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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Tanveer Naseer has a thought-provoking post on his blog this week in which he emphasizes the importance of celebrating the traditions that define your firm's workplace culture.  He says company traditions are worthwhile because they:

• Make your organization stand out from the crowd,
• Foster a sense of shared identity, and
• Remind us of past challenges and of how far we've come.

In businesses, tradition is commonly thought of as parts, or the whole, of special events that bring employees together and help with building trust in the workplace.  One example is this practice at Rackspace Hosting, a 2006 winner of Winning Workplaces' annual workplace award.

But it can also serve as a benchmark for how you want your firm to be unique, or at least different than your competition, in your processes and people practices.  This is apparent in the feedback shared by the following four winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award:

Award application question: How do you work with employees to help them grow in their jobs?
Response: In 2008, ALL4 made a significant change to our performance review system by eliminating the existing system and replacing it with what we call our Continuous Improvement Program (CIP).  Our old process was a traditional annual performance review and we made salary adjustments based on the results of the review.  We felt that this system was not consistent with our company culture, or our matrix-type organizational structure, and it relied on feedback that was not always current or geared to affecting positive personal growth.  We migrated to the CIP system which we created.  The system involves soliciting more consistent and current feedback from everyone involved with project execution.  At the beginning of each year, all staff take part in a "Create the Year" exercise where each person develops their own annual goals and objectives (aligned with company goals and initiatives, where applicable).  Each employee also identifies their personal "breakthrough" objectives.  Additionally, employees are able to give and receive performance feedback using a web based system.  Staff meet with their group coordinator on a regular basis (at least 1/quarter) to discuss feedback and their progress to date on their goals and objectives that were developed in their "Create the Year" form.  All group coordinators act as "career coaches" and maintain an "open door" policy at all times.

Award application question: Describe the culture of your organization and the key people practices that support that culture.
Response: I can best describe Biomark as a group of individuals that use an organic approach to management.  While there's reference to a traditional organizational chart which outlines Biomark and its hierarchy, Biomark practices the idea of individual contributions and self management.  It is this that defines our culture.  We've found that by empowering and EXPECTING personal input at all levels people become vested.  It IS their ideas and actions that are moving our business decisions forward and albeit they may not always be the right ones, they're input directly affects the health of the business.  We've been fortunate over the last (2) years to become 100% employee owned (ESOP)and this move has solidified the belief in every one of us that it is "our" company and what we do wholly affects it.  We have been and continue to be the best at what we do and our execution both physically as well as financially has proven it.  There are examples of this practice and their positive outcomes that occur frequently.  Production staff have recently taken steps that have both improved quality and output (productivity improvements) of a product we make.  This is not done at the urging of management or supervisors.  This is done because these people care about what we do and want to see their team and the company succeed.  Trust can cost an organization but we believe that oversight can be even more costly.  We prefer to work in an atmosphere of trust.

Award application question: How does the organization encourage employees to participate in important business decisions?
Response: Dealer.com has a flat organizational and management structure, rather than a traditional hierarchical structure.  This format was adopted to facilitate communication among all employees, regardless of title, department or tenure.  All senior executives have an open door policy that encourages any employee to ask questions and share thoughts.  Team leaders also sit with their groups in "pods," instead of being located in separate offices.  This allows for immediate and continuous communication between team members and leadership.  When employees have suggestions, criticisms or new ideas there are numerous communication options.  They can schedule a meeting with a team leader or departmental manager, email their thoughts, or talk to them via the internal chat tool.  Open discussion about the majority of important business decisions is encouraged and taken seriously by management.  Senior management also regularly communicates information, both good and bad, via the company wide "earthlings" (Dealer.com's nickname for all employees) meetings.  The weekly meetings also showcase the company's successes, news and development stages of various projects so that all employees can see how their job responsibilities fit into and contribute to the overall organization.  Even more frequently, executives write and send informal emails to all employees to keep everyone up to date regarding new business and company developments.  In addition, president and CEO Mark Bonfigli sent out a company-wide email stating that he wants to get to know all employees better, as Dealer.com has been growing so rapidly.  He offered to take all new employees out to lunch on an individual basis.  The feedback from employees is that it has been wonderful to get to know the president and CEO on a personal level.  Mark encourages everyone to express their opinions and share new ideas about how Dealer.com could be an even better company and workplace.

Award application question: How does your organization develop employees for leadership roles?
Response: We think that Open Book Management challenges employees to be responsible for the outcomes that they control in our organization.  Those that are in leadership positions at Ginger Bay Salon are asked to consider all the sources of information they have (appointment books, vacation schedules, previous results) to predict future revenues.  These are tasks that are traditionally executed by very few people in small business, let alone front-line leaders.  Because the information is shared across the entire team, all of our employees are in a better position to lead should the opportunity arise.  While we use this system to help run our business, we can't help but believe that Open Book Management also helps build our employees' resumes.  Ginger Bay may not be the last stop in some of our employees' careers, so helping our team understand our business puts them in a better position for the future.  Our sincere hope is that none of our employees are ever in a situation where they are at the mercy of a small business owner and unaware of what they need to do to help build value in a business.

Does your small business do things that buck tradition when it comes to your staff engagement activities?  If so you may be a contender for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award.  Learn more here.

Winning Workplaces conducts employee engagement research annually via our Top Small Company Workplaces award with Inc. Magazine.  The 2011 award application period is open now and will close in 10 days, on January 14.

Many small firms are eager to "throw their hat in the ring" based on the prize: the 2011 winners will be featured in the June issue of Inc. Magazine.  But applicants, especially newcomers, are also pleasantly surprised to learn how the award helps them understand and improve their workplace – and thus their business.  This is a benefit they get from applying even if they're not named a winner in the magazine.

Here's what some executives whose firms applied in 2010 have said about what they got from the experience of applying for our award:

How the process informs the workplace culture...

• "I like doing a process like this because it reveals what processes we have done in the past that the team failed to do in the current year.  It also makes you think of several things you could do in addition to help build a team and better culture." (CEO, 17-year-old financial services firm with 87 employees)
• "Your application helped us see that we needed to spend more time on sharing company financials and developing a program for flexible work schedules." (HR director, 21-year-old consulting firm with 25 employees)
• "With the questions about how we performed against others in terms of revenue, it made us seek out some benchmarks.  It also prompted us to put down on paper about our corporate culture in sort of a manual." (President/Owner, 10-year-old software firm with 23 employees)
• "I found the application prompted several questions about the environment and leadership roles within our company." (Marketing director, 8-year-old consumer goods manufacturing firm with 26 employees)
• "There were some statistics that you asked for that we were not tracking to date.  It was a good exercise to go back and record this information and track it going forward, especially in terms of employee and hiring stats." (Business development director, 21-year-old professional services firm with 35 employees)

People practices launched or revisited as a result of the application process...

• "As I was answering your questions I started thinking of more things we could do to show the employees we care about them." (Owner, 16-year-old product benefits provider with 39 employees)
• "We are going to be having bi-monthly meetings with all employees vs. quarterly.  We also have implemented a Director’s team to work with their departments and identify employee development activities and open communications through departmental meetings.  This will increase our communications across the company." (HR VP, 16-year-old Internet/information services provider with 49 employees)
• "Going through this process has helped us cement a plan to develop a clearer reporting structure." (HR manager, 20-year-old home restoration firm with 44 employees)
• "We are adding two new bulletin boards in our lunch room where many team members come and go during the day.  These boards will offer information in areas where we feel more understanding might be needed." (Marketing director, 56-year-old industrial goods manufacturer with 84 employees)
• "It became apparent that we don’t have a robust Childcare Assistance Program.  That would be fairly easy to implement and one that could really assist our employees.  That will definitely be an HR to-do for 2010-2011." (Talent acquisition manager, 9-year-old consulting firm with 50 employees)

Identify what works and what you can improve upon in YOUR organization – apply today for the 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award.

Lots of the business blogs I follow have spent part of this last week of 2010 sharing with their readers the posts that most resonated with them.  I'd like to do the same today in terms of what you found most useful this year that we've published on staff engagement activities to create a more productive workplace culture.

Below are your 10 most popular posts.  In addition to those of you who found us from a search on Google, Bing, Chrome, etc. (59% of readers), I'd like to thank the remaining 41% of you who arrived here directly, or based on a referral from another website.  We are grateful to all of our readers, as we think there's much more to be done to get the word out that great workplaces are "better for people and better for business," as we say in our tagline.

1. Top 10 Workplace Trends for 2010
2. 10 Best Practices: Offering Vacation Days
3. All Employee Recognition Roads Lead to Greater Company Productivity
4. 20 Proven Workplace Team Building Strategies
5. 10 Small Business People to Follow on Twitter
6. Team Building Improves Hospital's Productivity
7. Toyota Leads Again, This Time in Team Building During Down Times (written prior to their brake recall mess this year)
8. Three Benefits of Virtual Team Building
9. Two Inspiring Stories of Team Building
10. Top 10 Performance Bonus Practices of Our 2010 Small Business Award Finalists

Happy New Year!  Here's to a safe, healthy, and productive 2011!

Last week I shared five management acronyms used by great workplaces that I thought should be on you radar screen.  One of our readers who enjoyed this post was Debbie Regnone.  Debbie is President of Resort Sports, Inc., a Florida company that creates custom events to "build camaraderie and team spirit."

She wrote us an email in response to our post in which she shared two more helpful management acronyms for a more productive workplace.  Here's what she said:

 Here is one more that I would guess you have heard of, but worth re-posting:

TEAM

T – Together
E – Each
A – Accomplishes
M – More

Nothing could say it better!  In management, work teams, employee engagement, community service and our homes...if we could all just remember to apply this concept FLOW (Fearless Leaps of Worth – I just made that up!) would be exhibited as individuals stepped outside their comfort zones, in like-minded groups, to meet goals and complete tasks AS ONE rather than BY ONE.

Our thanks to Debbie for her permission to share her thoughts here for the benefit of all our readers.

Related: One of our most popular posts is this one on 20 proven workplace team building strategies.  You can go to this page on Debbie's Resort Sports site for even more team oriented ideas, most of which will get your people out of doors.

I recently attended a friend's wedding mass, and the priest's sermon contained a bit of wisdom for engaged folks and married couples alike: when love is nurtured it grows, but when it's not it doesn't just remain static – it withers and dies.  In other words, love is perishable.

The same term – perishable – showed up in the title of one of the latest blog posts by our friend, executive coach Wally Bock.  He tells the story of "Dan," a talented technician who, after finding a new job, is de-incented to work to his full potential and take risks because of a lack of employee engagement by his boss.

Leaders and managers: consider the above when planning your activities in 2011 for building trust in the workplace.  Think of your role as a gardener: the strength of your team and the productivity of your workplace culture may well hinge on your willingness and ability to be a "green thumb" in your organization, finding and nurturing those who become tangled in obstacles to growth (especially if those obstacles are in their upward hierarchy).

While we're on the topic of gardening, click on the photo above to read our feature on company-sponsored employee gardens and their workplace benefits.

Is middle management's reputation in trouble?  On the Taiga Company blog last week, Julie Urlaub explored this question.  She cited recent studies showing that workers are taking greater ownership in their career as their confidence in leaders and managers wanes; and that front-line managers feel unprepared for initiating the kind of meaningful team building activities that lead to increased, lasting employee commitment.

The economy is no doubt influencing the factors addressed in both of the above-mentioned studies.  The natural reaction of both new and tenured workers to experiencing layoffs directly and among their friends and colleagues is to act more like an independent contractor, even if technically they're on the payroll as a regular FTE.  And, with slashed budgets across the board in many firms, front-line managers in HR and other departments are under pressure that any investment in staff engagement activities produce a measurable and (preferably from leadership's stance) immediate impact on productivity.

What's a small business leader to do given this confluence of factors?  I have two recommendations based on material we've published previously:

1. If your company is very small -- 2007 data show that of the 6 million firms with employees, 5.4 million (90%) have 20 or fewer folks -- you might take a page from Fog Creek Software CEO Joel Spolsky and remove the role standing between you and employees.  In other words, create a direct line between you and them.
2. If you run a larger firm and/or you feel you need that hierarchy to be maintained for optimal performance, you'll want to ensure you're doing everything you can to help your mid managers succeed.  Workplace coach Wally Bock authored a guest article for us recently that provides 10 proven steps to do just that.

What are your thoughts on middle management's relevance in today's business climate?

The following is a guest post by J. Henry, a guest blogger for Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on nationally accredited online schools for Guide to Online Schools.  Enjoy!

If you're an HR manager or employer, you might be wondering how you can improve the cohesiveness of your team of employees and boost the group dynamic.  Team building exercises can be a great way to do this; their fun, game-like atmosphere can catch people off guard and get them to problem solve in ways they haven't considered before.  It's important to pick these team building exercises with critical eyes, however; picking activities just because they sound fun or happen to meet some of your own managerial goals won't be using these exercises to their full extent.  You've got to choose ones with clear goals for employee and team success, so that your employees leave the game feeling empowered and ready to apply what they've learned.  With this in mind, here are a few great team building exercises that you can use to inspire your workplace.
 
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

This exercise tests group communication and collaboration.  First, set up a simple obstacle course using chairs, books, and anything else you might have handy.  Then, break your team members into groups of 3.  One member is going to navigate the obstacle course, blindfolded.  The second member cannot speak (they can only gesture with their hands), and they are allowed to see both the blind navigator and the obstacle course.  The third member can speak, but can only see the second member (not the blind person or the obstacle course).  The second member must gesture to the third member, who must then "decode" the gestures and tell the navigator how to maneuver through the course.  This exercise has a clear goal of working together to get their team member through the obstacle course.  Afterwards, discuss what went right, and how communication could have been improved.
 
Drop the Egg

This game can help bring out any out of balance power dynamics that might be hiding in your group.  It takes collaboration, but the team as a whole can only build one finished project, so they have to communicate and evaluate ideas together.  The premise of the game is that teams of 3 have to build a protective shield for an uncooked egg that will be dropped from about 6 feet off the ground.  You should provide each team with the same amount of cotton balls, popsicle sticks, aluminum foil, paper, tape, and any other craft supplies you might have.  Give them 10 minutes to construct the egg casing, then drop the eggs from an equal height.  When you debrief afterwards, discuss how in collaboration, teams must be comfortable accepting all new ideas and evaluating them without judgement of the person who came up with the idea itself.
 
Group Levitation

If you're interested in a game that's a bit more physical and potentially more fun, this is a good pick.  In this exercise, groups of 3 or 4 have to find a way to work together to get the entire group off the ground, with only their hands touching the floor.  Through trial and error, the group must come up with a way to depend on one another to accomplish the final task.  This can be done by having the four people in a square, with each person's feet on the next person's back.  One other possibility is that the group sits cross legged in a circle, and puts their ankles on the shoulders of the person next to them.  Afterward the game, ask your employees what communication issues got in their way, and how this might be applicable to the workplace.

Related: Check out these additional 20 proven workplace team building strategies compiled from Winning Workplaces' award-winning small businesses.

In June I shared 30 ways that the winners and finalists of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award use to assess their payoff of employee engagement best practices investment.  Number 12 on my list was

Greater share of projects employees undertake as part of a Google-style "20 percent" program result in new, bottom line-enhancing initiatives.

The 20 percent refers to Google's longstanding practice of permitting their employees – specifically, their engineers – to use fully a fifth of their work time to research and develop personal projects.  The New York Times did seminal reporting on this, revealing that one of the software giant's biggest successes, Gmail, arose from this practice.

This new article on TechCrunch refers to 20 percent time.  In fact, it might be the most high-profile account of its use to date.

Before I dig into it, two quick background-establishing points:

• Facebook launched Facebook Connect in May 2008 to allow its users to take their Facebook identity, network, and privacy settings with them as they browse and interact with the rest of the web.
• Since then it has suffered a backlash from some of its users based on changes it made to its default privacy settings and, more recently, the discovery that some of its third-party game developers have leaked user information to marketers and tracking companies.

Enter Brian Kennish, one of Google's engineers.  As TechCrunch reports, Kennish built "Facebook Disconnect" as a way for users of its Chrome browser to stay logged in to Facebook Connect while hiding their private data, including browser history, from companies with which Facebook's third parties share information.

Here's the key piece for me, though:

Kennish says he created the [Google Chrome] extension ... with absolutely no encouragement from Google or Facebook, despite the fact that he works for the former, “Nobody at Google asked or encouraged me to do so....”

So Facebook Disconnect would seem to be the result of Google's 20 percent time practice.  Ironically, as TechCrunch also reveals, Kennish built the service in part because he didn't want to have to delete his personal Facebook and Facebook Connect profiles to keep his private data from marketers and tracking companies.  This shows a willingness on his part to stick with Facebook; if he does, that's one more sales lead to whom the social network can pitch via ads.

So the Google employee – and by extension, Google itself – could actually help Facebook keep some users concerned with the leak of their personal data as longer-term "customers" than they might otherwise have been.  This is interesting given the highly publicized rivalry between the two tech giants.

What are your thoughts on this?  I'd specifically like your take on how small businesses can benefit from team building activities like 20 percent time.

The need or desire to cultivate business online varies by industry, location, and customer base.  Maybe that's why as of last month, over half of small businesses still didn't have a website.

Yet, the economy and the cost savings that can come with less resource use involved in customer order fulfillment means that more small firms are jumping on the online bandwagon every day.  What's more, as I wrote about two weeks ago, the number of small companies using some form of social media to reach more potential customers – be it a blog or Twitter – has doubled in less than a year.

On Small Business Trends last week, Lisa Barone cited new research which makes the case even more loudly that small businesses can generate more sales by optimizing their website and other online assets:

• 70% of consumers go online first for local business information
• 69% of consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information available on a social media site
• Social networkers are 67% more likely to make a purchase than general searchers

These are important data points to be sure, but two more that Barone shared from the 2010 comScore/15 Miles study really got my attention from a workplace team building/employee engagement point of view:

• 72% of consumers value regular, social site or blog posts about companies
• 66% of consumers want to see company photos

The bottom line, for your bottom line, is that an increasingly essential part of CRM (customer relationship management) is inviting them to see what your company, your team, is like.  People want to know not only what goes into your products or services, but who makes and helps deliver them.  In addition to the higher average productivity that comes with hiring or promoting a like-minded employee, this is another reason that CEOs should actively and systematically work to get the "right people on the bus."

Related: Eric Rudolf, author of The Small Company Blog, shared with me – via Twitter, incidentally – this new post where he demystifies the role of Social Marketing Manager and its impact on business results.

According to the Center for Family Business at Elizabethtown College, family-owned companies provide 65% of all wages in the U.S., and they enjoy a 6.6% greater return on assets than non-family firms.  Yet, in tough times like the current economy, they often receive the most battle scars, as The New York Times reported last summer.

They may be poised for a big comeback, however.  In our interview with him earlier this year, author Robert Spector supported this view by citing factors including big retail stores going out of business or curbing expansion plans, the recession-induced loss of faith in big institutions in general, and layoffs prompting a new batch of would-be entrepreneurs to actively pursue their "rainy day" wish of opening a store.

Another hugely critical factor that can fuel family business growth is creating a workplace culture that instills maximum employee loyalty, so that when times fade from good to bad they will stand by the organization and continue to innovate to maintain growth – or, in more dire circumstances, to keep the doors open.

Profiling two Chicago area businesses, Ann Meyer wrote about this trend in the Chicago Tribune last week.  One of the companies mentioned is our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace Tasty Catering, which is led by Tom Walter.  (Walter will be speaking at our October 27-29 event with Inc. Magazine in Denver.)

As Meyer reports, Tasty Catering's employee engagement activities to instill and benefit from loyalty, especially when times are tough, include:

• Shutting off the phones at lunch time so the company can eat together and talk uninterrupted
• Employees at all levels empowered to make decisions that benefit customers, and ultimately the company
• Unlimited time off granted for workers who experience a personal tragedy

One of the powerful results Tasty Catering has seen from this workplace focus is turnover of only 1% over the last four years.  Not only has this kept the organization's knowledge base intact (as a means to ensure customer satisfaction), but it means the company is adding to the employment "ripple effect" by ensuring a stable income for its workers' families – enabling them to do their part to continue to contribute to our economy in the form of sales, property, personal income, and other taxes as well as retail purchases.

For leadership insights on everything from growth strategies to stronger team building for a more productive workplace, don't miss the Inc. Leadership Conference.