Our Top Small Workplaces don't have to say "show me the love" when it comes to honors that reinforce their employee engagement-driven innovation, productivity, and profitability.  The world comes to their doorstep.

Such was the case when Winning Workplaces and The Wall Street Journal named Vermont-based King Arthur Flour Company as a 2008 Top Small Workplace two months ago.  The trend continued yesterday, when the $61 million business that was founded – are you ready for this? – 218 years ago was named one of Internet Retailer's Hot 100 sites in 2009.

How did a business that was founded when, as Sarah McGinley-Smith, their Director of Corporate Communications, told us, George Washington was President, survive, thrive, and foster innovation to net this 21st century honor?  It starts with their employee engagement best practices.

An ESOP company, King Arthur engages an outside firm to survey their employees on their ownership structure and their workplace culture every two years.  Sarah says the results of these surveys help the leadership to stay abreast of employee concerns and meet new challenges, such as communicating with their customers and retaining them as the price of wheat has risen dramatically over the past year.

The Internet Retailer press release notes that King Arthur's website has experienced 30% growth in the past year due to a variety of practices that stem from employee engagement activities and team building.  According to their Web Marketing Project Manager, Halley Silver,

At the beginning of 2008, we made it our goal to build community and educate more bakers online.  At every step along the way, our small Web team asked, 'Does this inspire? Does it look delicious? Is it achievable?'  By mid-year we had transformed our Web site into one that is building a passionate and vocal community of bakers worldwide.

The realization of a large-scale effort becomes more feasible when workplace team building results in the breaking down of silos to boost camaraderie and risk taking.  It's part of the reason they've been successful on virtually all stakeholder fronts, including taking on a much more active environmental focus.  As Sarah told us, "I think King Arthur Flour has had this longevity and staying power because of the way in which the business operates.  The employees carry that mantra every day in how they do their work."

Kudos to King Arthur for their latest award.  To learn more about their workplace best practices – including the ability to benchmark your firm's practices with all of our 2008 winning firms – check out this report.