Team Building

Almost a year ago my colleague Jason Ticus wrote what I consider now to be a prescient post on how part of how you can tell if a Top Small Workplaces applicant is truly a Winning Workplace is if front-line employees refer to their relationship with leadership using the word "us" instead of "them."

Why prescient? Because, as Management-Issues writes about today, the recession and the layoffs and slashed hours for employees it has produced has had somewhat of an unintended consequence. In many businesses it has turned whatever might have existed as "us and them" resentment to a culture of increase employee engagement and workplace team building.

At least, this is happening in the U.K., where Management-Issues is based. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reports that "the recession is creating more engagement and bringing employers and managers closer together." According to the CBI and recruitment firm Harvey Nash, this is resulting in such "share the pain" initiatives as:

pay freezes
keep staff training and invest in better targeting
reduce hours/offer flex hours

We know this is happening in the U.S., too. Recently promoted head of global marketing at Hyatt Hotels, John Wallis, talked about it as part of their strategy in a Q&A this month in Advertising Age. And I think it's no coincidence that the issue of leadership maintaining a strong focus on employees' livelihoods and work/life balance was a theme of our recent webinars on strategies to develop and retain technical talent, and on succession planning.

The leaders of exemplary organizations understand, in short, that we're all in this together.

Speaking of an all-in attitude, stay tuned to our July newsletter for an addendum to our editorial on sharing the pain that will advise on employee engagement practices to share the recovery as well.