At a time when there's a glut of bad news for small businesses – including projections of the job cost of the proposed healthcare reform legislation in Congress and the news that the economy unexpectedly shed 85,000 jobs in December – one ray of sunshine comes courtesy Hewitt Associates.

In a new study, Hewitt finds that among The Globe and Mail's 50 Best Employers in Canada for 2010, the economic downturn has actually resulted in higher overall employee engagement.  The average engagement score of companies on this list is 80%, a 4% increase from last year.

More telling, though, are the specific employee behaviors that Hewitt identified among these organizations:

• Support for improving productivity
• Willingness to make trade-offs
• High trust and confidence in leaders

This seems to support Winning Workplaces' argument that there's long-term value for firms when they both share the pain and the recovery with their workers – starting from a workplace culture foundation of team building and respect.

Related: Did you know that small organizations in both Canada and Mexico are eligible to compete for our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award?  They can join the plethora of U.S.-based firms vying for this prize by applying here by January 22, 2010.