After careful consideration, Winning Workplaces has concluded that it will not be carrying out the 2012 Top Small Company Workplaces competition with Inc. Magazine.  In 2010 and 2011 we collaborated with Inc. on this recognition project honoring small and midsize organizations that use exemplary employee engagement and team building strategies to create more productive workplace cultures.

We are taking a step back and retrenching over the next few months while we work to redefine our major activities that will lead us to sustainability for the next decade.

If you have any questions, please contact either Nuala Novak or Ken Lehman at info@winningworkplaces.org or via phone at 847-328-9798.  Thank you.

Much of the high-level discussion about education in the U.S. lately has centered on whether or not the government (and ultimately taxpayers) should invest in hiring construction workers to fix our crumbling schools in many states.

This discussion has merit, of course, but maybe it is a big opportunity talk about not just what schools will look like after this kind of action, but how they will better serve students.  Specifically, I'm thinking of how educators as well as parents, companies, and the media can all make it more hip for kids to learn and use math and science.

The problem is that, as a major study of an increasing number of industrialized countries shows every three years, U.S. students rank poorly in math and science as well as reading.  But the opportunity is great: this new Seven Days article, titled "Seeking Geeks," provides a Vermont-focused peek at an increasing nationwide need for companies: qualified technical workers.

To the extent that companies can hire these workers among a pool of increasingly educated Americans, everyone benefits.  Companies may be more confident overall to hire, and more Americans working means both more disposable income to spend in our economy and a reduced drain on federal and state unemployment benefit funds.

Looking at the specific company need of technical workers, I did a quick review of the small firms we have profiled that are in the high tech/software/systems sector (organizations which, since 2003, have won our award focused on the payoff of employee engagement and workplace team building).  Of the 19 firms in this sector for which we've shared their successful people practices, 14 are still operating independently, four have been acquired, and one went out of business.  Of the 14 independent operators, 12 are currently hiring -- many for at least one technical role.

This, of course, doesn't even take into account the large number of our small workplace award winners in other sectors that are currently hiring for tech and other roles, several of which I tweeted about this week.

The government and the media periodically remind us of the importance of encouraging kids to learn their ABCs and 123s ("The More You Know," anyone?).  Because it is to their benefit as well as society's, I think more non-media companies should get in the game of making these reminders front and center.  After all, while there is talk that globalization and other factors have perhaps led some jobs away from the U.S. for good, the jobs I mentioned above are here -- and need filling -- now.

Image credit: Learning Technologies

1. One of our 50 winners, TRX (health industry, based in California, 132 employees), shared with us in their award application that, to use people practices to improve organizational performance, they sent their Director of Education to several, week-long athletic training mentorships to learn best practices in running athletic education courses.  At these workshops she gained a better understanding of running an incubated business, management and team development, and industry standard benchmarks.  As a result of this investment TRX's Education business has thrived, especially internationally.
2. I also found a noteworthy account from one of our applicants, Starmount Life Insurance Company (insurance industry, based in Louisiana, 176 employees), that they submitted in answer to our question on employee leadership development training for new and existing managers and supervisors.  Starmount says a key priority is at their Team Leader level, the first level supervisory role in their organization.  Not only are they typically new to a leadership role, but they may encounter challenges shifting from a peer to supervisory relationship.  Team Leaders participate in a "Management Incubator" program which utilizes competency-based leadership assessments, experiential learning, leadership coaching, and development planning.  This program appears to have had a big impact on Starmount's success post Katrina and Rita: their relocation-related initial turnover quickly stabilized, in 2009 they broke ground on a new headquarters in Baton Rouge, and in 2010 they launched two new major product lines.

A key building block of a Winning Workplace is people practices supporting a focus on Teamwork & Involvement (more about the other 5 building blocks we believe in, and have seen in practice among the great small firms we've studied and recognized, here).

This involves team building strategies, of course, but it also relates to the extent that an organization acts as a means to empower its employees to improve the communities in which they live, and supports them during crises.  Our recent Success Story on Van Meter Industrial, a 2010 winner of our Top Small Company Workplace award, addressed this in detail related to the historic flood that hit its headquarters city – Cedar Rapids, Iowa – in 2008.

We've just weathered an even larger-scale natural disaster – Hurricane Irene, which devastated many East Coast states this past weekend.  True to form, many of the small businesses we've honored with both of our awards are offering assistance to individuals and businesses that were affected by it.  Here's a snapshot of what they're doing:

1-800-GOT-JUNK? (2005 Best Boss - Brian Scudamore)
As their business is based on junk removal, they're doing what they do best and clearing out flooded basements and storm debris.  Their call center and website have been slammed, and their northeastern U.S. franchise partners tell them that their schedules are packed.  Luckily, they work directly with insurance companies, so it takes some stress out of the process of mopping up after such a destructive storm.

Bersin & Associates (2011 Top Small Company Workplace)
Since many of their employees work remotely from the East Coast – they're based in California – they've helped them out in several ways: 1. Paying for one employee's monthly rent increase while they move into a new neighborhood 2. IT staff is helping people get their computers back up and running 3. Offered to help each employee financially with power outage issues.

Dealer.com (2010 Top Small Company Workplace)
This Burlington, Vermont-based firm shared on their Facebook page (which as over 2,200 fans) that much of Southern and Central Vermont has been hit hard and is in desperate need of help.  They also shared a link to a blog that's been set up to help Vermonters assist their fellow citizens.

Dyn Inc. (2011 Top Small Company Workplace)
Tom Daly, President and CTO of this Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company, provided a checklist on their blog to help ensure that company data centers are prepared for major weather events.  They then shared this on their Facebook page, which has over 4,700 fans.

Firespring (2011 Top Small Company Workplace)
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Firespring, a comprehensive marketing solutions provider, instituted a policy allowing any client to essentially "freeze" their account and suspend payments until they were able to get back to business as usual.  Yet, by their own admission, they failed to recognize that many clients were utilizing their online file transfer and job submission utilities that automatically purged old data.  Since many of their clients went without power for several months, they lost valuable data when Firespring's system did its job.  When Hurricane Irene hit last week, it affected hundreds of their clients.  For the past several days, they have been closely analyzing data to ensure that all of them are still able to access their files and are actively engaged using their other web tools.  They were prepared this time.  Their support staff is also reaching out to clients to see if there is anything else they can do to help them.

Northeast Delta Dental (2005 Best Boss - Tom Raffio)
This dental insurance provider has invited employees and their families without electricity to use their facilities, and they are prepared to initiate fundraisers through their Helping Hands program as they learn about employees whose homes were damaged.  They have also activated their ListServ capabilities for their board members, resulting in an exchange of offers to help one another within the tri-states, which has proven immeasurable for their colleagues in Vermont who experienced extremely high flood waters and washed out roadways eliminating access to even basic services.

One Call Now (2011 Top Small Company Workplace)
This Ohio-based enterprise, which delivers automated phone messages to improve communication between and among organizations, has emailed their customers in the states affected by the hurricane. They offered them free upgrades to their existing service, ranging from free texting for 30 days free weather alerts until November 1, when hurricane season is over.  In addition, organizations who coordinate relief for the affected areas can get free call credits added to their accounts to help with their work.

Seventh Generation (2006 Best Boss - Jeffrey Hollender)
The marketer of environmentally responsible household products is donating some of them to make 1200 green cleaning kits for hurricane victims.  They've partnered with the Vermont Foodbank to build and deliver the kits to communities most in need. And they shared news of this on their Facebook page, which has over 260,000 fans.

Next Step: Review the above examples – is there anything you can do or adapt from them to provide better value to your employees, customers, or local communities/states?  (Or get set to do for a future disaster affecting your area?)  And how can employee engagement be a catalyst, or improved, through these efforts?

I am pleased to share with you the following guest post by Anita Campbell.  Anita is the Founder of the Small Business Trends website and CEO of BizSugar, an online community of small business owners.  Today she tackles a topic of concern when establishing great employee engagement and workplace team building strategies: not crossing the friend line with your employees to your business' detriment.  Enjoy!

Everyone wants – has a need, even – to be liked.  It certainly makes going to work every day a lot easier if the people you work with like you.  And because we spend so much time at work, it's only natural to want to cultivate friendships with the people we're with for so many hours every day.  The rules change when you're the boss, though.  There's nothing wrong with being friendly with your employees.  But you do have to draw the line, or maybe a few lines, to also avoid damaging your professional relationships with them, and to keep their respect.  Here are a few tips on how to maintain that delicate balance.

Don't Get Too Personal

You've probably read or been told that you should set boundaries with your employees.  But what does that mean, exactly?  It would be awkward to actually sit your employees down and go over a list of what subjects are okay to talk about, and which ones are taboo.  But it can also be difficult to establish those lines in a more subtle manner.  How you set those boundaries is up to you, but one of the most important things to avoid is getting too personal.

From time to time, your employees may have to reveal certain personal information to you if it's about something that may affect their work.  Having surgery can mean time out of the office, for example.  Or maybe they're getting a divorce, and must remove their spouse from their insurance coverage.  There's really no getting around that, as uncomfortable as it may be for everyone involved.  But those types of revelations should only go one way.  Need to be away from work for medical reasons?  That's all you need to say.  Getting a divorce?  Try to keep it to yourself.

Just like you wouldn't broadcast your problems on a business networking site, you don't want to let your entire office know what you're going through.  Your employees need to have faith that you are there to manage and help them, and although you want them to see you as human, you must try to maintain their confidence in you, and in the company.  Breaking down in the office because your spouse left you will damage that confidence.  Take time off if you need to, but keep your personal life personal.

Now, as with many rules, there is an exception to this one. If you're a small business owner, and you only employ a few people, it may be more difficult to separate your personal life from your professional one.  A startup can oftentimes create a camaraderie and a sense of ownership that employees in larger companies don't feel.  You may all be spending long hours in the office together to get those client proposals done, or inviting your employees' ideas and contributions to get your startup past one of the inevitable hiccups you'll run into.  If that's the kind of relationship you've built with your employees, you may feel more comfortable revealing some of the more personal details of your life.  Just remember to maintain your position as the boss at the same time.

Don't Get Drunk in Front of Employees

You'd think this one would need explaining, but think back.  Before you were promoted or started your own business, did you ever see one of your bosses get drunk at the company Christmas party, or the company picnic?  It happens more often than you might think, and much more often than it should.  Learn from those experiences, and don't be that boss.

It's okay to have a drink or two with your employees from time to time.  Most people will probably have a drink at a holiday party or other company event.  Or maybe you'll go out after work to celebrate landing a big contract.  Just don't overdo it.  Your employees do not need to see you slurring your words, or losing control in public.  It can be embarrassing, and make it very difficult for them to respect you once you're back in the office.  And let's face it, no one likes to have to babysit someone who's had a few too many.  Never put your employees in a position where they have to monitor you, or take your keys away from you.  It's asking too much of them, and putting them in a very awkward position.  No one appreciates that, least of all the people who are supposed to be able – and want – to look up to you.

Don't Play Favorites

Of course you're going to like some employees more than others.  There'll be one person you just click with, someone with whom you'd be very good friends if not for the work situation that requires keeping a little distance.  Because you can't hang out with that person the way you'd like to, you may try to compensate by treating that employee a little better than the others.  If you think you're being subtle about it, you're wrong.  The other employees will notice it, and it will cause problems.

Having several employees can be very much like having a family, especially if that's the kind of culture you've worked to build in your company.  Like a family, there will be some sibling rivalries, and competition for your attention as the pseudo parental figure.  Don't encourage it.  Everyone needs to work together, not against each other, and if it becomes obvious that you favor one employee over the others, the employees on the outs will band together against the favorite.  It's just human nature.  And nothing destroys morale more quickly in the office than feeling unappreciated, or as if the work being done doesn't really matter.  Treat all your employees equally but fairly, which also means that when one of them isn't performing, you take the appropriate action – even if it's your favorite.

The main answer is, yes, you can be friends with your employees, just not the same kind of friends you are with your non-work friends.  Be friendly, be fair, but keep the focus on work, morale, and productivity, and you'll get much more out of your employees than you would if you tried to make them like you all the time.  In other words – be the boss.

Related: As the boss, you may be concerned about getting too chummy with your staff to keep an eye toward building trust in the workplace. Yet, as we write about here, research shows a possible link between budding friendships among your staff resulting in more highly engaged employees when it comes to dealing with leaders and managers.

As those of you who are already subscribers of Winning Workplaces' emails on activities for employee engagement and team building in the workplace may remember, our registration form asks you to list your company role – ranging from Owner/CEO/President to HR to Marketing/Sales.

One of the things I'm working on improving that relies on this data is sending emails with role-specific workplace practices – so that more of the output from our information clearinghouse is relevant to our subscribers' daily work.  I sent emails with customized content links this week to the roughly 25% of our subscribers who said they fall under one of six roles when they signed up with us.

Also this week, though, I took the opportunity to send a separate email to the roughly 75% of subscribers who didn't list a role (it's not a required field during registration) asking them to do so.  While I am still going through responses and updating our records based on them, I have a couple observations on why it's a good idea for businesses – especially small ones that typically are a bit closer to their customers and other contacts – to broadly follow the tactic I did in my second email campaign this week.  That is to say, asking some or all of your subscribers to update their information preferences.

Here are 3 reasons why you should do this, at least yearly and maybe even every 6 months:

1. As I mentioned above, this will enable you to customize the information you send them, whether it be educational content as is our primary focus, product/service help or updates, community news, or something else.  Or, if you already do some customization (the technical term in marketing circles is segmentation), this tactic will allow you to do even more.  The overall goal is to use the data you gather to segment your emails to such a degree that your KPIs (typically view and click-through rates) perform better than past campaigns, and/or surpass those of your industry.
2. If, as I did, you personalize your "ask" email with the name of your contact person – both in the email signature at the bottom and in the "From" line at the top – as opposed to just having it be addressed from your company, you increase the likelihood for it to be a tool for you to engage in a dialogue with those on your list with whom you may not have communicated in a while.  We originally set up our online registration form in fall 2005, and I had fun reconnecting with a few contacts who signed up with us at that early stage (online, that is – Winning Workplaces has been around since 2001).
3. This practice is a nice complement to the process of routinely "scrubbing" your list, which can be done in one step in most bulk email programs.  In fact, both externally doing this through this practice, and internally via scrubbing, are not just nice to do, in terms of ensuring a qualified contact list – they are required under CAN-SPAM rules.  Small businesses, especially, should take care to check their compliance of these rules, since costs associated with noncompliance hit them disproportionately harder than their larger competitors.

If I had to list a fourth reason, it would probably be that leadership looking to do this, or to do it more systematically, can enjoy the built-in benefit of getting employees engaged from multiple areas – marketing, sales, IT, etc.

Related Post: Social Media May Be All the Rage, But Don't Neglect Email

Congratulations are in order for 15 individuals and organizations that Winning Workplaces has previously pointed to on our website and blog for the value they provide small business executives as everything from examples of hyper-productive workplace team building and improving employee retention, to leading workforce researchers, to purveyors of proven yet cost-effective marketing and brand-building strategies.

The people and firms below were just named 2011 Small Business Influencers by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.  The recognition is sponsored by BlackBerry, Infusionsoft, and Sage, among others.

The list of Champions includes:

• Norm Brodsky
• Jeff Cornwall
• Donna Fenn
• Inc. Magazine
• John Jantsch
• Rieva Lesonsky
• Becky McCray
• oDesk
• Dharmesh Shah
• YoungEntrepreneur.com

Honorable Mentions include:

• 37Signals
• Jonathan Fields
• Ladies Who Launch
• Network Solutions
• John Spence

Go to Small Business Trends for information on the selection process and judging criteria.

Congrats again to these and all of the honorees!

What do you think of their picks?

Recently, by way of a left-leaning political campaign's online petition, I heard about the Protect IP Act.  The more I learn about this legislation in the U.S. Congress, however, it seems of concern to small business CEOs and CTOs regardless of their party affiliation or views of Washington.

This week CNET wrote a good summary of the original Senate draft of the legislation, and of substantial changes the House is looking to make to it before scheduling a vote on it (hearings on the act in the latter chamber are set to take place next month).  Basically, the act in both forms was drawn up to police and punish websites that have engaged in an increasing headache on the web: intellectual property infringement.  (Think illegal movie and music downloads.)

The problem is that, as the legislation is currently drafted, it could inadvertently result in the shutdown of a large swath of small business sites that are not actually engaging in IP infringement – without first giving them a means to challenge any such claims against them in court.  In fact, this happened to over 80,000 sites earlier this year.

Another potential problem if this act were to become law is the unfair burden that could be placed on small firms in terms of backing up online data, which could be a provision if companies are accused, vis-a-vis their Internet service providers (ISPs), of IP infringement.  In a column on this topic earlier this month, David Snead, an attorney who specializes in cases involving Internet infrastructure providers, says the 18 months of data protection and storage that's been suggested "would be particularly difficult for small businesses who don't have the resources to purchase additional servers and implement compliance programs necessary to protect this information."

Free speech and open Internet groups including Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have stated their opposition to the bill.  But so has American Express – no doubt because many of their small and midsize business customers' commerce could be affected if it passes.

Next Step: In addition to the links above, I recommend you visit, read, and share Wikipedia's summary of the bill with your CTO, if not your whole IT department or staff.  You could then kill two birds with one stone: educate your appropriate team members with an aim toward drafting a "disaster recovery" plan if it goes into effect (and if you think that could be detrimental to your business), while promoting workplace team building and employee engagement activity.

As longtime readers know, I'm a big fan of webinars.  Not just because Winning Workplaces has produced our own series of them for small business executives, but also because the barrier to entry on the technology side has become much more manageable, meaning that more business executives, researchers, and other experts can attract more attendees to sessions that address ever more niche topics.

As a result, there are more great webinars arriving every day.  And because many presenters offer at least some information for free (it's a great lead generation tactic if you put access to them behind a registration wall, as our blog provider, Compendium, has done well), you can get helpful new tips, or a refresher to help you reexamine how you're doing something, for virtually no investment other than your time.

If you are looking to not just do a one-off session, and instead record it for sharing or future sale, at a minimum you need to tell your attendees that it's being recorded.  For our own series, this announcement was handled by our great webinar vendor, ReadyTalk.  (Incidentally, part of what makes this firm great is their workplace team building and employee engagement practices; they won our Top Small Company Workplaces award earlier this year.)

However, you can, and should, go further.  From a tip I got from Small Biz Survival, I recently subscribed to Australia-based Des Walsh's monthly social media strategy improvement webinar series.  I listened to his recording from July today, and here's what he said as "housekeeping notes" before he dug into his topic, participation and engagement:

1. This webinar is being recorded.
2. Your attendance on the call signifies your acceptance that the recording may be published electronically, in print form, or on websites.
3. This webinar offers education for informational purposes only.  Opinions and suggestions expressed by the host, any guest presenters, or webinar participants are just that – opinions and suggestions – and should in no way be taken as business or financial advice.

You can do as Walsh did as the host and just read the disclaimers, or you can check with your service provider and see if they will cover all or part of the announcement (depending on your package or session needs, they may provide you with a moderator who will take care of this so your staff representatives or other presenters don't have to).

Does your business already use webinars?  If so, for what purpose – growing sales leads, adding customer value, to keep employees engaged, or something else?  I'd love to hear in the comments.

Among the nearly 350 small and midsize organizations that applied for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award earlier this year, 96% have a strategic plan.  No surprise there, right?  (In fact, I find it more surprising that in this tough economy, 4% are getting by without one.)

However, when I looked at the vast majority that do have a strategic plan guiding their customer service, sales/marketing, technology, and other investments, I found a big divide in revenue and likelihood of being profitable between those whose plans go further and include a strategy for improving company performance specifically through their employee engagement, workplace team building, and other people practices – and those whose do not.

Check out the charts below:

I wanted to bring this to your attention since our 2011 small-workplace award application was the first to dig deeper and ask about people-powered performance as a key element in company strategic plans.  This is further evidence that investing in your workplace makes business sense (as opposed to merely increasing employee satisfaction).

Does your firm's strategic plan rely on people-powered performance improvement?  I'd love to hear about your experience, including lessons learned.

I love LinkedIn.  I've blogged before about its value, especially considering it's free except for your time (though there are fees if you want to post jobs there).  In the past I've used the business-themed social networking site to gather opinions on Zappos' "leaving bonus," and I referenced its Group feature as a lead-driving tool.

One of the best ways to use LinkedIn is to ask and answer questions.  I particularly enjoy going to the Small Business and Organizational Development sections and seeing what company leaders, managers, and other employees are talking about – and occasionally offering my opinion.  I did so last month in response to organizational culture consultant and speaker Marcella Bremer's question asking why building a productive workplace culture is often not on the agenda of CEOs, company board members, and other top executives.

My response sparked an email conversation in which Marcella and I compared notes on our respective firms devoted to leveraging employee engagement and team building strategies to improve companies' bottom-line results.  The enterprise she co-owns, OCAI online, is based in the Netherlands (people practices advancement is truly a small world!).

When I went to her site I learned what OCAI stand for: Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument.  Developed by Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn, the OCAI operates based on what's known as the Competing Values Framework.  Here's what this looks like:

As you can see, as you go up on this graph you transition from core values supporting stability and control (some would say, command and control) to flexibility and discretion.  From left to right, the focus changes from internal and integration to external and differentiation.  Where a company lands on this graph determines its balance among four Organizational Culture Types: clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, and market.

What I find amazing is that when I go to OCAI's page explaining these culture types in greater detail, I find that, generally speaking, Winning Workplaces' Top Small Company Workplace award honorees fall within the area of the graph I highlighted below:

That is, they have:

• workforces who say they feel like a family;
• leaders who see themselves, and are seen by their people, as mentors;
• strong emphasis on teamwork, participation, and consensus; and
• employees who take risks, within a culture that promotes individual initiative and freedom.

However, I think our honorees are also a hybrid – they might have cultures which generally fall within the area of the graph I indicated, but when you read their applications for our award, they have succeeded in using staff engagement activities representative of a clan or an adhocracy to propel their business squarely in the market sector of the graph.  This is another way of saying, they don't just treat their people well because it's the right thing to do – they integrate these practices into the "vaue drivers" OCAI talks about of increasing market share, goal achievement, and profitability.  I discussed this a bit more in posts in January and June.

So...where does your company's culture fall on OCAI's graph?  I think leaders would find it an insightful and useful exercise to survey their management teams and other employees on what they think, and see how it compares to their own assessment.

A year ago, after Winning Workplaces and Inc. Magazine announced the winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award, I began a series of posts sharing data on how the winners, finalists, and other applicants performed on some key business metrics:

• Average employee tenure and turnover
• Estimated annual turnover costs per company (and how the winners and finalists outperformed their fellow award applicants)
• Revenue, proftability, employee tenure, and turnover among all applicants who fund a retirement plan, vs. those that don't

Now that both organizations have announced the winners and finalists of our 2011 award, I think it's time to give you some updated stats.  As you'll see, they continue to support our thesis – and those of many of the other firms out there that study employee engagement and team building within productive workplace cultures – that investing in your workforce pays being dividends over the long term.  That includes an increased ability to anticipate and weather tough economies like the current one.

Employee Tenure and Turnover

As you can see, part of what distinguished the 2011 winners from the finalists was higher average employee tenure and lower turnover.  But to me the real story is how much improvement in these metrics the winners had over the finalists, vs. last year's winners compared to the finalists.  This is represented in the chart below:

While one might argue that the continuing down economy, and particularly the stagnant job market, is keeping people from leaving who otherwise might jump ship – increasing average tenure while keeping voluntary turnover low as a share of total turnover – our data seem to indicate that something else is going on.  Otherwise the winners' improvement over the finalists from 2010 to 2011 would be more gradual and not so steep.  I suspect that more leaders of small firms are having frank, "We're all in it together" conversations with their workers, and at the same time are doing a better job of linking individual to company performance and providing attractive incentives to encourage more top-level work and innovation.

Turnover Costs - Winners and Finalists vs. Other Applicants

Most definitely there is a mixed-results story going on here.  On the one hand, while among our 2010 pool the winners and finalists had about half the turnover of other applicants, in 2011 the winner and finalist turnover was two-thirds the level of other applicants.  That was the driving factor behind the average, annual turnover cost of winners and finalists representing 89% of the cost of other applicants (in 2010, winners and finalists experienced only 40% of the cost of other applicants).  Still...

...as this chart shows, you can also look at it as a testament to the current winners and finalists that they were able to keep turnover at essentially the same low level (considering the variance in industry, geography, marketplaces, et al) as 2010, which allowed them to still have lower turnover costs than other applicants.  This is particularly noteworthy since the 2011 winners and finalists represent a greater share of the total applicant pool (24%) than they did in 2010 (8%).

The Link Between Retirement Plans and Revenue

While there are obviously many, many other factors involved, it's hard to ignore the business metrics that tend to increase – among all our award applicants, not just winners and finalists – when companies show their long-term commitment to their workforces by investing in their retirement, as I discussed last October.  As the table above shows with the 2011 applicant data added, we continue to see a link between funding these plans and the tendency toward greater revenue and increased likelihood of being profitable.  However...

...take a look at the difference in revenue for companies who funded 401K, 403B, IRAs, or other plans in 2011 vs. those who do not, compared with the same groups in 2010.  (Also note that the ratio of those who fund these plans vs. those who don't stayed essentially the same both years, 9 to 1.)

Is the difference a fluke?  Or do you think there's something going on related to benefits and incentives within a framework of progressive staff engagement activities?  I'd love to read your thoughts – on this trend and anything else I've shared above – in the comments.

Last week I was combing CNN.com on my lunch break.  When I first came across author Max Barry's article "Why I fled the office cubicle," I thought it was going to just be about how this 20th century feature of workplace culture and design can hinder employee engagement and ideation from the bottom up.

It is about that, but Barry also takes aim (I think unnecessarily) at human resources professionals:

The difference between people and human resources is that people have brains.  ...  Human resources are basically office equipment with legs.  They're talking furniture.  In fact, they're worse than furniture, because at least furniture stays where you put it.

Ouch.

In stark contrast to how Barry sees HR, here's how I painted this critical business function in the context of our Winning Workplaces in 2009:

For the most part, among the small firms we've honored for their outstanding employee engagement that improves productivity and the bottom line, HR leaders morph from paper pushers to planners and implementation specialists, along with the CEO, of team building activities that fit and reinforce the work culture.

Below are five specific examples of this, among the small firms we've honored and profiled over the years:

1. Leadership Advisor and Key Decision Maker

Ginger Bay Salon & Spa, Kirkwood, MO
HR Representative: Sasha McGuire

"I'm part of the leadership team here, and we meet weekly to collaborate," McGuire says. "My boss, the owner, is very open to my feedback.  For example, I make the decisions around staffing, and she trusts me and consults with me.  I make the recruiting schedule, and make selections.  The owner is involved, but trusts me to do my work well."

2. Self-Directed Workforce Director

New Belgium Brewing Company, Fort Collins, CO
HR Representative: Jenny Briggs

Philosophically, NBB's intention is to develop a workforce that, at all levels, is self directed, makes reasoned decisions and is inspired to pursue their passions at work.  The company provides a menu of opportunities for all staff including: a process for employees to establish their own work objectives, on-site internal training, tuition for external education, a job shadowing program, and participation on one of NBB's committees.  Many of these activities are directed by Briggs and her 10-person staff in Human Resources.

3. Productivity Enhancer

High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi), Reston, VA
HR Representative: Eleni Antoniou

The firm's staff benefit from peer learning through Learning Cafe presentations that are given every two to three weeks. Occurring over the lunch hour in a format akin to brown bags, staff members have the chance to receive in-depth training on a particular computer program or even learn a skill not tied to the workplace.  Antoniou, director of HR, has presented several topics, including goal setting and getting the most out of performance reviews.

4. Relationship Builder

Optimax Systems, Inc., Ontario, NY
HR Representative: Alejandro Mendoza

Mendoza's duties include helping to administer Optimax's successful mentoring program, which is core to the company's developmental process and helps maintain its unique workplace culture.  All new employees are assigned a mentor for a minimum of 90 days and there is a structured timeline of events that are expected to take place during this time period, including: much one-on-one time, monthly lunches, introductions to all staff, orientation to computer systems, understanding the bonus program, etc.  "Instead of a boring HR orientation, this mentoring relationship helps new employees understand our environment and what is expected in a far more effective manner," says Mendoza.

5. Emergency Responder (Culture Maintainer)

Ipswitch, Inc., Lexington, MA
HR Representative: Betty Lang-Holmes

Lang-Holmes had been on the job for one week when tragedy struck her software company, Ipswitch, Inc.  An employee's well known significant other passed away unexpectedly.  As vice president of human resources, she acted quickly.  "We invited a licensed counselor from our EAP to host bereavement seminars the very next day," she says.  "Now, there's no stigma attached to getting help when people need it."  In fact, at only $65 per employee, Ipswitch's EAP investment, and oversight by HR, amounts to just pennies compared to the costs of losing a valued associate.

Related: Our Leadership Conference with Inc. starting June 15 is a fantastic opportunity to learn about cutting-edge employee practices for greater team camaraderie and company productivity – the kinds of practices you can leverage your HR staff to implement, increasing your ROI from them!  Hurry – the $300 early bird disount is only available until May 6.

I am continually amazed by the huge increase in workplace team building, camaraderie, productivity, and ultimately profits that business leaders can enjoy by doing small, workplace culture-specific things for their employees. 

In an industry with historically among the highest turnover rates – hospitality – Winning Workplaces has reported on several restaurants that have grown competitive advantage largely by following this approach.  These include Emmett's Tavern & Brewing Co. in Illinois and Union Square Hospitality Group in New York.

Without a doubt, Zingerman's Community of Businesses in Michigan fits this bill (pun not intended even though we're talking about restaurants).  From when we wrote our Profile of Success on the collective enterprise back in 2003, to 2010, CEO Ari Weinzweig managed to grow his seven Ann Arbor-based businesses 185%.  (Paula Gardner details their milestones and notes their revenue last year of $37 million on AnnArbor.com.)

As we covered here on our blog, Inc. Magazine included some of the employee engagement best practices Weinzweig uses as part of its recommended "ultimate business tune-up" tips list in an early 2009 issue.  As is the case with the other above-mentioned firms, at the end of the day practices like these are effective not just because they show leadership respects employees' commitment, but because they're inclusive and indicative of a well-thought-out, strategic company vision.

As it happens, Weinzweig will be speaking on how creating a vision of the company you want makes good business sense as part of our Leadership Conference with Inc. in Dallas, Texas, June 15-17, 2011.  Attendees will find value in learning about, and adapting for their organizations, his step-by-step guide to imagining – and then creating – success.

Go here to see the current and evolving agenda for this event.  Register at the early bird rate through May 6.

The following is a guest post by Pam Greene.  Pam's journey to health and fitness started when a friend suffered through some health challenges.  Realizing this was a wake up call to focus on her own health, she started learning about fitness, nutrition, and healthy weight loss.  Pam now works for Beachbody, which provides home fitness programs and workout DVDs including the well known P90X exercise program.  Pam is passionate about sharing tips to help others eat better and exercise for improved health.

Over the years, I've always been a tough one for my work managers to figure out.  On one hand, I'm aggressive when it comes to my lunch break – all of my lunch break.  None of this fifteen minute Cup o'Noodles at the desk business for me.  I take my hour, head to the gym, and workout. In the rare event this can't happen, then I'm out the door at 5 pm.  I've got to get that circuit training in before going home to feed the troops.

This insistence on personal time can be a little troubling for employers used to the typical, 21st century, 24/7 work commitment.  But despite the way my coworkers slurp down microwaved sodium bowls as they file reports and regardless of how they continually pull all-nighters, I'm consistently more productive than they are – because I exercise.

I'm not basing this on my own intuition.  Study after study has piled in backing me up.  For example, according to joint study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, regular exercise caused cognitive improvements in subjects ranging from 15 to 71.  Another study published in the journal Brain and Cognition showed that after a 30 minute bike ride, subjects were able to complete cognitive tests faster.  In other words, I might work a few less hours a week, but I get more done in that time because I 'm more focused.

But that added brain function also comes from the fact that I feel well-rested.  In a 2006 meta-study out of the University of Georgia, researchers reviewed 70 exercise and fatigue studies and discovered that, 90% of the time, sedentary people showed improvement with fatigue issues and increased energy when they worked out regularly.  Of course, while working out plays a big role in this, I should point out that I'm also fairly strict about getting my 7-8 hours of sleep every night.

Also, I'm generally in a better mood, which means I spend less time bellyaching around the water cooler or going after the fax machine with a baseball bat.  The reason for this is, according to a study presented at the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting, just twenty minutes of exercise improved the moods of the participants between the ages of 18 and 25.  This mood-boost lasted 12 hours, probably due to the release of endorphins, happiness-inducing chemicals in your brain.

Another thing that exercise releases in the brain is a fancy thing called brain-derived
neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a vital key to keeping your memory sharp.  According to research out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, just 30 minutes of cardio, three days a week, is enough to boost BDNF.  This means my memory is great.

So, overall, these factors mean that I'm more productive.  And I'm not alone.  A study in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management shows that exercise increases workplace productivity by 23%.  In case you're interested, most of the participants did aerobic workouts.

Of course, now that I work at a fitness company, the paradigm has shifted a little.  The in-house gym is often packed at lunch.  I've even hammered through particularly challenging Pilates sessions with my boss jamming right next to me.  Because of that, productivity is stellar around here.  After years of being the odd woman out, it looks like I've finally found the right office in which to hang my sweatband.

Related: To learn more about implementing health- and wellness-themed benefits that serve the dual purpose of creating activities for employee engagement and team building, and also boosting your bottom line, read this post.

If your business has a Facebook page, and/or other social media outposts, you might have noticed that when you go to share your content in those places (or that of partners, customers, competitors, etc.), the text that appears below the article headline/link is fixed.  This text is usually the first sentence or two of the article.

But what if you want to emphasize a certain point or quote from what you're sharing?  What if you want to paraphrase something said and personalize it to you or your company?

At least on Facebook, you're in luck.  The site recently and quietly changed it's link-sharing capability so that you can modify the main message area – the space below the link title.  You can change this text from what it is by default to whatever you want.

Let me show you how this works:

Make sure you're on your Wall tab.  Then click Link.

Copy and paste your link in the space provided.  After a second while Facebook processes the entry, you will see the link title, address, and a portion of the copy in it.  As you can see from my screen capture, when the mouse floats over this copy it changes to yellow to show it's editable.  Just click and start typing to make it say whatever you want.

The applications of this on your branding are many:

• If your senior leadership have complementary activities that serve to build the brand, call attention to them.  (Corporate social responsibility initiatives come to mind.)
• Engage in virtual team building by promoting employee successes.  (This is an emerging tactic among employee retention tips.)
• Highlight key customer online reviews or other mentions.
• Promote beneficial vendor or partner relationship deliverables or key victories.
• Take the bold move of linking to your competitors and showing how you're the better choice.

Related:

1. If you're not our fan yet on Facebook, go here and click "Like."  We share a combination of our latest news and original employee engagement research, plus relevant content from our workplace award media partner, Inc. Magazine, among other sources.
2. The link-sharing example I used in my screen capture above is one of two articles I wrote exclusively for Inc.  Go here to read both of them.  We hope to add more to our roster there soon.

Jack Stack, founder and CEO of SRC Holdings Corporation, author of the best-selling book The Great Game of Business, and a past judge for our Top Small Company Workplaces award, gave one of my favorite responses to a question we've posed to successful business leaders as part of our interview series.  Answering our question on the benefits of open book management (OBM) on companies, he said,

I think most companies are "command and control," and they're optimizers.  They're trying to squeeze everything they can out of the organization – overhead and efficiencies, for example.

Well, if I do a really good job optimizing, I could probably only add one or two points to the net income.  But if I create an organization of innovators – of creators, entrepreneurs – and they come up with a new idea or a new business, the margins on being ahead of the curve, rather than trying to optimize, are much more profitable.

While Stack was talking about an alternative to command and control within the context of OBM, I think his feedback has implications for companies that use all manner of management systems.  Presciently, the article in which he shared these thoughts appeared in our August 2007 IDEAS newsletter; after another Q&A on him appeared in Inc. Magazine in May 2009, almost 2 years later, Stack was widely lauded for sharing and showing how bucking command and control improved the financials of his various businesses in the wake of the Great Recession (because it gave many other leaders a roadmap to do the same).

Even as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, command and control is still holding back many firms, as John T. Landry affirms this week on the Harvard Business Review blog.  I don't agree with his conclusion that despite success with alternatives to this approach – not as high profile as he (and I) would like to see – "we're better off accepting command-and-control as the default for organizational life."

I think there should be a new default mode.  In replacement of "command and control," I propose "engage and empower."  This seems to be the modus operandi of the organizations that rise to the top of our annual workplace competition, as I have discussed here many times based on their specific workplace team building and employee engagement strategies.

Your thoughts?

If your firm has considered entering our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award competition, one thought that may be holding you back is, "Well, if I've done one award application, I've done them all."

Not so.  We tend not to toot our own horn in an informercial-type way, but as our technology advisor for the online application for our award since we started offering Internet access to it in 2007, I can say unequivocally that it is better than those of almost all of our competitors out there.

Every year I'm charged with taking the prior-cycle applicants' feedback for improvements, working with our vendor (the highly recommended team at Nova Libra) to make the most needed of them, and then leading a small team of staff members as well as outside folks to test it to ensure that on day one of access for our actual applicants, they can just get in, get out, and get on with their work lives.  (Who knew we'd have something in common with a large restaurant chain?)

This time and investment has proven to be really worthwhile for our applicant firms.  Given that in 2010, 49% of applicants had 50 or fewer employees, most often it's the CEO or another senior leader who completes the online form.  Therefore it's vitally important that we make the experience as low of a time-drain as possible, so they can return to the important work of leading their organizations.  Along this line, we heard great feedback from our applicants in 2010:

• "I was impressed with the functionality of the form.  I've worked with several other online applications and this was one of the more user-friendly." (General manager, retail firm)
• "I especially enjoyed the feature that allowed you to save information and return later.  This is not present in all award applications." (Director, employment services provider)
• "Thanks for the print feature.  I’ve entered plenty of online recognition programs where I had to manually save the information in my own file prior to entering.  I did that this time, too, but I had many edits and even did some editing on the online form itself, so having a final document available to print is very helpful." (CEO, construction firm)

I was especially excited to lead the application improvements that resulted in the current version for 2011, as we made a bigger effort than in past years to improve the look and feel of it.  Check out these screen captures of the before and after (click on them to view larger versions):

Before (2010):

After (2011):

We're not all the way through the application cycle yet for 2011 – the deadline to apply is this Friday, January 14 – and already we've gotten a lot of feedback that current applicants, especially those who have submitted in the past, are finding the experience easier to fit it in with the million other things they need and want to do.  In fact, the VP of an engineering firm wrote me this morning saying:

I liked the succinct nature of this year's form.  We are a smaller firm and the work we do does not lend itself to the hiring of English majors to prepare our submission.  We are at a disadvantage there, which is mitigated by the way the form was laid out.

So what have you got to lose?  Experience an industry-best online application form that will keep your time involved in reporting your bottom line-enhancing, workplace team building and employee engagement best practices to a bare minimum – and enter for the prize of being featured in Inc. Magazine this June, even as you get insights for building a more productive workplace culture.  Click here to see if your firm qualifies for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award.

...you may have experienced some days in December and again this month where you saw a bunch of "new" blog posts which were duplicates of previously new posts.  For that we apologize – we certainly don't want to take any more of your time than necessary, ideally to update you on our truly new content on workplace team building and employee engagement best practices, news, and trends.

We are working on fixing the problem.  We've checked and we know it's not an issue with our outstanding blog provider, Compendium.  It's an issue with FeedBurner, which used to be its own service and is now under Google.

I've tried investigating this issue by visiting the FeedBurner Help page, as well as their real-time status blog (everything's been fine for all users since December 2, 2010, apparently).  I've even looked in the FeedBurner Help Group, where some people have reported the same issue, but there seems to be no one-size-fits-all solution.

I have to say, with a company that has been so innovative when it comes to creating a productive workplace environment, as we discussed here on our website, and has been a financial success story (mainly through its AdWords program), I am disappointed that Google can't budget for at least one full-time person to provide live FeedBurner support during the work week.  Why else is there no "Contact Us" or "Live Chat" link on the main, FeedBurner Help page?  With thousands of bloggers using this service, this seems like a no-brainer to me.

Rackspace, our website host and a 2006 winner of our small workplace award, has live chat and it has been invaluable to me, enabling me to get the status of a problem, or in most cases fix it on the spot, and get back to work.  Google could benefit by following some of the pointers Lisa Barone recently offered in this article on Small Business Trends.

Anyway, thanks for sticking with us as we work to resolve this issue.  One thing you could do if you find the duplicate old posts annoying to wade through is to bookmark our main blog page, or the feed content page.  If you do that, you should create a reminder to check back to either of these links every day or two, as you won't be notified of new posts like you are with our email and RSS subscriptions.