends) is that companies must be more visible on, and more savvy with, social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, a blog, etc, etc.

In addition to our usual discussion of team building and employee engagement strategies for making your workplace culture more productive, occasionally I've shared here tips and techniques for using these tools in ways that increase your ROI.  In light of the above research findings, I thought it would be helpful to put these insights all in one place.

Without further ado, I invite you to follow the links below to increase your social media cred – and thus build more trust with both past and prospective customers or clients:

1. Tailor your message when sharing links on your Facebook page
2. Put available phone numbers of LinkedIn contacts who belong to your Group into a cold call list, then reach out to them in the best way you see fit
3. Understand why setting up a company blog, or ramping up your blogging, can be just as effective as running typically costlier PPC ads
4. On Twitter, use TweetDeck to grow your follower base
5. Learn how to combine your blog with Twitter to turn listening into reputation building

Related: It's no secret that the younger generations in your workforce – Millennials in particular – are often most on the pulse of the latest technology trends.  Learn how to better engage employees in this workforce demographic with the takeaways in this Executive Learning Series webinar.

Tanveer Naseer has a thought-provoking post on his blog this week in which he emphasizes the importance of celebrating the traditions that define your firm's workplace culture.  He says company traditions are worthwhile because they:

• Make your organization stand out from the crowd,
• Foster a sense of shared identity, and
• Remind us of past challenges and of how far we've come.

In businesses, tradition is commonly thought of as parts, or the whole, of special events that bring employees together and help with building trust in the workplace.  One example is this practice at Rackspace Hosting, a 2006 winner of Winning Workplaces' annual workplace award.

But it can also serve as a benchmark for how you want your firm to be unique, or at least different than your competition, in your processes and people practices.  This is apparent in the feedback shared by the following four winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award:

Award application question: How do you work with employees to help them grow in their jobs?
Response: In 2008, ALL4 made a significant change to our performance review system by eliminating the existing system and replacing it with what we call our Continuous Improvement Program (CIP).  Our old process was a traditional annual performance review and we made salary adjustments based on the results of the review.  We felt that this system was not consistent with our company culture, or our matrix-type organizational structure, and it relied on feedback that was not always current or geared to affecting positive personal growth.  We migrated to the CIP system which we created.  The system involves soliciting more consistent and current feedback from everyone involved with project execution.  At the beginning of each year, all staff take part in a "Create the Year" exercise where each person develops their own annual goals and objectives (aligned with company goals and initiatives, where applicable).  Each employee also identifies their personal "breakthrough" objectives.  Additionally, employees are able to give and receive performance feedback using a web based system.  Staff meet with their group coordinator on a regular basis (at least 1/quarter) to discuss feedback and their progress to date on their goals and objectives that were developed in their "Create the Year" form.  All group coordinators act as "career coaches" and maintain an "open door" policy at all times.

Award application question: Describe the culture of your organization and the key people practices that support that culture.
Response: I can best describe Biomark as a group of individuals that use an organic approach to management.  While there's reference to a traditional organizational chart which outlines Biomark and its hierarchy, Biomark practices the idea of individual contributions and self management.  It is this that defines our culture.  We've found that by empowering and EXPECTING personal input at all levels people become vested.  It IS their ideas and actions that are moving our business decisions forward and albeit they may not always be the right ones, they're input directly affects the health of the business.  We've been fortunate over the last (2) years to become 100% employee owned (ESOP)and this move has solidified the belief in every one of us that it is "our" company and what we do wholly affects it.  We have been and continue to be the best at what we do and our execution both physically as well as financially has proven it.  There are examples of this practice and their positive outcomes that occur frequently.  Production staff have recently taken steps that have both improved quality and output (productivity improvements) of a product we make.  This is not done at the urging of management or supervisors.  This is done because these people care about what we do and want to see their team and the company succeed.  Trust can cost an organization but we believe that oversight can be even more costly.  We prefer to work in an atmosphere of trust.

Award application question: How does the organization encourage employees to participate in important business decisions?
Response: Dealer.com has a flat organizational and management structure, rather than a traditional hierarchical structure.  This format was adopted to facilitate communication among all employees, regardless of title, department or tenure.  All senior executives have an open door policy that encourages any employee to ask questions and share thoughts.  Team leaders also sit with their groups in "pods," instead of being located in separate offices.  This allows for immediate and continuous communication between team members and leadership.  When employees have suggestions, criticisms or new ideas there are numerous communication options.  They can schedule a meeting with a team leader or departmental manager, email their thoughts, or talk to them via the internal chat tool.  Open discussion about the majority of important business decisions is encouraged and taken seriously by management.  Senior management also regularly communicates information, both good and bad, via the company wide "earthlings" (Dealer.com's nickname for all employees) meetings.  The weekly meetings also showcase the company's successes, news and development stages of various projects so that all employees can see how their job responsibilities fit into and contribute to the overall organization.  Even more frequently, executives write and send informal emails to all employees to keep everyone up to date regarding new business and company developments.  In addition, president and CEO Mark Bonfigli sent out a company-wide email stating that he wants to get to know all employees better, as Dealer.com has been growing so rapidly.  He offered to take all new employees out to lunch on an individual basis.  The feedback from employees is that it has been wonderful to get to know the president and CEO on a personal level.  Mark encourages everyone to express their opinions and share new ideas about how Dealer.com could be an even better company and workplace.

Award application question: How does your organization develop employees for leadership roles?
Response: We think that Open Book Management challenges employees to be responsible for the outcomes that they control in our organization.  Those that are in leadership positions at Ginger Bay Salon are asked to consider all the sources of information they have (appointment books, vacation schedules, previous results) to predict future revenues.  These are tasks that are traditionally executed by very few people in small business, let alone front-line leaders.  Because the information is shared across the entire team, all of our employees are in a better position to lead should the opportunity arise.  While we use this system to help run our business, we can't help but believe that Open Book Management also helps build our employees' resumes.  Ginger Bay may not be the last stop in some of our employees' careers, so helping our team understand our business puts them in a better position for the future.  Our sincere hope is that none of our employees are ever in a situation where they are at the mercy of a small business owner and unaware of what they need to do to help build value in a business.

Does your small business do things that buck tradition when it comes to your staff engagement activities?  If so you may be a contender for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award.  Learn more here.

As happened with Tabatha's Salon Takeover on Bravo, more recently I've started watching – and am now hooked on – the TLC show Cake Boss.  I also like the reality sister show to this, The Next Great Baker.

In my opinion, part of the reason the ratings have taken off for these shows – which have propelled yet another sister TLC show coming soon, Kitchen Boss, as well as a Cake Boss book and tour – is the time-honored and effective workplace culture practices used by the star of all of the above shows, Buddy Valastro.

Valastro's story, as told on the website for his 101-year-old company, is similar to that of many family businesses.  He is the fourth generation baker born into the business owned and operated by his parents in Hoboken, New Jersey.

What has taken his business "to the top," as he articulates at the start of every Cake Boss episode, elevating Carlo's above their peers – beyond his mind-boggling baking skills, of course – are his employee engagement best practices.  Here are my takeaways along these lines from watching Cake Boss:

1.  Employees are "mia famiglia" (his family).  This includes not just his mother and sister who work at Carlo's alongside him, but his other employees.  If you search on our website for "family" you'll quickly see the extent to which company leaders treat their employees like they treat their own relatives is a big factor in the financial success of small firms.
2. He tells it like it is.  Accidents and other workplace incidents happen that hamper the ability of Carlo's to deliver their cakes to clients on time.  Valastro's skill here is showing "tough Italian love" to his employees, clearly showing what they did wrong, but then being supportive of them to do the right thing next time.  An example of being frank with workers among our Top Small Company Workplaces award honorees is 2007 winner Corporate Ink.
3. He celebrates successes, even little ones.  There are many moments on Cake Boss where, after 5 or more employees have been involved in building one of their more difficult cakes, Valastro says, "OK team, gather 'round and look what we made."  This is a quick – and free! – practice that you can tell makes his workers feel good about their contributions.  Over the long term, this no doubt keeps Carlo's costs low in terms of turnover and retraining.  Here's more on this on our site.
4. Team building happens off site, too.  On a recent episode, Valastro made a cake for a king at a local Medieval Times location.  When a knight from Medieval Times challenged Valastro to a jousting, he brought his employees to the venue to watch.  There are other examples in the show's run of the Cake Boss taking his team off site which serve as opportunities for building trust in the workplace.  For a related practice, check out #10 in this post on our blog.

Have you seen Cake Boss?  What are your employee leadership development takeaways from it?

For the last few days our staff has been reviewing BlessingWhite's 2011 Employee Engagement Report.  At 80 pages, it contains a wealth of data and actionable next steps for individuals, managers, and especially executives.

Today I'd like to focus on their research for the latter group.  A key finding of their latest survey, the global workplace consultancy says, is that while workers are more likely to trust their immediate manager than their firm's executives, trust in C-suite folks can have more than twice the impact on engagement levels than trust in immediate manager does.

So it behooves leaders to earn managers' and lower-level workers' trust – and then use that to create a workplace culture that supports high performance.  But there's a gap here; according to BlessingWhite this item "received the least favorable response in the entire survey."  Needless to say, when it comes to specific recommendations for executives, they center on more communication as a means for building trust in the workplace, and on holding themselves and others accountable for creating a high-engagement (and thus, high-performance) culture.

Winning Workplaces' own employee engagement research syncs up with what BlessingWhite, and other leading workplace researchers, have found.  All of this has led to the current iteration of our Top Small Company workplaces award application, which, as it just so happens, contains three questions that your CEO should be able to answer if your firm has highly engaged employees.

These questions are:

Does your organization have a strategic plan?
At 43% through the 2011 award application period, currently 80% of applicants have one.

Does your strategic plan include a strategy for improving the performance of the organization through its people?
80% of those that said Yes to the question above have taken this next step.

Can you share 1-2 examples of how your investment in people has improved the performance and results of the organization?
This is a qualitative question; answers to it vary widely.

These questions help measure what some company leaders have considered as more art than science: how to connect people at all levels to the organizational strategy, and weighing investing in your workplace against bottom-line growth.

Get a greater perspective on your workplace culture and identify areas for improvement – learn more about our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award application.

I recently attended a friend's wedding mass, and the priest's sermon contained a bit of wisdom for engaged folks and married couples alike: when love is nurtured it grows, but when it's not it doesn't just remain static – it withers and dies.  In other words, love is perishable.

The same term – perishable – showed up in the title of one of the latest blog posts by our friend, executive coach Wally Bock.  He tells the story of "Dan," a talented technician who, after finding a new job, is de-incented to work to his full potential and take risks because of a lack of employee engagement by his boss.

Leaders and managers: consider the above when planning your activities in 2011 for building trust in the workplace.  Think of your role as a gardener: the strength of your team and the productivity of your workplace culture may well hinge on your willingness and ability to be a "green thumb" in your organization, finding and nurturing those who become tangled in obstacles to growth (especially if those obstacles are in their upward hierarchy).

While we're on the topic of gardening, click on the photo above to read our feature on company-sponsored employee gardens and their workplace benefits.

As longtime readers know, Winning Workplaces' website and this blog explore team building strategies for growth within small and midsized organizations.  We focus on the 99% of firms that are small businesses (defined by the SBA as having 500 or fewer employees) because, as we state here, "they are the cornerstone of the American economy and because their needs have been underserved and under-resourced."

However, we also think it's important to share when the media cover employee development strategies in large companies.  Whether a company is big or small, if it succeeds in attracting like-minded people to the organization and empowering them to move the firm forward as it supports the individual's professional and personal development, it's a win-win for...

• People – employees are better prepared for positions of increasing responsibility, in their current firm or elsewhere.
• Business – countless studies show that job satisfaction goes hand in hand with productivity gains; not to mention, it also helps companies keep costs down because they don't have to do as much recruiting and retraining.
• Society – the best workplace cultures provide learning and development that make employees more marketable throughout their entire careers so they can provide for themselves and their families; they also tend to offer means to help workers give back to local and larger communities (ie, volunteerism).

In short, smart people practices are just that, regardless of the size company in which they're being used.

That said, I liked seeing this headline in my blog feed today from SmartBrief on Leadership, summarizing a Harvard Business Review article on the CEO of Foot Locker's thoughts on building trust in the workplace:

While you could argue that SmartBrief's use of "foot soldiers" with the brand name, Foot Locker, in their headline is a bit cheeky, I look past that and appreciate the fact that a household name is being used to help advance other business leaders' thinking when it comes to investing in your workplace.

Continuing on this theme, I thought I would help media outlets by providing some ready-made headlines that can be used with other big companies that rely heavily on employee engagement in their business models.  Here goes:

1. Try on employee engagement for size [Nordstrom]
2. Driven-down decision making can make your profits soar [Southwest Airlines]
3. Tips to freshen up your workforce [SC Johnson]
4. Leave no stone unturned when developing your employees [Google]
5. Walk a mile in your employees' shoes [Zappos]
6. Managers shouldn't just have a presence, they should collaborate [Cisco]
7. The still frames that go into a complete workplace culture [DreamWorks Animation SKG]
8. Keep a lid on office politics [The Container Store]

What do you think of the above headlines as they relate to each brand?  Which additional ones can you think of?

In 1985, Paul Silvis founded Restek Corporation in Bellefonte, PA, as a manufacturer of chromatography tools for the analytical sciences industry.  Silvis, who has spoken at our annual conference in the past and is set to speak again next week at our joint event with Inc. Magazine in Denver, has been candid about having the technical know-how to fulfill his infant company's mission, but needing to learn business management skills as he went along.

As we shared in our Success Story on Restek, however, one basic but powerful tenet set Silvis apart from many other entrepreneurs of the time: he knew that bureaucracy and "management by intimidation" was the death knell of many small businesses.  He therefore set a different path for Restek, instilling a workplace culture of trust, respect, and fairness.

Some leaders might consider the people practices that formed from this philosophy as "soft," but Restek has seen amazing results from them:

• Silvis was able to promote a successor to him as Head Coach (CEO) two years before his original target date of 20 years from the company's founding.  This has allowed him to transition to run another, related venture, SilcoTek.
• When we wrote our Success Story on the firm, it had achieved annual sales of over $47 million.
• It has recently used its capital to expand into Japan and for acquisitions, such as Glastron Inc. earlier this year.

According to a press release, Restek celebrated its 25th anniversary, appropriately, with a team luncheon on October 15th.  As it reaffirmed publicly in the release,

Restek attributes its success to its unique culture, which has been modeled by other businesses and recognized by numerous local, state, and national awards....

One of these awards is Top Small Workplace, which Winning Workplaces bestowed on the firm in 2007.

Learn more about Silvis' profitable team building strategies – hear him speak at next week's Inc. Leadership Conference.

Yesterday I wrote about the underreported story of how more states enacting hands-free driving laws for public safety is having the side effect of helping sales for headsets and other electronic retail businesses.

Another story I feel has gone largely under the radar in the national media is how employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) have helped organizations – especially small ones – insulate themselves during tough economies like the current one.  I've explored this in past posts like these two, as well as this more recent one from April where I show that among Winning Workplaces' 40 finalists for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award, the 7 that are ESOPs have posted greater average 2009 revenue and 3-year revenue growth, and a greater share of them are profitable, than the 33 that are not.

As October is Employee Ownership Month, I thought I would help celebrate the payoff of employee engagement and team building that's associated with these programs by sharing the following 5 videos we shot of leaders from some of our award-winning small businesses that are ESOPs.  Be sure to have your notepad handy as you watch them – the subjects offer tips that you can use to implement or improve upon an ESOP in your organization for a stronger workplace culture of ownership.

(If you are viewing this in an RSS feed, you may need to click here to see the videos.)

Bill Loskutoff, Jackson's Hardware - Retail - California:

Sarah McGinley-Smith, King Arthur Flour Company - Manufacturing, Retail - Vermont:

Wally Bateman, Paducah Bank & Trust Company - Financial Services - Kentucky:

Bill Marshall, Phelps County Bank - Financial Services - Missouri:

Mike Foley, Reflexite Corporation - Manufacturing - Connecticut:

Related: Longtime ESOP expert and speaker Corey Rosen of NCEO hosted a webinar for us on options for transitioning ownership.  Access it here.

Image credit: ESOP Association/Entertainment Partners

One nugget when it comes to your efforts to improve employee engagement for a more productive workplace culture that you might have missed this Labor Day weekend is Norm Brodsky's advice for employers, posted on Inc.com.

Here is the advice Brodsky, the founder of the incredibly successful business CitiStorage, shared, which Inc. put in a slideshow format:

• Hire Wisely
• Build a Culture of Service
• Create Uniform Pay
• Target Your Incentives
• Avoid Layoffs at All Costs

It's not surprising that these tips are hallmarks of a Winning Workplace – Brodsky has written at length on team building strategies for some time in Inc. Magazine, and in fact he is a speaker for Inc.'s upcoming conference on progressive leadership strategies (with which we're affiliated).  And his wife and former CitiStorage co-owner, Elaine Brodsky, was a judge this year for our Top Small Company Workplaces award.

Given this connection, I thought you might get some value by digging deeper into each of the tips listed above that Norm Brodsky shared on Inc.com.  Here are our selected blog posts related to each of his tips:

• Hire Wisely - Starting Today, Don't Hire for Skills Ever Again
• Build a Culture of Service - If You Have a Captive Customer Base, Smart Hiring and Employee Engagement Are Absolutely Vital
• Create Uniform Pay - Unorthodox Trust Building and Its ROI for the Company
• Target Your Incentives - Six Characteristics of a Winning Workplace and Their ROI
• Avoid Layoffs at All Costs - Gentle Giant Moving Shares the Pain - And Retains Their Valuable Employees for When Conditions Improve

What are your top tips when it comes to improving your organizational culture, especially as a means to achieve greater revenue growth and market share?

Since I talk at you on this blog about human capital strategies to improve employee engagement for a more productive workplace, I'm delighted when you talk back to me (well, really to all of us at Winning Workplaces – we're a very small team like many of the businesses we research and consult for).

Here are 10 recent posts I wrote that resonated with your fellow readers.  Check out what I said and what they said in response, and please add your thoughts to the mix.  Thanks!

1. Small Business CEO Makes Compelling Case for Hiring the Right People
2. My Top 5 Things to NOT Do When Business Blogging
3. New Deloitte Survey Highlights Connection Between Employee Trust and Retention
4. Three Resources to Help Leaders Set New Managers Up for Success
5. Guitar Magazine Poll: Team Building Matters More Than Skills
6. Ride the Remote Work Wave for Cost Savings, Greater Productivity, Lower Turnover
7. ESOPs Declining, But More Employees Are Stockholders Among Our Award-Winning Small Businesses
8. Is Size the Enemy of Consensus Decision Making?
9. 10 Ways to Make Performance Reviews Meaningful
10. Four Reasons Why Gen Y Entrepreneurs Might be the Ones to Pull Us Out of the Recession

You have probably heard of these employee engagement themed stories by now: Both former JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater and a woman named Jenny are being called workplace heroes on the Internet for the spectacular ways they departed their employers in the face of on-the-job adversity.

They both tapped into the frustration felt by at least 55% of the workforce who are unsatisfied with their current jobs, many of whom no doubt fantasize about doing exactly what these two ex-employees did.  (However, hat tip to executive coach Scott Eblin for noticing that the experience of "Jenny" turned out to be a hoax.)

Yet, there's a lesson in these two stories for employers, as Lauren Moak at the Delaware Employment Law Blog – one of my recommended small business/entrepreneurship blogs – explains fabulously:

While these stories are endlessly entertaining to the on-line community, no employer wants to be on the receiving end of this type of publicity.  So treat your employees well, and minimize the incentive for them to quit with a flourish.

So, how best to use team building to keep employees engaged to avoid one or more high-profile exits?  Here's a selected list of our webinars – featuring CEOs of small businesses that excel at this – to point you in the right direction:

• Engaging Fresh, Young Talent in the Workplace
• Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy
• Fostering Trust Within the Workplace
• Growing Leaders from Within

Longtime readers will recall that I wrote the following in June:

Trust building activities may register high on the radar screens of the organizations Winning Workplaces [has honored], but on the whole among the roughly 27 million small businesses across the U.S., they do not.  These and other human capital strategies are considered by many leaders to be "soft," and therefore, in a down economy, not worth leadership's time and energy compared with other areas of the business.

Maybe the results of Deloitte's latest Ethics & Workplace Survey will change some minds regarding the ROI of building trust in the workplace.  Surveying more than 700 employed Americans in April, Deloitte found that close to half have lost trust in their employer since the start of the recession; this has propelled more than a third of respondents to look for a new job as the economy picks up.

Certainly, some leaders are hip to and worried about these trends; those who run our Top Small Company Workplaces are among them.  As Management-Issues notes today, the same survey from Deloitte found that

Two-thirds of Fortune 1000 executives who are concerned employees will be job hunting in the coming months acknowledge that trust will be a factor in any increase in voluntary turnover....

The results of this survey make me wonder how much lower the percentage of employees looking to bolt would be if more companies had tried to share the pain in the midst of the worst of this recession, instead of pulling the layoff trigger first.  I also wonder – and maybe future studies will put some quantifiable data behind this – how much more revenue small and other businesses that did not view worker trust as a priority during the apex of the crisis might have right now.  The answer to this question has larger implications, including on our current GDP level and jobless rate.

Related: In April I profiled six small businesses in our network that turned to employee furloughs and pay cuts instead of layoffs to weather tough times, and came out stronger for their decision.  Read their stories here.

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.

The following is a guest post on workplace team building and employee engagement by Steve Ritter.  Ritter, the Founder and CEO of Team Clock Institute, is the former Director of HR at Leaders Bank, which was named the #1 Best Place to Work in Illinois in 2006, and was a finalist for Winning Workplaces' Top Small Workplaces award in 2008.

Growing up, most of us are taught how to succeed as individuals.  Unfortunately, individual talent and dedication alone are not nearly enough to ensure a team’s success.  Teams are messy.  Conflict is unavoidable. Team dynamics are fluid.  Despite these challenges, working in teams is fundamental to most endeavors.

Twenty-five years ago, I began the quest of understanding the complexities of teams following a happenstance opportunity with the Chicago White Sox.  At the time, a seemingly strong team was underperforming for reasons beyond the grasp of their leadership.  Unexpectedly, a complex situation ended up having a simple solution.  Since then, identifying the recipe for healthy and effective teams has been my passion giving rise to the founding of the Team Clock Institute, a research and training consultancy specializing in breakthrough teams.  Recently, the Team Clock Institute responded to a unique challenge.

The Issue: Early in 2010, I received a call from a FORTUNE 500 company facing the integration of disparate cultures following the acquisition of a prominent player in the industry.  All of the expectable merger/acquisition politics were underway and the leadership team was seeking a simple model to anchor the transition.  What began as a casual conversation on a commuter train grew into an opportunity to assess the integration effort and provide recommendations to enhance successful business outcomes.

The Response: Accordingly, the Team Clock model was introduced to key players on the leadership team. The Team Clock model mirrors the face of a clock where each hour represents a stage along the path of team development.  In a nutshell, strong teams begin with an investment in common norms and direction.  Based on this foundation, team members test trust as they become more cohesive.  This platform supports their efforts to be innovative and take risks.  This activity inevitably leads to change and a repositioning of people and functions.  Healthy teams find a way to refocus following such growth and cycle begins again. 

The Impact: Over the next six months, the Team Clock Institute assessed a series of key business units to determine opportunities for greater effectiveness.  Results were analyzed revealing the strengths, vulnerabilities, areas of congruence and discord on the team.  Debriefing sessions were facilitated to discuss results and targeted actions were identified that would bring measurable change in team engagement and productivity.

Typical examples of diagnostic vulnerabilities included:

• Mired in loss: too depleted to re-invest.
• Inability to manage conflict/differences respectfully.
• Indulgence in the comfort zone: afraid to take risks and explore new ideas.
• Adherence to the status quo: unwilling to accept the consequences of change.

From a strengths perspective, the Team Clock Institute identified key anchors to healthy team interactions based on the diagnostic results for each team.  Goals were established in each of the core areas of vulnerability and business metrics were assigned to determine ROI.  The goal areas included:

• Investment infrastructure

- Consensus philosophy/mission/values/vision

• Trust and interactional dynamics

- Effective management of conflict

• Innovation and team effectiveness

- Measureable productivity/efficiency shifts

• Distancing to leverage change for growth

- Functional repositioning and identification of new opportunities/methodologies

The business case for effective teaming is simple.  Healthy teams are more productive and adaptable.  Anticipating the 4th quarter of the calendar year, the organization is poised to re-assess their team effectiveness metrics mapped to their productivity results.  Pending the quantitative impact, the qualitative result is clear: the emotional journey of a healthy team provides opportunities for positive workplace culture that struggling teams rarely experience.  Where is your team on the Team Clock?

Learn more about all of the resources at the Team Clock Institute at www.team-clock.com.

Last week SmartBrief on Leadership called attention to an article on Business-Strategy-Innovation.com which discussed how some big companies scale their innovation by seeding "independent spinoffs to develop high-risk, high-reward projects."

With their huge employee rosters and advantage in terms of working capital and infrastructure, it makes sense that large companies that believe they can see real returns from this focus are making this practice a priority.  But despite often being at a disadvantage in the factors I just mentioned, small businesses are getting in on this as well.

One of the answers that stood out to the last question in Winning Workplaces' 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award application – What are your key long-term strategic goals for the organization and the workplace? – was this one by winner MAYA Design, a 21-year-old design consultancy and technology research lab based in Pennsylvania:

MAYA grows, and allows employees to grow and stretch, by spinning off complimentary companies.  Employees can present a business plan to the owners and if they think it's viable, and does not compete with MAYA, MAYA provides the infrastructure (HR, finance, clerical and IT support) to help them get started.  This has always been a part of our strategic goals.  We currently have two companies (we call them doppos) incubating, one of which will probably spin off in 2010, the other of which will take a few years to be ready to start.  We are constantly working with the employees to think of ideas for new doppos.  MAYA Design will continue to be around 50 employees, as we believe this is an optimum number for the collaborative work we do, and is well managed.

When well executed, as is the case at MAYA, this practice produces a triple win that comes from a workplace culture foundation of employee engagement:

• Win for Employees: Spearheading or assisting in the formation of a new venture from an existing company – talk about a resume builder!
• Win for the Company: This practice inherently minimizes the risk of launching a new venture, while maximizing the returns for the parent company.  If the venture proves successful, employee-leaders of it and their subsequent staff are built-in evanglists for the parent company, which further helps their recruiting and sales efforts.
• Win for the Greater Community: Startup ventures that are successful are a sorely needed source of employment and tax revenues, which can both help our economy recover faster.

Do you know of any businesses that use a practice similar to MAYA Design's?  If so I encourage you to comment about it below.  I'd especially like to know how it helps with building trust in the workplace.