Open Communication In The Workplace

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.

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.

In Denise O'Berry's post on Small Business Trends, "Protect Your Cash or Lose Your Business," the author of Small Business Cash Flow shares six employee engagement strategies for protecting this resource that owners are guarding like their life depends on it (and often in this economy, theirs and those of their workers do).

Among O'Berry's recommendations are:

• Hiring properly
• Fostering open communication
• Helping employees strike a balance between work and life by requiring they take vacation time (resistors could be a red flag of fraud)
• Building trust in the workplace

These tips on O'Berry's list are reflective of our building blocks for creating a Winning Workplace in general – not just when it comes to generating and increasing your positive cash flow and profitability, but also reducing inefficiencies and satisfying employees so they stay longer (reducing turnover) and provide steadily better service to the customer.

Related: Check out these two guest posts, which together highlight 7 ways to work with your banker in good times and bad to stay on great financial footing to run your business.

Employee engagement is typically thought of as an offensive strategy – a way to get out ahead of the pack through greater morale and communication that results in increased innovation and productivity, including more customer issues resolved at the first point of contact.

But, as I infer from this post on the Small Business CEO blog, building trust in the workplace can be a defensive strategy to keep your computer network secure.  Calling disgruntled employees one of four top network security threats for midsized businesses, computer systems engineer Adam Oliver says

[A]n unhappy employee can cause huge issues for a business’s IT network and infrastructure while he is there or if he builds a ‘back door’ into the system to access in the event he is fired.  Because they have intimate awareness of and access to your code, they also have the ability to maliciously introduce problems into your network system, causing your network to cease functioning and putting your valuable data in jeopardy.  Unfortunately, the possibilities are numerous and hazardous.

I think Oliver is absolutely right.  And while powerful and numerous people practices can never be a 100% effective deterrent against a breach of your IT infrastructure, the fact that employees are used to a workplace culture with many open communication channels and the possibility for more all the time can make any would-be violators wary of acting out.

Related Posts:

• Although Theft More Rampant at Large Employers, Small Firms Should be on Their Guard, Focus on Employee Engagement
• MakingStories.net's 10 Strategies for Managing Mobile Workers Heavy on Employee Engagement

Is it just me or does Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, sound of late like the leader of a Top Small Workplace?

SmartBrief today referenced a recent New York Times interview with Blankfein, whose current leadership stance they summarize as follows:

It's not enough for employees to show up on time and do their jobs well...  Workers need to have broad views of their responsibilities, so that everyone is watching out for everyone else.  Creating that kind of environment starts with the leader, he notes, because workers are more likely to accept responsibility for each other when their boss has empowered them to take risks.

Broad views of responsibilities, taking risks – loyal readers of this blog have heard these steps for greater workforce effectiveness before from our Top Small Workplaces.

Mostly privately held, these honored small firms value long-term brand integrity before the shorter-term goals of publicly held firms, such as steady returns for their shareholders.  Which makes Blankfein's assessment last week that Wall Street bonuses are out of control all the more interesting.

Yesterday Daily Finance charted Goldman Sachs' "amazing rebound" after the financial system nearly ground to a halt a year ago.  James Cullen wrote that while the company initially looked like it had the most to lose from the panic, it restored itself through two building blocks common among Winning Workplaces:

• Trust, Respect & Fairness for the customer: Like (on a much smaller scale) Paducah Bank and Phelps County Bank, Goldman Sachs avoided many of the bad mortgage assets that its competitors embraced.
• Open Communication: Cullen says that while mum was the word from other investment firm management teams last September – other than to say that all was well on a ship that was clearly sinking – Goldman Sachs had the fortitude to reach out to investor Warren Buffett and give him "attractive terms" on his preferred stock investment.

Do you think there's some truth to my thoughts on this, or am I off base?  Also, I did some digging but couldn't find much in the way of how employee engagement best practices have helped Goldman Sachs recover.  I welcome your findings on this in the Comments section.

If you talk about low morale and employee engagement as a remedy for it, you may turn a few heads.  But, in the age of malware and H1N1, if you reframe low morale as nothing short of a productivity-robbing virus, you get everyone's attention.

Like the so-called Swine Flu, poor camaraderie can disable people and organizations.  And lest small business leaders be tempted to move "getting employees engaged" from their must-do list to their rainy day list, I would remind them that Gallup has attached an annual price to lost productivity as a result of disengagement: $350 billion.

Helping to shift low engagement to something akin to an epidemic is The Financial Post's Workplace Shaman, Mary Pearson.  In an August 19 response to a reader's question about how to combat the low morale in her workplace as a result of some bad recent quarters and layoffs, Pearson offers the following remedies:

• Get a handle on your pessimism – is it as a result of the business or a few crowing coworkers?
• Focus on what you enjoy in your work
• Stand out among your colleagues by volunteering to head or assist on a project
• Small progress toward goals is still progress
• Partner with good problem solvers
• Managers can help their team combat fears and frustrations by using open communication
• "Engage a skilled facilitator for team building"
• Helping the team let loose when appropriate can increase morale
• Take a page from firms that practice open book management: "Remind employees why their work is important and how the company benefits from it"

Related: Aloft Group President & CEO Matt Bowen's answer to a question on how to handle "workplace energy vampires," which was asked in a panel discussion at our 2007 annual conference, makes use of the virus metaphor.

I came down pretty hard recently on Jack Welch for his comment at the latest SHRM annual conference that there's no such thing as work-life balance.  This is not to say, though, that the former GE CEO doesn't ever say things indicative of organizations that have mastered the art of successful team building in the workplace (such as our Top Small Workplaces).

As the good folks at Chicago-based accounting firm Blackman Kallick pointed out yesterday on their Strategy Insights blog, Welch, along with his wife, Suzy, say in no uncertain terms in a recent issue of BusinessWeek that small is not just the new big – it's the new green.

Here's BK's take on the Welch editorial in BW:

Here, in Jack and Suzy Welch, we have two of the best-known business leaders and sages, advising business leaders to take a page from the book of smaller companies "by acting in ways that appeal to entrepreneurial types of employees," concluding that in the "'revised economy' of the future, speed, flexibility and innovation will be more crucial than ever."

The firm uses this as the the jumping-off point for its advice that

It's critically important that business owners carefully think through what it will take to create a long-term sustainable environment of open communication, innovation, job satisfaction and, yes, excitement.

I really couldn't agree with or emphasize this point more.  Leaders have an absolute imperative, especially in this shaky economy, to do all they can to bring people in who fit the ideal culture of ownership they see in their heads, and then train them to be both managers and supervisees who work well with each other, see how their work moves the business forward, and always carry the utmost respect for the company's customers or clients.

Big companies can certainly do this.  The Container Store and Southwest Airlines, among many others, offer living proof.  But as books by Bo Burlingham and Doug Tatum (and our own research) make clear, smaller, more nimble – and more in tune with their people – organizations are often better equipped to do it best.

What are your thoughts on the Welch BW article, or on the BK blog post?

A big part of what we talk about when we discuss team building strategies for greater workforce effectiveness is recruiting and developing employees who are so inspired by the company's mission and goals that they become nothing short of company evangelists.  Harder to pin down, though, is what an inspired employee looks like, or acts like.

A good example of this appears here.  My colleague Jason spotted this blog post last week while wrapping up his Success Story on our 2008 Top Small Workplace The Redwoods Group, which will go out in our July IDEAS newsletter later this week.  He was especially moved by this portion of what Redwoods employee Dan Baum wrote:

There's so much potential and need for [sending employees to work with Habitat for Humanity] by for-profit corporations.  Non profits and NGOs are strapped, especially in this financial crisis, and governments aren’t always effective and can’t do it all.  On the other hand, there’s so much untapped potential in the corporate world: money, people, brainpower, expertise, resources, etc.  Today there are many companies touting their socially responsible business practices, yet there is still so much room for many of them to invest more fully, not simply financially but also in their attitude, decision making processes and goals, in making the world a better place.

...

Redwoods allows me to do what I think we all hope for: live one whole life without compartmentalization, meaning that I don’t need a work version of me and a non-work version of me, but that I can be me all the time.

Let's take a closer look at this post and examine the hallmarks of an inspired employee:

• Leadership-sanctioned platform for employee engagement and communication with the outside world – in this case, Redwoods' Thoughts from Zambia blog.
• Clear understanding of how the organization fulfills a need, including shortfalls/opportunities of the current marketplace.
• Clear understanding of how the employee's actions help the firm accomplish its mission (for for-profits – make money).
• What I like to call the culture of ownership elevator pitch.  (Who can read Baum's second paragraph cited above and not want to work for Redwoods?)
• Perhaps most importantly, ongoing leader or manager feedback – in this case from no less than Redwoods President and CEO (and 2009 Top Small Workplaces judge) Kevin Trapani.

Whether it's a blog or some other communications vehicle – a newsletter, wiki, or company intranet, for instance – you'd be surprised how much inspiration you can whip up among your staff by encouraging more open communication.

Related: Our July newsletter will contain results of a survey of both our registered website users and past honorees on ways to engage employees using technology.  Subscribe to it here and get it as soon as we send it out.

Photo credit: 2008 Top Small Workplaces Finalist Steppenwolf Theatre Company

As Molly DiBianca points out today on The Delaware Employment Law Blog, Facebook is growing up – and I don't mean as a business (although that is happening too).  She cites a much-reported study by iStrategyLabs which found that since January 2009, users of the ubiquitous social networking site aged 35-54 have increased 190%.  More startling is that users aged 55 or older have increased 590%.

Why is this good news for your workplace team building and overall employee engagement activities to spur greater productivity?  As this article, also from today in the Chicago Tribune's Red Eye paper, explains, some employers are looking past the research that says such sites are productivity wasters and are experimenting with opening employee access to them to give them more freedom to chat with their friends to solve work problems or find useful business contacts.

The other justification for opening access to Facebook, et al, Red Eye notes, is because

the rising popularity of BlackBerrys, iPhones and other devices with Web access and messaging have made it much trickier to enforce what's being done on work time, particularly on an employee's personal phone.  Or often the staff uses unapproved software applications to bypass the blocks.

So leaders and owners at some employers are weighing spending more time, money, and talent on blocking access – or saving some of those finite resources, opening access, and doing a better job of training managers to look for signs of abuse of that access.

There are some key reasons why, when done within a framework of mutually agreed upon and understood communication policies and procedures, allowing employees to login to social networking sites can lead to better results for your business in the long run:

• The younger generations coming into the workforce, Generations Y and Z, are accustomed to it.  Choking off access altogether could give the impression that your organization is archaic, and that could adversely affect your recruiting efforts.
• There have been a number of news articles lately on how technology divides different generations of workers.  Allowing access for all of them in your company promotes informal learning, so older employees not in the know can get up to speed with the help of your younger, generally more tech-adept employees.  With the economy delaying retirement for many older workers, a keen leadership presence here could improve your firm's rep as an employer of choice for older workers. 
• Restricting access completely prohibits rule-abiding employees – those that would not visit such sites during their work hours – from checking them during lunch or other breaks where they're not on "company time."
• If you advocate open communication practices as part of your core values, restricting access to these sites could be seen as hypocritical, which could demoralize employees and prevent growth from within.
• Monitoring what employees are saying about your firm doesn't necessarily require an equally tech-savvy manager.  Just have one staff person create a Google Alert for your organization.  They get emailed with any and all references, including those created from within on social networking sites.  Done!
• Perhaps most importantly, restricting access to these sites prevents both your sales and marketing staff, and those in other departments or areas, from extending your company brand through their personal points of contact.

What are your thoughts on this issue?  I'm particularly interested in a counterpoint view in which closed access improves building trust in the workplace.

Jim Giuliano has been writing on some great employee engagement trends on HRMorning, and today is no exception.  He cites the latest figures from the BLS when it comes to the value of employers' pay and benefits.

Here's a key statistic that has an impact on your open communication: Of the average, per-hour amount that employers paid in March to cover pay and benefits ($29.39), over 30% ($8.90) went to benefits.

This stat has an impact when it comes to practices such as employee forums because it's what I call an "iceberg" figure – employees often can't see a good chunk of what organizations are investing.

Well, for both transparency and to walk the "people are our greatest asset" talk, you should consider putting this stat front and center at your next staff meeting, if you don't already.  Between your HR manager and your accountant or controller, a one-pager on this should be pretty easy to put together.

Throw it up as a slide in your next all-hands meeting and use it as an opportunity for employee engagement at work.  One of my previous employers was a master at this, and, naturally, it ended up being the portion of the meeting with the lowest number of "tuned-out" workers.

Do you already do this at your firm?  What kinds of conversations has it spurred?  How have you used these to your advantage?

Photo credit: Dixie Grammar School Library

You know the saying about too many cooks in the kitchen?  Well, when it comes to team building activities, too few cooks – ie, just the CEO – can spoil the camaraderie broth.

Employment/HR attorney Joelle Ryssemus Sullivan made this clear in a recent column answering a reader's question on Examiner.com.  Sullivan told "Catherine in Montara," who lamented that her boss's quarterly team building activity excludes some employees because it's sports-based, that she has several options.  These include:

1. Explain the situation to your boss
2. Encourage your boss [sic] to get feedback from the entire team
3. Come up with alternative team building activities
4. If you can’t get you boss off the “sports” theme, look for alternative activities besides game participation
5. Take the issue to your human resources department

These are all great suggestions, falling squarely into our building blocks for creating a Winning Workplace.  Specifically:

• Trust, Respect & Fairness
• Open Communications
• Teamwork & Involvement

Owners and leaders of small businesses should keep this story in mind when they set out to plan employee engagement activities meant to bring everyone together.  And employees should heed Sullivan's advice if they find themselves in a similar situation.

Related post: 20 Proven Workplace Team Building Strategies

Workplace consultancy Quantum Workplace, whose blog The Science of Work I named to my most recent list of small business and entrepreneurship blogs to follow, released some encouraging news for workers yesterday – especially for those who are worried about being laid off due to the economy.

They found in a survey last month of over 300 HR executives across all industries and companies of all sizes that investing in and measuring employee engagement is a top priority this year.  While 32% of respondents plan to increase spending on measuring how engaged employees are – a mid-level response among the eight categories Quantum Workplace surveyed – 60% reported that spending on this strategic initiative will at least stay the same this year, and (most impressive) only 8% plan to decrease investment toward it this year.

Writing on The Science of Work yesterday, Greg Harris went further:

92% of companies surveyed said they are dedicating as many (or more) resources to measuring engagement among employees.  In fact, multiple participants stated that Employee Engagement is the primary metric for measuring the success of all other talent investments.

I'm guessing many of the group's respondents must be from progressive firms that are not unlike our Top Small Workplaces.  They seem to share the philosophy that investing time and money in processes and practices to openly communicate with workers and bring the best out of them pays dividends for the business in recruiting ability and in greater productivity.  Our Benchmarking and Best Practices Report on our 2008 winners explores this notion in greater detail, outlining specific practices and the bottom line results the organizations achieved from them.

What's your take on this latest research on employee engagement best practices from Quantum Workplace?

On his Church of the Customer blog today, Ben McConnell asks, "Does customer evangelism begin with employee evangelists?"

He follows by saying he thinks so, and adds that a student at Fresno Pacific University, Pamela Hutton, is trying to put some hard numbers behind her answer to this question as part of her dissertation.  (Click here to take Pamela's confidential survey on this topic before it closes on Wednesday this week.)

I'm with Ben, but I don't just think customer evangelism starts with employees – I know it does!  Here are some examples that show this from the small firms we've honored over the years for their innovative team building and employee engagement best practices – along with some hard numbers to show for them:

Company: King Arthur Flour (2008 Top Small Workplace)

• Key Features: Huge value placed on transparency, open communication, and upholding stakeholder interests; expanded their business and customer outreach in recent years by becoming the single largest educator of home bakers in the world; communicated flour price increases to customers when the price of wheat went up, and lowered their prices when it went back down
• Results: 30% revenue growth 2005-07 compared to 11% industry average growth; the fifth fastest growing company in Vermont

Company: Gentle Giant Moving (2007 Top Small Workplace)

• Key Features: All employees who rise up the ranks start as movers; rigorous training program on everything from lifting boxes to safe driving; employees given authority to make decisions on the spot in favor of the customer
• Results: 25% growth in both employees and revenues 2004-06; 80% of all business derived from repeat clients and referrals

Company: Headsets.com (President and CEO Mike Faith was a 2006 Best Boss)

• Key Features: Pioneered "customer love"; long interview process with 7-8 interviews before hiring decision is made, for employees at all levels; all employees tout benefits of their favorite headset model on company website
• Results: 202% revenue growth 2003-05; 88% growth in net revenue per employee 2003-05

Learn more about the 2008 winning firms here, the 2007 winners here, and our Best Boss honorees here.

What evidence do you see that employee engagement to turn your people into evangelists for your firm results in customer evangelists for your brand?

We were told ahead of time that now-President Obama's speech was going to pack a punch.  Did we expect much in the way of surprises or bombshells?  Not for the most part.  What we expected, and what we were given, was an affirmation of why the man is where he is today, and why we as a people must truly accept our role in today's world.  One thing that impressed me, and I'd say many involved in progressive business development, is the surprising degree to which Obama encapsulated the values which have defined the core of so many of our Top Small Workplaces.

Obama aides promised a speech exploring "the dual themes of responsibility and accountability."  Indeed, it was with a great swell of pride that many in America, and across the globe, were convinced in plain language that the willingness to accept one's responsibilities was not simply a task to burden our people, but the very thing which has made us great.  Ask the staff from any of our Top Small Workplaces over the past several years and they'll echo the same sentiment.  Not only concerning the values which Obama recognized as our core, "hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism," but also the crucial elements of transparency, equal voice, and yes, shared ownership of our sacrifices and rewards.  Elements apparently lost to many in government and business, but very present in many of those worthy of the title "Top Small Workplace." 

At Winning Workplaces, we recognize the connection between employee engagement and the bottom line.  As we all have a piece in the outcome of our actions, accountability and transparency have been championed by our Top Small Workplaces for years.  Obama stressed the need "to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day."  Consider the fact that employees owned company stock in 10 of the 14 privately held Top Small Workplaces last year, five of the winning firms were ESOP companies, and 14 of the 15 winning firms practice open book management! 

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility," urged Obama this afternoon.  He stated plainly that "our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."  In doing so he described the many challenges we currently face - social, economic and environmental - as tied to our ability to recognize the weight of our actions.  And as we are routinely told, for example by Amy Bermar that of Corporate Ink, instilling an ownership mentality is key to the success of a small business, it seems convincing employees, and citizens, that their actions are crucial to the success or failure of a project is essential for all of us.

Jim Tippmann, over at FRCH Designs, will argue that letting individuals participate in the decision making process itself will help ensure that they buy into the changes.  Perhaps Obama will adopt something akin to the FRCH "town meetings," employee engagement activities where the leaders explain current projects, share financial results and open the discussion up for employee input And Cindi Bigelow, of Bigelow Tea, might also applaud Obama's language today, having seen engagement and input save the company around $80,000 per year in just one instance.  Although Bigelow has experienced what great success accountability and engagement can achieve for your bottom line, she argues, "You do it for the moral reason first, then the business follows."

So perhaps there are more than a few small business owners today who have found affirmation in the common sense of Obama's inauguration speech.  Accept responsibility.  Open communication.  Open the books and make all parties accountable.  Engage the people, and see that they rise to challenge in front of them, recognizing "that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

Jason Ticus

For a two-part feature we'll be running in our January and February newsletters, yesterday I spoke with David Spitulnik, Director of Strategic Services for Blackman Kallick, one of the largest accounting firms in Chicago.  We'll be following up with them on their recent survey of Chicago-area business leaders on the topic of the economy, which I blogged about this past fall.

David provided a wealth of information, but I was particularly impressed with the following clip, where he reveals feedback from their clients – mostly privately held, long-running small and midsized firms – on their employee engagement best practices when it comes to open communication:

mp3 - 2 MB - 2:11

David's bottom line?  Even though it can be tough, more and more small firms (at least in Chicago) are actively using employee engagement to leverage their people's ideas to get a leg up at the organizational level and survive this recession.  "If you don't talk about things, what is gossip becomes reality," he said.

This is a small and inexpensive example of "sharing the pain" – a theme our Chairman, Ken Lehman, will comment on in his Workplace Perspectives editorial in our January issue, which will go out to our subscribers early next week.  (If you're not yet a subscriber, click here to join.  It's free.)

What do you think of David's comments?  If your business is to provide services or counsel to other companies, are you getting extra phone calls from your clients right now where the subtext is seeking workplace practice advice?

Image credit: GameSpot

Nominations continue to roll in for Top Small Workplaces 2009.  If you haven't nominated your organization yet, you may do so here.  Hurry, though – the nominations window closes on Friday, January 30.

Once again, I have pulled essays from some of the latest nominators that speak to the employee engagement and team building within the workplaces they have nominated for this year's award.  The 2009 winners will be named in The Wall Street Journal on September 28, 2009, and honored at a conference in Chicago (location TBA) on October 1-2, 2009.  You can access an award process timeline here.

Before reading the new essays below, you can catch up on past essays in this series with the following links:

For privacy I've removed the company name and any other revealing wording from the descriptions below.

Nominee from the communications industry, based in Illinois:

When you get an esoteric team of designers, writers and strategists focused on building brands, and put them in an environment that focuses on collaboration and partnership wonderful things can happen.  And that’s a day in the life around here.  [The company] is a communications design firm that helps clients articulate their brand stories.  We work with big corporations as well as small companies and nonprofit organizations to create lasting, emotional connections to their most important audiences.

Nominee from the consumer goods industry, based in Oregon:

We were acknowledged for [sustainability] practices that have been part of our core principals since we started brewing beer 21 years ago.  Over the years we have been committed stewards of the environment and have remained dedicated to operating our brewery in the most responsible manner possible.  As an employee owned company we share this recognition with our employees who take pride in ownership and participation.  Open communication and suggestions from employees have contributed greatly to the success of managing and maintaining socially and environmentally fair business practices.

Nominee from the technology/software industry, based in California:

At [the company] the work environment is always fun and energetic. (There's a basketball goal right behind my desk!)  Management has an open door policy, and are easy to talk to about anything.  They also encourage personal growth, and love to reward employees for their hard work with parties, bonuses, and promotions.  Need I say more?

Nominee from the professional services industry, based in Ohio:

The managerial strategy is well-tailored to achieve both high employee morale and maximum business results.  Examples include casual dress code for employees outside of client meetings, purchasing lunch for all employees if weekly sales goals are met, and a willingness to hire smart people and train them rather than requiring a business/finance major or background.  This makes them one of the few workplaces creating jobs in the economically battered ... area.

Nominee from the construction industry, based in Maryland:

As we move forward in this challenging economy, our company is focused on building the most valuable element of any business – the people.  The future success of [the company] rests in the hands of everyone within the organization.  The deeply rooted culture of coaching team members to make empowered decisions to "do the right thing" is a fundamental ingredient of our success in achieving customer satisfaction and employee retention.

Do any of these descriptions reflect the employee engagement activities present in your organization?  If so, and it meets our criteria, nominate it as a 2009 Top Small Workplace today!

Earlier this week I wrote a post comparing the projected 2009 hiring plans of firms as surveyed last month by CareerBuilder to those Winning Workplaces surveyed earlier in the year.  When I re-posted this on LinkedIn, I received a response from Hans van Eck-Casteels, who works in the consulting and emerging markets areas of Orange Business Services.

He came back with two thought-provoking comments/questions:

Hmmm...  Attracting top talent...  The good folks at Lehman and others were considered top talent as well - did this guarantee their survival?  Did the $ 4.2 Billion in bonuses paid last year at Lehman guarantee a top notch risk management process?  I am just wondering - what exactly is Top Talent?  Can someone give me a description?

After a little back-and-forth correspondence, he later added this:

Have you ever noticed that the criteria used for making a decision to hire someone are very different (most of the time - of course there are exceptions) than what the incumbent will be doing on a day to day basis?  Why would people use criteria to eliminate candidates based on non relevant skillsets?

Here's how I would respond to Hans' question about top talent: These folks skirt the line between doing good work, based on an organization's current strategic direction, that contributes directly to its sustainability and longevity, and pioneering new strategic endeavors that solidify the firm's actions to reward all stakeholders.  It goes without saying that they are role models for all employees, and would never engage in activities like this.

In terms of the employee engagement best practices that companies can use to hold on to these people, the most successful firms we've studied use a mix of the following:

• structured employee orientation programs
• mentoring programs
• structured co-op and internship programs
• coaching for managers so they become more skilled at giving constructive feedback to those they supervise
• annual staff retreats for recharging and future planning

Hans' second question is more difficult to answer; it can vary depending on whether a job function is being replaced or created.  If it's the latter, I think a certain amount of disparity between sought skills and those that end up being put to use by the person hired should be expected.

However, solid open communication and other employee engagement activities that encourage a strong culture and many opportunities for workplace team building, especially informal ones, can help ensure that skills being sought in a replacement hire – assuming, obviously, they have been shown to benefit the organization in the past and are still relevant – translate to what the person brought on board ultimately contributes.

What say you?

Photo credit: The UberReview

The Working World Cafe blog wrote about transparency last week in reference to a study by Watson Wyatt that reemphasized a finding they've reported on for many years.  Namely, that firms that place a premium on transparency in their team building and other employee engagement best practices benefit in stronger ROI both internally and externally.

One of the external forms of ROI we talk about on our website as a competitive advantage of being a winning workplace, which Watson Wyatt revealed in 2004, is the astounding difference in return to shareholders from largely this one core value, compared to companies that don't actively work to instill it.

Open communication, which can encompass everything from the much-hyped – if much more rarely practiced – open door policy to daily huddles, quarterly all-staff meetings, and annual employee surveys, is useful at all times.  However, struggling small firms should place more stock in it in tough times like these.  Our 2008 Top Small Workplaces do, so much so that this emerged as one of the 9 themes of this year's winners.

In our benchmarking and best practices report on the 2008 winners, under the subheading "Weathering the hard times," we discuss how two Top Small Workplaces, Landscape Forms in embattled Michigan and King Arthur Flour in Vermont, use transparency in their employee engagement to emerge healthier during especially difficult periods.  In keeping with this season of giving, our coverage of these two resilient small firms from this report follows below.  You can access our full report here.

Rapidly rising material prices cut into Landscape Forms’ margins in 2004, costing them about $1 million.  This designer and manufacturer of outdoor furnishings was forced to raise prices and communicate this new reality to their customers.  They worked closely with their suppliers, who also passed along their own cost increases.  In partnership they were able to develop a solution that helped them share in the short-term pain.  Sourcing certain parts in China offered an opportunity for dramatic cost savings and gave their customers great value.  Management worked diligently to demonstrate to employees that strategically sourcing some parts overseas was necessary to reducing costs without undermining job growth in the U.S.  In addition, management initiated lean initiatives to increase efficiencies in their operations – and asked employees for help.

They knew they needed more than price increases and material cost savings to restore profitability.  They explained the situation to employees and asked for their help to close the gap. Everyone was encouraged to take actions to improve their own work areas and communicate their impact to the rest of the staff.  Hundreds of actions were generated, stimulating a high level of employee engagement.  Because of all this, Landscape was able to achieve their 2005 profit goal and has continued to grow successfully.

During this past year, global wheat prices have been at an all-time high at King Arthur Flour, well over triple the cost per bushel since spring of last year.  The combination of poor wheat harvests around the world, low stocks from last year and high energy costs created a very grim situation for wheat prices, leading to much higher flour prices.

Management communicated the situation to employees and they brainstormed solutions.  In response, the firm set up teams that reached out to customers and the media to explain the situation.  Internal teams worked on wheat purchasing issues, negotiated with grocery chains and bakeries, and communicated with their home baker customers.  While the unstable market convinced other suppliers to use lower-quality wheat, King Arthur Flour employee-owners remained committed to maintaining the highest and most consistent standards for protein content and product performance.

How can small employers can become more transparent to enhance their bottom line in 2009?  I'd love to read your thoughts on this.

Our friend Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace answered this question in the affirmative on Monday, citing Bob Selden of Management Issues.  Taking issue with the often default position of company leadership to compete only on price – a position that can be conducive to layoffs – Steve asks,

What happens when the economy starts moving again – are these organisations flexible enough to re-hire, re-train and re-develop lost markets?

What might happen for instance, if the company leadership said "We need to reduce costs by 20 per cent - what are your suggestions for doing that?"

They just might find that employees come up with some stunning suggestions.  Suppose that staff said "We can reduce costs 20 per cent by taking a reduction in pay - working four days a week instead of five".

Steve gets at the kind of employee engagement that several of our Top Small Workplaces have undertaken to survive tough times before our current recession.  At Boston-based technology PR firm Corporate Ink, for instance, Founder and President Amy Bermar took a 30% pay cut and her staff, after meeting with her and weighing that option against letting an employee go, decided to take a 10% pay cut.  All staff at 2008 Top Small Workplace JA Frate, a light freight trucking business based in Illinois, shared the pain and took similar action during a downturn a couple years ago in their industry.

What's similar in both cases is that when business eventually improved, wages were restored and, more importantly for the organizations' long-term success, the employees that agreed to stay on and weather the storm carried with them their knowledge base and customer relationships. 

The workplace team building at these firms undoubtedly put them in a better position to compete with their peers when industry conditions improved.  There's a lesson in this for small firms that are having to make similarly tough choices right now because of the poor economy.

For more information, including employee engagement best practices you can use or adapt for your business, check out the theme "Open communication engages employees in good times and bad" in our 2008 Top Small Workplaces Benchmarking and Best Practices Report.  Also, stay tuned for our free Ideas e-newsletter coming in January, which, in addition to a fresh new look, will feature an editorial by our Chairman, Ken Lehman, on "sharing the pain."

As if employees didn't have enough to worry about, what with massive layoffs making headlines pretty much daily.  Now a researcher at the University of New Hampshire is warning workers to watch their backs to avoid being unfairly tagged "it" in a blame game.

With the economic downturn as the catalyst, says Paul Harvey, assistant professor of management at UNH's Whittemore School of Business and Economics, employees may be more prone to blame someone else for problems they've caused.  He says this is bad when it occurs among employees, but when it stems from a supervisor or manager who wants to avoid blame, it takes on a new dimension that can ultimately hurt the business via things like:

• emotional stress and strain on employees
• reduced performance levels
• potential for increased turnover

So how can small and midsize organizations refocus their employee engagement best practices to avoid this outcome?  One tactic that our consulting and training director, Diane Stoneman, suggested in a webinar we held today that reviewed some of the exemplary business practices of our 2008 Top Small Workplaces is to devote a bigger piece of your training and development pie to ensuring that front-line managers, especially, are living the company values and, most importantly, treating those they supervise with respect.  Whether it's good behavior that should be reinforced, or bad behavior that should be avoided, she said front-line managers are often key to making or breaking a firm's morale and productivity.

In fact, one of the 9 themes that we identified among our 15 winning firms this year that made them stand out among the over 400 applicants was that they have created and systematized processes that call for, if not depend on, employee engagement to help run the business.

You can see how this theme was laid out in our webinar today by accessing the links below.  The first one is the slides that fit this theme; the second is audio featuring Diane giving examples from two of the winning businesses, and our Executive Director, Mary Corbitt Clark, discussing more about these firms' employee engagement activities, including her answer to the question, "Why do it?"

Webinar slides (ppt) - 215 KB

Webinar audio (mp3) - 4.34 MB - 4:44

For more best practices on maintaining strong morale and productivity in tough times, we have an early Christmas present for you in the form of another, upcoming live webinar on this topic on December 10.  It will feature Bill Brett, President of Barclay Water Management, a Massachusetts-based water treatment company that boasts the lowest associate turnover rate among major firms in their industry.

Are your workplace team building initiatives set up to guard against "the blame game"?  How so?