Highly Engaged Employees

Time is money, and in a down economy you might as well double whatever you think your – and especially your stakeholders' – time is worth.

So I really appreciated freelance copywriter Denise McGill's 5 time-saving tips for small business owners that appear on Small Biz Survival.  These run the gamut from things you're likely already doing if you place a premium on communications team building (put your full contact info in all email signatures – automate this and you're done), to less-used but no less powerful tactics like deleting or archiving outdated electronic materials on your computer.

In the spirit of saving you time, I'll keep this post short and conclude by sharing two more related tips:

1. File under startups, legal considerations: employees = payroll service (thanks to Paula at Workplace Fairness).
2. File under work/life balance: outsource your more tedious household responsibilities.

Do you engage employees in discussions of saving everyone time and, thus, your company money?

Our tagline at Winning Workplaces is "better for people, better for business."  Lately we've taken to tacking on "better for society" to this, reflecting the focus of some of the double and even triple bottom line businesses we've honored over the years for their demonstration of the payoff of employee engagement practices.

A new blog post by small business new marketing guru Chris Brogan re-reminded me of this focus, in a small but powerful way.  In outlining his expectations for himself and his readers he might meet at the 2010 South By Southwest festival that starts tomorrow, Brogan made his case for limiting the distribution of business cards:

Unless you want to do business with me, don’t give me a business card.  We both know how to reach each other, so unless one of us asks for one, let’s not hand them out.  ...

Save a card.  Save the planet.  Rewire the way humans do business.

I think this is a great tip for individuals, and applied en masse it has the potential to help all three stakeholders I mentioned above:

• Employees – less materials to worry about in sales presentations, networking events, etc.  (As an aside, you can use technology – smart phones, laptops, PDAs – to store a contact's info if you really want it and are sans biz cards.)
• Businesses – printing fewer cards because employees hand out less of them can slim down your marketing budget.  On a larger scale, more money to play with can spur more effective strategy work to meet customer demands, which can mean more (wait for it) jobs!
• Society – fewer demands on printers means more trees!  And that's good for everyone because they absorb more of the CO2 caused by global warming and produce more oxygen.

My question for you: How do you engage employees to innovate how you communicate with customers and other stakeholders to cut costs while still achieving your goals?

Photo credit: ChrisBrogan.com

Yesterday after the Associated Press reported on the results of a San Diego State University study finding that Generation Y (or Millennials) highly value compensation and vacation time, some in the blogosphere asked if, especially in this economic environment, Gen Y needs a wake-up call.

I don't think so – and I'm not saying that because I'm a card-carrying Millennial.  As someone interested in progressive people practices for a more productive workplace, I look at these two sticking points as the carrot at the end of a very lucrative stick for businesses.

Here are my top 5 reasons why I think Gen Y is entitled to its job wants:

1. It's now the most dominant generation in the workforce.  When you rise to that position and make decisions that benefit companies in both front-line and managerial roles, you get to call the shots when it comes to "skin in the game."
2. As Donna Fenn reports from a number of sources in her book Upstarts!, not only are record numbers of Millennials enrolling in entrepreneurship/MBA programs, but a greater share of those students than ever before are coming in with a business already in tow.  IMO, if these young people invest the ridiculous amount of time it takes to create and nurture a thriving business – and help our economy in the process through taxes and job creation – they deserve these two rewards.
3. As Penelope Trunk pointed out in a blog post I cited last year, Gen Y more readily embraces a proven leadership approach known as "fast failure."  Since our employee engagement research shows this can greatly improve innovation and thus productivity and customer satisfaction, again, I think Millennials deserve some just rewards for significantly scaling up a company's revenue and giving them a greater shot at achieving or maintaining profitability.
4. As organizational development guru David Lee argued on ERE.net last month, Gen Y doesn't beat around the bush on satisfaction – if they're not, you won't see them because they'll have left.  The cost-effective flip side of this for businesses is that they're much less likely than other generations to be "what the Gallup Organization calls ROAD Warriors — Retired on Active Duty."
5. Finally, as The CEO of YOU author Marsha Petrie Sue wrote in the California Chronicle, "Gen Y won't retire – they will reinvent."  Aren't greater pay and more time off fair tradeoffs for more productive ideas coming back from breaks and a longer work life spent helping companies improve their sales and bottom line?

Do you agree or disagree with my assessment?  Why?

Yesterday I blogged about our announcement of our finalist organizations for the 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award, showing where these businesses are located across the U.S.

You may be wondering, OK, so what made these 39 firms stand out among the almost 500 that applied?

Our finalists stand out when it comes to their use of effective, progressive employee engagement best practices to drive improved business outcomes.

The two tables below spell this out in detail.  Here are some key best practices/benefits where the finalists stood head and shoulders above all applicants, on average...

...which helped them produce the following outcomes:

Metric/Outcome	2010 TSCW Applicants	2010 TSCW Finalists	Finalist Improvement
Percent profitable in 2009	91%	95%	4%
Average years in business	16 years	28 years	75%
Average employee turnover	19%	8%	138%
Average % open positions filled from within in 2009	22%	28%	27%
Average employee tenure	4 years	7 years	75%

So, yet another employee engagement research sample that shows the payoff of winning workplace engagement strategies.

Help a blogger out: Have you seen any new workplace research showing that better people practices bring better business results?  Let me know by commenting below.

The comments are coming in fast and furiously to Wally Bock's latest post on his Three Star Leadership Blog.  That's not surprising given his topic: first-line managers.

Bock cites a blog post by Tom Peters in which he goes so far as to call these managers a "peerless strategic opportunity" for innovation and growth.  Expanding Peters' case, Bock explicitly links nurturing these integral staff to more desirable outcomes in engagement, turnover, and, yes, profitability.

In addition to Bock's "boss's bottom line" that employee leadership development helps a company grow even as its key players do, he provides value in these three qualities to look for in first-line managers to assess their longer-term leadership potential:

• They talk to others about behavior and performance,
• They make decisions, and
• They enjoy helping others succeed.

I hope more leaders read the advice of Peters, Bock, and other respected authorities who are pointing to this pivotal cog in the machine of small business – and business in general – as one that can easily be improved, for the benefit of their bottom line, and ultimately everyone through the job growth more thriving enterprises create.

Related: We wrote an editorial a few years ago on the importance of new manager training to more robust (and productive) employee engagement and people practices, and it still holds up today.  Read it here.

Today Winning Workplaces announces the 39 finalists for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award, in partnership with Inc. Magazine.

We started our search in November 2009 for small and midsized organizations (750 or fewer employees) that engage employees and create a great workplace culture and, in turn, deliver improved business results.  Almost 500 firms completed our online application by the deadline in late January.

Our staff then pared these down to the 39 finalists that appear in the interactive map below.  Click on a marker to access a finalist's website, as well as to see when they were founded and their size and industry:

The next steps in the 2010 selection process include:

• Later this month our final panel of judges will choose this year's winners.
• These winners will be announced in the June 2010 issue of Inc. Magazine.
• The winners will be honored at Inc.'s conference in Denver on Oct. 27-29 (more info on this event coming soon).

If you know anyone interested in human capital strategies for a more productive workplace, I encourage you to share this post with them by using the button below.  Thanks!

Our former Top Small Workplaces judge Peter Cappelli, from the Wharton School's Center for Human Resources, was cited in a CNN article last week on lessons for U.S. bosses from their counterparts in India.

Cappelli provides a lot of good takeaways in the piece, based on his recent study of leaders and HR departments from close to 100 of India's biggest companies, but I think my favorite is:

A lot of U.S. companies in particular will say, 'We're not going to meet our quarterly numbers, so we've got to adjust everything in the pipeline to make sure we do.' That's a costly thing for the long term.

This falls under the Indian leadership lesson of taking the long view of growth and profitability – with average growth at a manageable 18% in 2009, it's a lesson our Top Small Workplaces share.  This strikes me as quite interesting, given that Cappelli's employee engagement research sample is the largest firms in India.

Other Indian leadership traits Cappelli advises American CEOs to embrace – which our Top Small Workplaces are already hip to – include:

• Have a social purpose
• Invest in employees through human capital strategies
• Trust your employees to tackle your biggest problems
• Act as "chief culture officer"

Related: We interviewed Cappelli when he came to our offices in 2008 to help determine that year's Top Small Workplace winners.  In the video below he shares some additional thoughts about a company can create a more productive workplace (click here if you can't see the video in your blog feed):

Today Winning Workplaces is formally announcing our partnership with a new, Chicago-based startup called Tix4Cause.

The brainchild of consumer products industry veteran Kevin Nemetz, Tix4Cause is the realization of Kevin's very cool idea: benefit charities of people's choosing with the up to 60% of season tickets that go unused, while at the same time getting those tickets to folks at fair market prices and providing ticket donors with a tax deduction.

Why is Winning Workplaces joining other charities on Tix4Cause's roster such as Heritage YMCA Group and Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana?  Because we're a nonprofit and our mission to equip small and midsize businesses with proven, practical, and affordable team building and employee engagement activities is as needed as ever, as our president explained on her blog last week.

So let's connect the dots here:

• Your donation and/or purchase of event tickets through Tix4Cause...
• Helps support our fundraising efforts, which go toward...
• Three primary initiatives designed to help small organizations create a more productive workplace: our consulting and training services, our Top Small Company Workplaces recognition project, and our free employee engagement best practices information for company leaders and employees.

Here's our affiliate link to register (free) on Tix4Cause, after which you can donate your unwanted or unused tickets to our cause and purchase tickets for ours or other causes.  Thank you in advance for any help you can offer!

In my last post I mentioned the employee satisfaction level (45%) recently reported by The Conference Board and concluded by asking "whose fault is this anyway?"

When I've asked similar questions, I get a range of answers.  Some are adamant that it is the leader's fault.  Some say the employee should switch jobs if they are so dissatisfied.  Others can't come up with an answer.

Here's the answer: It is the leader's fault and the employee's fault.  In organizations with an effective workplace culture, all parties have a sense of ownership. 

In creating a culture of ownership and in turn a productive workplace, we often write about what leaders should do.  I'm going to look at the flip side of the coin and point out what leaders shouldn't do if they want to contribute to a culture of trust, employee engagement, or team building.

1. As your organization's leader, DON'T be so intensely focused on results that you forget people are your most important means of getting to those results.  A quick story: Years ago, during the first six months of becoming a CEO, I learned this the hard way.   I overused the phrase "I expect" and the majority of my interactions with my team were about what they were doing to deliver the numbers.  Thank goodness a combination of my own experience, an executive coach, and feedback from a couple people on my team helped me realize that the intense focus on results was backfiring.  Clearly, a productive workforce requires building engaged employees. 
2. DON'T ask for input and then ignore it.  This approach squashes open communication in the workplace.  This approach says "I don't care about your ideas or expertise."  Without communication and caring, building trust is unlikely. Guess what?  Poor communication + minimal trust = less than optimal results.
3. DON'T decide that you are going to launch an initiative (large or small) to improve employee engagement unless you plan to follow through.  Not surprisingly, this reinforces a perception that you as the leader really don't care about employees and you can't be counted upon to do what you say you will do.  And that goes back to one of my beginning points: In a great workplace, the culture of ownership contributes to results. 

This list of "don'ts" is endless.  Have you been on the receiving end of a don't?  As a leader, have you learned a valuable lesson from a don't?  Those of us at Winning Workplaces would love to hear your story.

We've long argued, in part based on our own employee engagement research, that empowering workers to make on-the-spot decisions and to contribute to the strategic direction of an organization provides benefits for employees (increases their job satisfaction) and for companies (typically greater customer satisfaction because issues are resolved sooner and at a lower level; as well as increased employee loyalty and drive).

Here are two new sources that support this argument, for your reading and learning pleasure:

1. A review of multiple studies by The Cochrane Collaboration found that giving employees control over their work schedule improves their stress levels, quality of sleep, mental health, and alertness.  (HR Morning)
2. "HR Bartender" Sharlyn Lauby defines 7 types of power in a workplace culture and uses these traits as the basis for an exercise to help you pinpoint how you influence action from others.  (Human Capital League)

Related: Need more proof of the impact of this leadership practice?  Read this firsthand account by an employee of a 2008 Top Small Workplace (identified as a finalist in the post based on the timing of that year's winners announcement) on how it's changed his impression of a productive workplace.

I'm all for outsourcing when it makes sense for a business leader.  In fact, this week I retweeted Adam Toren's suggestion that busy executives can save time by outsourcing some of their more tedious household responsibilities.

But I think that if employee engagement or the workplace culture could suffer, then don't do it.  Building trust in the workplace, IMO, should always be the top item on any CEO's to-do list.

So therefore I can't endorse Douglas R. Palmer's pitch on the Small Business CEO blog to outsource your finance department.  I have two thoughts here as to why (in addition to the line in the sand I laid out above):

• First, while Palmer's list of the pros of doing this does make business sense, one associated risk is the loss or accidental distribution of sensitive information.  Even if you've thoroughly researched your options and chosen a winning partner, that can still happen.  Would you take that chance with your company's balance sheet and salary info?
• Second and more importantly from a productivity standpoint, keeping this function in-house is one more piece of the intellectual capital pie that can benefit from leadership, if not team, involvement.  One of the themes of our Top Small Workplaces over the years has been their ability to anticipate marketplace changes, which especially helps them navigate tough times like these, in large part because their leaders engage employees by sharing financial information with them and teach them what it means, which spurs actionable ideas on creating efficiencies and optimizing revenue sources.  If they outsourced their financial component, this outcome would be difficult if not impossible to achieve.

Where do you stand here?

Last month in The New York Times, Peter S. Goodman wrote about "the new poor" – a growing segment of the U.S. population slipping out of the middle class due to falling or nonexistent unemployment benefits at the same time that sluggish economic growth is keeping companies from adding jobs for which they could apply.

Goodman warns that this phenomenon may be a factor for years.  Yet, the Hitachi Foundation is following the old life-lemons adage and taking this opportunity to provide assistance to young entrepreneurs whose missions align with helping this very population.

Triple Pundit, a site that writes on the triple bottom line of "people, planet, profit," shared the details of Hitachi's Yoshiyama Award.  It's for entrepreneurs aged 18-29 – the demographic of the Upstarts that Donna Fenn writes about.  Hitachi is offering six winners up to $50,000 over two years to help support their work.

If you know someone in that age range who runs a business aimed at helping America's poor, tell them about it by using the Share button at the bottom of this post.  And tell them to hurry if they want to apply for 2010: the deadline is March 22.

Related: All social entrepreneurs should get in the habit of doing a "social audit."  There's a story in today's Wall Street Journal on this topic which profiles The Redwoods Group, a specialty insurance provider that Winning Workplaces honored in 2008 for their incredible team building and employee engagement best practices.

One of the comments we hear from small business leaders is that they often feel isolated – that they have to work hard to find peer validation for their efforts, and that they wonder how much impact they have outside their organization's walls.

As Management-Issues alluded to today, they have a HUGE impact, and therefore shouldn't feel so alone.  While The Conference Board's recent survey of 5,000 U.S. households revealed that over half of employees are dissatisfied with their jobs, Management-Issues points to their poll of 200 CEOs around the same timeframe which actually shows that company leaders are "increasingly upbeat."

As Nic Paton writes,

While excellence in execution and consistent execution of strategy by top management remained the top-ranking challenge overall for CEOs, more growth-oriented challenges such as sustained and steady top-line growth, customer loyalty/retention and profit growth were all now getting higher ratings as "greatest concerns".

This shift presents business leaders with an opportunity to make inroads on two significant fronts: employee engagement to boost productivity (good for the company, and for the country), and to better satisfy their people at the same time.  The latter outcome is good in that it would likely reduce the currently high share of folks who are ready to jump as the economy improves – but, again, this benefits companies because less of their top talent would turnover, which reduces their recruiting and training costs.

So while CEOs may feel siloed in what they do in building trust in the workplace – especially compared with more tangible tasks related to managing product/service delivery and the numbers side – they should take comfort in the fact that their contributions to ensure progressive people practices for a more productive workplace bring real returns, for their business and for our economy's return to growth.

If you run a business, how optimistic are you for 2010 performance vs. 2009?

Did you look closely at the byline on our post from yesterday arguing that employees are absolutely critical to achieving strong business results?  It's none other than our President, Gaye van den Hombergh.

You can read Gaye's bio here on our website.  She assumed leadership of Winning Workplaces last June, and in addition to the work she's been doing since to chart our strategic course and ensure excellent service, she recently, and graciously, agreed to join me as a writer on our blogs.

You can access Gaye's blog, which is titled "The Payoff of Progressive People Practices," here.  You'll want to bookmark it so you can stay current on her latest thoughts and tips on the payoff of employee engagement from a leader's perspective.

Just as employees crave recognition, organizations covet it, too.  In fact, that was the theme of my post yesterday on PrintingForLess.com.

I just heard that Winning Workplaces was named to the FastUpFront Small Business Blog's list of the Top Free Government Business Resources.  This designation joins others on our "mantle" including being named a Top HR Influencer for 2007 by HR World, and this blog being named a Top 100 Leadership Blog last year by BestUniversities.com.

We thank the FastUpFront Blog and the other two entities mentioned above for introducing more folks to us and our mission to equip small business leaders with proven, practical – and yes, FREE – team building and employee engagement strategies to improve their workplace culture and productivity.

In celebration of this recognition of our efforts, I offer these selected blog posts that will help you reward and recognize your employees, with minimal effort and cost:

• (Employee) Love Don't Cost a Thing*
• Employee Recognition on the Cheap
• How Important is Employee Recognition? Leading Book on It Gets Second Edition Makeover
• All Employee Recognition Roads Lead to Greater Company Productivity
• 10 Team Building Strategies of the 2009 Top Small Workplaces Finalists
• Nine Resources for Becoming an Employer of Choice

I was thinking about the title of this post this morning.  We've been hearing since at least late 2008 about rising unemployment, and even though it's leveled off, we're still not at a stage of job growth.  We're just not losing as many (relatively speaking) jobs per month.

Two other employment trends have been making headlines lately.  There's underemployment, where because of hour and pay cuts by employers so they can keep their doors open, people aren't making as much as they did before the recession.  Compounding this issue is the fact that often their employers are demanding more from them, leaving these folks with less time to look for a new job that would provide more pay.

Then, there's the tendency of businesses, especially small ones, to replace laid off full-time employees with temp workers.  The benefit for organizations is that they can manage current and even emerging job functions (as markets improve and they see the need) by paying someone less than they paid a FTE, and with less of a commitment if it turns out a temporary hire is suddenly not needed.

My fear is that if, as many econmists are predicting, economic/job growth is extremely slow for the next year or two, these three employment factors – unemployment, underemployment, and the rise of temp workers – will impede the adoption and cultivation of the qualities of a productive workplace.  These qualities, or hallmarks, include many of the workplace team building and employee engagement best practices we talk about on this blog.

You may ask, what's the harm over the next few years if this scenario does, in fact, play out?  For one thing, less cohesive workplace cultures – those that, for instance, don't rein in toxic managers – very often increase supervised employees' stress levels.  On a macro level, studies have shown this hurts our GDP to the tune of $300 billion annually.

This, of course, doesn't even begin to address costs such as absenteeism, turnover, and recruiting/training that could become even less manageable under this scenario.

Do you agree or disagree with my assessment?  If you agree – how do you think should firms, especially small ones, should respond?

Every day I hear another story that indicates so many leaders don’t get the strong connection between people and results.  When I first moved into a CEO role, I admit I didn’t always see the connection as clearly as I do now.  I was so focused on results, I neglected to pay as much attention to people.  Now that I have seen the research and gotten to know dozens of extraordinary companies who have great workplaces, I am ramping up my focus on employee engagement. 

Our mission here at Winning Workplaces is to inspire and assist organizations that want to create great workplaces that are better for business, better for people, and better for society.   These organizations have workplace cultures that include open communication, trust, team building, and...fun!  

Given the results of the recent Conference Board study, I’d say Winning Workplaces still has a lot of work to do.  In fact, that is an understatement.  The Conference Board reports that only 45% of employees are satisfied with their jobs.  Moreover, I was astounded to learn that the employees rate the best part of their day as the commute.  Yes, the commute.

As more and more baby boomers retire, I wonder if dissatisfaction will increase.  Why?  The most dissatisfied generation is Generation Y. 

Clearly, this situation says we have not only a lot of dissatisfied employees but, in turn, a productivity level that isn’t nearly where it could or should be. 

So whose fault is this grim situation?  The leader's?  The boss's?  The employee's?  More importantly, what do we do about it?  These will be the topics of future blogs. 

Let me know what you think.

I'm excited because I just tweeted with Mark Hirschfeld, the co-author of the new book Re-Engage: How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort Through Extraordinary Engagement, and we're getting a copy that I'll review for you in an upcoming issue of our IDEAS newsletter.

I learned about Hirschfeld's book through his blog, Engaged Employees, Remarkable Results!  His latest post contrasts "dirty, rotten scoundrel"-type leaders – if you close your eyes, I'm sure you can picture at least one that qualifies – with those at the opposite end of the spectrum who leave highly engaged employees in their wake.

He says these leaders are similar in that they:

1. Use their personal power to engage and are committed to creating a great workplace,
2. Inspire confidence in their decisions and direction,
3. Build trust through their honesty and integrity,
4. Practice open, two-way communication,
5. Shun the temptations of executive greed and strive to pay fairly,
6. Genuinely value employees as people, and
7. Lead with respect, not coercion, control, fear, or intimidation.

This list sounds a lot like our building blocks for creating a Winning Workplace, doesn't it?  That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to digging into this book when it arrives....

Related: Check out the key business results our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award applicants have seen by embracing the leadership traits Hirschfeld writes about and ramping up their team building in the workplace.

One of the more fun (because it's obvious) examples of the payoff of employee engagement is the number and scope of business awards a company can apply for – and win! – on the foundation of a productive workplace.  Just look at the homepage of Top Small Workplace Gentle Giant Moving Co.'s new website.

Yesterday PrintingForLess.com (PFL), the Montana-based, online printing services firm of our Best Boss Andrew Field, announced that they won four 2010 Marketing Plus Awards from the National Association of Printing Leadership.  PFL took home the gold for sales/lead generation and direct mail marketing, and also the silver and a merit award for direct mail marketing.

Even though building trust in the workplace is a journey, PFL is crossing the finish line of a race that started with working on improving how managers interact with employees, and soliciting and acting on everyone's feedback for creating efficiencies in service delivery.  Field outlined his leadership approach that is paying dividends now in the form of these awards, which help with both employee and customer retention, at our annual conference back in 2006.

Congrats to PFL on their milestone here in their continuing quest to use progressive employee engagement practices to remain the #1 online commercial printing company!

For more on PFL, go here on our website and here on this blog.

I like Dragan Sutevski's comparison on his Entrepreneurship In a Box blog of running a business to being in a dream.  According to Sutevski, there are only a handful of factors keeping this experience from turning into a nightmare.

Number 7 on his top 10 list that he shared this weekend is employees:

Your employees can contribute to your business to be successful, but in the same time they can harm your business.  Employees are the heart and the most important resource.

Sutevski makes the case that although they represent perhaps the most important resource, your employees are still only that – a resource that can be useful or useless depending on how the leadership engages them and acts on their expertise.

In the right leader's hands – and in the context of the right workplace culture – employees can bring a company substantial bottom-line returns at every stage of interaction.

For example:

• Prospective hires, both those that join the workforce and those that are not the best fit: managers' interview questions lead to feedback that can influence product/service development and delivery.
• Once a person in "on the bus," employee engagement best practices such as mentoring, annual opinion surveys, and monthly or quarterly all-hands meetings can promote cross-department learning, as well as improve internal processes and external marketing.
• Promoting from within is particularly useful to building trust in the workplace, and keeps your knowledge base intact and strong.
• Employee exits, especially if they are voluntary, can also produce valuable feedback on improving of your culture and your customer satisfaction.

Go here to read Sutevski's top 10 list of resources to make your business life easier.  How do you rank employees compared to the other resources in terms of potential?