Thanks to our friend David Spitulnik, Director of Strategic Services at Chicago-based accounting and consulting firm Blackman Kallick, for letting me know via email this morning that the results of their latest survey – of advisors of family-owned businesses nationwide, conducted April 22 in partnership with the Family Firm Institute – are out.
What do they show? Here's a summary from BK's website:
- Increased focus on succession and compensation planning – business owners seek more creative employee engagement best practices to retain and reward staff when money is limited.
- Most of these firms are keeping their staffing levels constant. "Some are even increasing versus decreasing their staffs, but the trend seems to point toward maintenance."
- Project pipelines have waned, which runs counter to the previous finding.
- Several factors contribute to these respondents believing an economic upswing is nearer-term vs. respondents of BK's fall 2008 and spring 2009 economic surveys. These include slight improvement in the stock market and a slowing increase in unemployment.
Are family-owned firms another leading indicator, along with the improving stock market, that the economy is getting better? BK suggests that the long-term planning focus of these organizations may be behind their relatively optimistic view of the road ahead.
With this in mind, it behooves all businesses to focus on the long term. Smart workplace team building and employee engagement strategies are a great vehicle for doing this while keeping morale high and retention strong.
And it just so happens that you've landed on a great source for these strategies (if I do say so myself). Use the Search box on your right – it's just above the Categories listing – to dig in to your most pressing workplace topic.
What thoughts do you have on the results of this survey?
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