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.

One of the hallmarks of a harmonious and productive workplace culture is little to no litigation initiated against a company by current or former employees.  Winning Workplaces looks at this as part of a larger question about government, civil, or criminal complaints in our annual Top Small Company Workplaces competition.  In 2011, only 2% of winners and finalists and 3% of the other applicants for our award had had employees bring forth litigation.

We evaluated our 2011 award applicants for the year 2010, so this means a total of 5% of all firms were the subject of related complaints or investigations.  This is consistent with what we saw for our 2010 award applicants (for the year 2009), as I wrote about here.

And yet, as Jason Carney, Human Resource Director for WorkSmart Systems, an Indianapolis-based PEO serving clients in 37 states, shared with me, complaints filed in 2010 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) grew 7% over 2009, to just shy of 100,000.

What are the companies who apply for our workplace award doing to safeguard against employee litigation (and legal trouble in general)?  They are largely following these steps that Jason outlined, which speak to these firms' exemplary people practices:

1. Policy development: Have good policies in place and regularly update employee handbooks.  Policies should including one addressing social media participation, specifically mentioning that the terms of the policy are not intended to interfere with concerted protected activity.
2. Ongoing informal education: Guide your employees to changes in federal labor laws.
3. Formal training: Ensure that your employees are well versed in company policies and federal guidelines, such as unlawful harassment prevention and wage and hour law proficiency.

One additional insight related to these steps Jason shared is that while many companies might view their implementation as routine in terms of forms creation and updating, or just doing the right thing as any company would strive to do, the reality is that they are a powerful set of trust building activities that promote better communication and, ultimately, greater productivity.

Related: If you didn't see this article when we first published it, check out guest columnist and attorney Paula Brantner's checklist to help startups avoid cutting legal corners which could prove costly later on.

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.

Citing Edelman PR's 2011 Trust Barometer, yesterday the Whole New Web Blog argued that marketing success cannot be obtained without building trust with your customer base.  A separate, new post by Erik Deckers of Professional Blog Service shares findings from a MarketingPower.com report which show that companies appear to have an opening, in favor of customers' friends, to be the most trusted source for information which leads to a purchase.

Picking up on Deckers' post, the trick to benefiting from a decline in purchasers' trust in "people like themselves" (aka, friends) is that companies must be more visible on, and more savvy with, social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, a blog, etc, etc.

In addition to our usual discussion of team building and employee engagement strategies for making your workplace culture more productive, occasionally I've shared here tips and techniques for using these tools in ways that increase your ROI.  In light of the above research findings, I thought it would be helpful to put these insights all in one place.

Without further ado, I invite you to follow the links below to increase your social media cred – and thus build more trust with both past and prospective customers or clients:

1. Tailor your message when sharing links on your Facebook page
2. Put available phone numbers of LinkedIn contacts who belong to your Group into a cold call list, then reach out to them in the best way you see fit
3. Understand why setting up a company blog, or ramping up your blogging, can be just as effective as running typically costlier PPC ads
4. On Twitter, use TweetDeck to grow your follower base
5. Learn how to combine your blog with Twitter to turn listening into reputation building

Related: It's no secret that the younger generations in your workforce – Millennials in particular – are often most on the pulse of the latest technology trends.  Learn how to better engage employees in this workforce demographic with the takeaways in this Executive Learning Series webinar.

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.

As happened with Tabatha's Salon Takeover on Bravo, more recently I've started watching – and am now hooked on – the TLC show Cake Boss.  I also like the reality sister show to this, The Next Great Baker.

In my opinion, part of the reason the ratings have taken off for these shows – which have propelled yet another sister TLC show coming soon, Kitchen Boss, as well as a Cake Boss book and tour – is the time-honored and effective workplace culture practices used by the star of all of the above shows, Buddy Valastro.

Valastro's story, as told on the website for his 101-year-old company, is similar to that of many family businesses.  He is the fourth generation baker born into the business owned and operated by his parents in Hoboken, New Jersey.

What has taken his business "to the top," as he articulates at the start of every Cake Boss episode, elevating Carlo's above their peers – beyond his mind-boggling baking skills, of course – are his employee engagement best practices.  Here are my takeaways along these lines from watching Cake Boss:

1.  Employees are "mia famiglia" (his family).  This includes not just his mother and sister who work at Carlo's alongside him, but his other employees.  If you search on our website for "family" you'll quickly see the extent to which company leaders treat their employees like they treat their own relatives is a big factor in the financial success of small firms.
2. He tells it like it is.  Accidents and other workplace incidents happen that hamper the ability of Carlo's to deliver their cakes to clients on time.  Valastro's skill here is showing "tough Italian love" to his employees, clearly showing what they did wrong, but then being supportive of them to do the right thing next time.  An example of being frank with workers among our Top Small Company Workplaces award honorees is 2007 winner Corporate Ink.
3. He celebrates successes, even little ones.  There are many moments on Cake Boss where, after 5 or more employees have been involved in building one of their more difficult cakes, Valastro says, "OK team, gather 'round and look what we made."  This is a quick – and free! – practice that you can tell makes his workers feel good about their contributions.  Over the long term, this no doubt keeps Carlo's costs low in terms of turnover and retraining.  Here's more on this on our site.
4. Team building happens off site, too.  On a recent episode, Valastro made a cake for a king at a local Medieval Times location.  When a knight from Medieval Times challenged Valastro to a jousting, he brought his employees to the venue to watch.  There are other examples in the show's run of the Cake Boss taking his team off site which serve as opportunities for building trust in the workplace.  For a related practice, check out #10 in this post on our blog.

Have you seen Cake Boss?  What are your employee leadership development takeaways from it?

For the last few days our staff has been reviewing BlessingWhite's 2011 Employee Engagement Report.  At 80 pages, it contains a wealth of data and actionable next steps for individuals, managers, and especially executives.

Today I'd like to focus on their research for the latter group.  A key finding of their latest survey, the global workplace consultancy says, is that while workers are more likely to trust their immediate manager than their firm's executives, trust in C-suite folks can have more than twice the impact on engagement levels than trust in immediate manager does.

So it behooves leaders to earn managers' and lower-level workers' trust – and then use that to create a workplace culture that supports high performance.  But there's a gap here; according to BlessingWhite this item "received the least favorable response in the entire survey."  Needless to say, when it comes to specific recommendations for executives, they center on more communication as a means for building trust in the workplace, and on holding themselves and others accountable for creating a high-engagement (and thus, high-performance) culture.

Winning Workplaces' own employee engagement research syncs up with what BlessingWhite, and other leading workplace researchers, have found.  All of this has led to the current iteration of our Top Small Company workplaces award application, which, as it just so happens, contains three questions that your CEO should be able to answer if your firm has highly engaged employees.

These questions are:

Does your organization have a strategic plan?
At 43% through the 2011 award application period, currently 80% of applicants have one.

Does your strategic plan include a strategy for improving the performance of the organization through its people?
80% of those that said Yes to the question above have taken this next step.

Can you share 1-2 examples of how your investment in people has improved the performance and results of the organization?
This is a qualitative question; answers to it vary widely.

These questions help measure what some company leaders have considered as more art than science: how to connect people at all levels to the organizational strategy, and weighing investing in your workplace against bottom-line growth.

Get a greater perspective on your workplace culture and identify areas for improvement – learn more about our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award application.

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.

As longtime readers know, Winning Workplaces' website and this blog explore team building strategies for growth within small and midsized organizations.  We focus on the 99% of firms that are small businesses (defined by the SBA as having 500 or fewer employees) because, as we state here, "they are the cornerstone of the American economy and because their needs have been underserved and under-resourced."

However, we also think it's important to share when the media cover employee development strategies in large companies.  Whether a company is big or small, if it succeeds in attracting like-minded people to the organization and empowering them to move the firm forward as it supports the individual's professional and personal development, it's a win-win for...

• People – employees are better prepared for positions of increasing responsibility, in their current firm or elsewhere.
• Business – countless studies show that job satisfaction goes hand in hand with productivity gains; not to mention, it also helps companies keep costs down because they don't have to do as much recruiting and retraining.
• Society – the best workplace cultures provide learning and development that make employees more marketable throughout their entire careers so they can provide for themselves and their families; they also tend to offer means to help workers give back to local and larger communities (ie, volunteerism).

In short, smart people practices are just that, regardless of the size company in which they're being used.

That said, I liked seeing this headline in my blog feed today from SmartBrief on Leadership, summarizing a Harvard Business Review article on the CEO of Foot Locker's thoughts on building trust in the workplace:

While you could argue that SmartBrief's use of "foot soldiers" with the brand name, Foot Locker, in their headline is a bit cheeky, I look past that and appreciate the fact that a household name is being used to help advance other business leaders' thinking when it comes to investing in your workplace.

Continuing on this theme, I thought I would help media outlets by providing some ready-made headlines that can be used with other big companies that rely heavily on employee engagement in their business models.  Here goes:

1. Try on employee engagement for size [Nordstrom]
2. Driven-down decision making can make your profits soar [Southwest Airlines]
3. Tips to freshen up your workforce [SC Johnson]
4. Leave no stone unturned when developing your employees [Google]
5. Walk a mile in your employees' shoes [Zappos]
6. Managers shouldn't just have a presence, they should collaborate [Cisco]
7. The still frames that go into a complete workplace culture [DreamWorks Animation SKG]
8. Keep a lid on office politics [The Container Store]

What do you think of the above headlines as they relate to each brand?  Which additional ones can you think of?

Longtime readers will recall that I wrote the following in June:

Trust building activities may register high on the radar screens of the organizations Winning Workplaces [has honored], but on the whole among the roughly 27 million small businesses across the U.S., they do not.  These and other human capital strategies are considered by many leaders to be "soft," and therefore, in a down economy, not worth leadership's time and energy compared with other areas of the business.

Maybe the results of Deloitte's latest Ethics & Workplace Survey will change some minds regarding the ROI of building trust in the workplace.  Surveying more than 700 employed Americans in April, Deloitte found that close to half have lost trust in their employer since the start of the recession; this has propelled more than a third of respondents to look for a new job as the economy picks up.

Certainly, some leaders are hip to and worried about these trends; those who run our Top Small Company Workplaces are among them.  As Management-Issues notes today, the same survey from Deloitte found that

Two-thirds of Fortune 1000 executives who are concerned employees will be job hunting in the coming months acknowledge that trust will be a factor in any increase in voluntary turnover....

The results of this survey make me wonder how much lower the percentage of employees looking to bolt would be if more companies had tried to share the pain in the midst of the worst of this recession, instead of pulling the layoff trigger first.  I also wonder – and maybe future studies will put some quantifiable data behind this – how much more revenue small and other businesses that did not view worker trust as a priority during the apex of the crisis might have right now.  The answer to this question has larger implications, including on our current GDP level and jobless rate.

Related: In April I profiled six small businesses in our network that turned to employee furloughs and pay cuts instead of layoffs to weather tough times, and came out stronger for their decision.  Read their stories here.

The following is a guest post on workplace team building and employee engagement by Steve Ritter.  Ritter, the Founder and CEO of Team Clock Institute, is the former Director of HR at Leaders Bank, which was named the #1 Best Place to Work in Illinois in 2006, and was a finalist for Winning Workplaces' Top Small Workplaces award in 2008.

Growing up, most of us are taught how to succeed as individuals.  Unfortunately, individual talent and dedication alone are not nearly enough to ensure a team’s success.  Teams are messy.  Conflict is unavoidable. Team dynamics are fluid.  Despite these challenges, working in teams is fundamental to most endeavors.

Twenty-five years ago, I began the quest of understanding the complexities of teams following a happenstance opportunity with the Chicago White Sox.  At the time, a seemingly strong team was underperforming for reasons beyond the grasp of their leadership.  Unexpectedly, a complex situation ended up having a simple solution.  Since then, identifying the recipe for healthy and effective teams has been my passion giving rise to the founding of the Team Clock Institute, a research and training consultancy specializing in breakthrough teams.  Recently, the Team Clock Institute responded to a unique challenge.

The Issue: Early in 2010, I received a call from a FORTUNE 500 company facing the integration of disparate cultures following the acquisition of a prominent player in the industry.  All of the expectable merger/acquisition politics were underway and the leadership team was seeking a simple model to anchor the transition.  What began as a casual conversation on a commuter train grew into an opportunity to assess the integration effort and provide recommendations to enhance successful business outcomes.

The Response: Accordingly, the Team Clock model was introduced to key players on the leadership team. The Team Clock model mirrors the face of a clock where each hour represents a stage along the path of team development.  In a nutshell, strong teams begin with an investment in common norms and direction.  Based on this foundation, team members test trust as they become more cohesive.  This platform supports their efforts to be innovative and take risks.  This activity inevitably leads to change and a repositioning of people and functions.  Healthy teams find a way to refocus following such growth and cycle begins again. 

The Impact: Over the next six months, the Team Clock Institute assessed a series of key business units to determine opportunities for greater effectiveness.  Results were analyzed revealing the strengths, vulnerabilities, areas of congruence and discord on the team.  Debriefing sessions were facilitated to discuss results and targeted actions were identified that would bring measurable change in team engagement and productivity.

Typical examples of diagnostic vulnerabilities included:

• Mired in loss: too depleted to re-invest.
• Inability to manage conflict/differences respectfully.
• Indulgence in the comfort zone: afraid to take risks and explore new ideas.
• Adherence to the status quo: unwilling to accept the consequences of change.

From a strengths perspective, the Team Clock Institute identified key anchors to healthy team interactions based on the diagnostic results for each team.  Goals were established in each of the core areas of vulnerability and business metrics were assigned to determine ROI.  The goal areas included:

• Investment infrastructure

- Consensus philosophy/mission/values/vision

• Trust and interactional dynamics

- Effective management of conflict

• Innovation and team effectiveness

- Measureable productivity/efficiency shifts

• Distancing to leverage change for growth

- Functional repositioning and identification of new opportunities/methodologies

The business case for effective teaming is simple.  Healthy teams are more productive and adaptable.  Anticipating the 4th quarter of the calendar year, the organization is poised to re-assess their team effectiveness metrics mapped to their productivity results.  Pending the quantitative impact, the qualitative result is clear: the emotional journey of a healthy team provides opportunities for positive workplace culture that struggling teams rarely experience.  Where is your team on the Team Clock?

Learn more about all of the resources at the Team Clock Institute at www.team-clock.com.

Last week SmartBrief on Leadership called attention to an article on Business-Strategy-Innovation.com which discussed how some big companies scale their innovation by seeding "independent spinoffs to develop high-risk, high-reward projects."

With their huge employee rosters and advantage in terms of working capital and infrastructure, it makes sense that large companies that believe they can see real returns from this focus are making this practice a priority.  But despite often being at a disadvantage in the factors I just mentioned, small businesses are getting in on this as well.

One of the answers that stood out to the last question in Winning Workplaces' 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award application – What are your key long-term strategic goals for the organization and the workplace? – was this one by winner MAYA Design, a 21-year-old design consultancy and technology research lab based in Pennsylvania:

MAYA grows, and allows employees to grow and stretch, by spinning off complimentary companies.  Employees can present a business plan to the owners and if they think it's viable, and does not compete with MAYA, MAYA provides the infrastructure (HR, finance, clerical and IT support) to help them get started.  This has always been a part of our strategic goals.  We currently have two companies (we call them doppos) incubating, one of which will probably spin off in 2010, the other of which will take a few years to be ready to start.  We are constantly working with the employees to think of ideas for new doppos.  MAYA Design will continue to be around 50 employees, as we believe this is an optimum number for the collaborative work we do, and is well managed.

When well executed, as is the case at MAYA, this practice produces a triple win that comes from a workplace culture foundation of employee engagement:

• Win for Employees: Spearheading or assisting in the formation of a new venture from an existing company – talk about a resume builder!
• Win for the Company: This practice inherently minimizes the risk of launching a new venture, while maximizing the returns for the parent company.  If the venture proves successful, employee-leaders of it and their subsequent staff are built-in evanglists for the parent company, which further helps their recruiting and sales efforts.
• Win for the Greater Community: Startup ventures that are successful are a sorely needed source of employment and tax revenues, which can both help our economy recover faster.

Do you know of any businesses that use a practice similar to MAYA Design's?  If so I encourage you to comment about it below.  I'd especially like to know how it helps with building trust in the workplace.

In April I blogged about what I perceived to be a direct link between progressive workplace culture practices at Netflix, and the payoff of employee engagement the company enjoys from such forward-thinking product innovations as discs for Internet-connected video game systems that allow their customers to stream movies and TV shows.

Today John Jantsch has a new post on his Duct Tape Marketing blog in which, through photos, he shows why a customer referral package he received from Southwest Airlines is effective for the airline.  It comes down to the package being extremely easy for the customer to understand, and to easily and quickly act upon.

This type of referral program should be no surprise coming from a company that is, as their President Emeritus and our past Top Small Company Workplaces award judge Colleen Barrett says, really in the customer service business, but happens to use airline transportation as a means to win that business.  And as Barrett told us in this Q&A with her on our website, unmatched customer service starts with an unparalleled commitment to building trust in the workplace and empowering employees at all levels to make decisions that benefit the customer (obviously a much different leadership approach than that which exists at most other airlines).

So to review, here's how Southwest Airlines' customer referral program is an example of turning what some would call "squishy" people practices to impossible-to-ignore bottom line results:

• Treat employees with trust, respect, and fairness, and encourage and empower them to think and act like owners (at Southwest, all employees are, in fact, owners).
• More highly engaged employees are more apt to create ideas, individually and as part of teams, that will generate more revenue and are more sustainable.
• The customer referral package Jantsch writes about is a tangible example of this, designed to increase that holy grail of profit margins for businesses, especially small ones: repeat business and referrals.
• More repeat business and referrals is better for everyone: customers, the business and their vendors and suppliers, and, of course, employees and their communities. 

Given the rising unemployment and falling budgets for needed social and educational programs in many states due to the economy, that businesses can have a hand in reversing those trends through the cycle described above is an inspiring proposition – and one that, frankly, I wish the leaders of many more organizations were focused upon.

Related: Read my firsthand perspective on how Southwest Airlines' workforce effectiveness made my first flying experience with them a joy.

Photo credit: John Jantsch

Trust building activities may register high on the radar screens of the organizations Winning Workplaces named as 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces in the latest issue of Inc. Magazine, but on the whole among the roughly 27 million small businesses across the U.S., they do not.  These and other human capital strategies are considered by many leaders to be "soft," and therefore, in a down economy, not worth leadership's time and energy compared with other areas of the business.

But as Greg Harris noted on The Science of Work blog yesterday, and as I subsequently tweeted about, Harvard Business Review – long a barometer on where business is and where it's headed – has seemed to focus of late even more on the "fundamentals" of people management.  This means employee engagement strategies to build a more productive workplace culture.

Harris mentioned the May HBR headline "How to Keep Your Star Talent."  Is it a coincidence that this month the AP reported on employment data which show that more employees are jumping ship as the economy improves?

I think not.  Yes, we always see the cycle that in tough economic times, employers don't have to worry as much about retention because people are thankful to have a job, and that in better times they need to pay more attention to it because workers sense a job-seeking advantage and are more apt to leave.  But we are coming out of the Worst Recession Since the Great Depression® – a time when many employers' first reaction was to let go of staff and ask for a great deal of concessions from their remaining workforces.

It's no wonder, then, that employees, feeling beaten down in many cases, are looking for the exits.  This is especially true of top performers, who have a good understanding from their latest performance reviews that they're a strong commodity.

What can keep these folks from leaving?  At a base level, a work environment of trust, respect, and fairness – qualities we point to as one of six building blocks of a winning workplace.

It will be interesting to see how many more leaders and managers put activities designed to maximize trust, such as investment in employee leadership development, at the top of their to-do lists.  And by doing so, moving people practices from the "soft measures" to the "hard measures" column to maintain their competitive advantage.

Your thoughts?

At Winning Workplaces, we sometimes hear from business leaders that while they acknowledge that happier employees are more productive – and that, in turn, affects revenue and profitability – it can be difficult to tie team building strategies such as special employee awards or allowing workers to bring their dogs to work directly to the balance sheet.

It can be hard to pinpoint the payoff of employee engagement.  Even when leaders work off the feedback of a well-executed employee opinion survey to implement more or better engagement activities, getting bottom line returns to match or exceed estimates is not a science.  This is further complicated by down economies like the one we're in now, as well as the fact that almost no employee practice solutions produce overnight returns.

So I appreciated Dr. Anna Erickson's reframing of this issue in her post yesterday on the Good Company Blog.  She asks, "Are Employers Facing a Deficit of Trust?"  This implies that a workplace culture of trust, respect, and fairness is a form of currency.  It also implies that a deficit of this currency is bad for the bottom line, while a surplus of it strengthens the bottom line.

In fact, the data we gather as part of our Top Small Company Workplaces competition verifies this line of thinking.  The 40 winners and finalist organizations for our award this year have better overall trust building activities in place, and as a result they had higher 2009 revenue than the other 457 applicants (average of $42 million vs. $27 million).  In addition, as I explained in this post, a greater share of the winners and finalists were profitable in 2009, and they have longer average employee tenures and lower turnover.

The short of this is that, to the extent you can implement or strengthen staff engagement practices designed to build greater trust in your workforce, the better it will be for your balance sheet in the long run.

Related: This recent post cites evidence from John Jantsch's new book which finds that stronger cultures also tend to increase referrals – a major source of revenue for most businesses.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's resignation this week and lightning-fast replacement by David Cameron illustrates an organizational inevitability, writes executive coach and speaker Scott Eblin on his Next Level Blog.  Namely, that your leadership role will end.

One of the tips Eblin offers for CEOs pondering on and strategizing around this is to "Do as much good as you can while you can."  To me this speaks to succession planning – an arrow in the "quiver" of leadership practices that, in my assessment, is rarely used (or maybe I should say, rarely fully and effectively executed), but which can be incredibly powerful in terms of both employee engagement and building trust in the workplace for the long term.

Winning Workplaces has written on succession planning based on lessons learned by both outgoing and incoming leaders of our small honored firms, and others.  Here are the top five related articles on our website you might want to check out:

1. The Changing Face of Succession Planning
2. A Conversation with Helen Johnson-Leipold of the Johnson Family Companies, Part 1 (see the third question and answer)
3. Tips to Best Utilize Older Workers in Your Workforce (see the fourth paragraph down starting with bold text)
4. Succession as a Values Test
5. Casting a Wider Ownership Net

Related: Leaders of two of our award-winning firms get into more detail of their varying succession planning experiences in one of our most popular webinar recordings.  Access it here.

Image credit: Changing Trends in Human Resource Management

Have you seen this ad on TV?

According to their website, Think Beyond the Label is a partnership of health and human service and employment agencies that have come together to build a uniform, national infrastructure and approach that connects businesses to qualified candidates with disabilities.  It's an effort of Health & Disability Advocates (HDA), a national nonprofit organization based in our hometown of Chicago.

Think Beyond the Label's site contains success stories that demonstrate how employee development strategies and workplace team building around hiring and retaining workers with disabilities has "evolved the workforce for the better" in a number of businesses.  The site also contains a tool to identify job candidates by state and a section that debunks common employer myths related to disabled workers, as compiled by the Department of Labor.

Related: I have blogged several times on why it makes sense, from a bottom line perspective as well as in terms of building trust in the workplace, to seek out qualified disabled job candidates.  Check out our posts on the topic:

• Taking the 'Dis' Out of Disability When It Comes to Recruiting and Employee Engagement
• More Evidence: The Value of Hiring People with Disabilities
• Cost to Accommodate Workers with Disabilities: Less Than 10 Percent of Average Annual Tuition Reimbursement

This new article on the Knowledge@Wharton site caught my eye.  In it Charles "Ed" Haldeman, Jr., Freddie Mac's CEO for close to a year, shares facets of the management style he's using to try to turn around the federal home loan mortgage corporation that, along with Fannie Mae, were propped up by the government in fall 2008 as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.

If you scroll about halfway down the article, you'll see points from Haldeman's "template" for what he sees as effective management – for any organization.  Note how many Winning Workplaces building blocks it includes:

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

At least three of our six building blocks are represented.  Digging a bit deeper, Haldeman stresses a number of hallmarks of a productive workplace culture that we often echo, including constantly communicating the mission and making sure employees understand it, empowering people to make decisions at lower levels, and managers practicing MBWA.

Could Freddie Mac join the ranks of our award-winning small businesses?  In some sense, they already have – they've historically offered strong employee benefits, prompting Working Mother magazine to name it among the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004.

The real trick, I think, will be getting this midsize-to-large company (in 2008 it had over 5,200 employees, according to Wikipedia) to act even more like one of our honored small firms in terms of further breaking down silos and building trust in the workplace as a means to make it more nimble, which will help it keep pace with consumer demands and trends.

Related: We've written Success Stories on more than a dozen real estate businesses, tapping into how they see a payoff of employee engagement.  Check them out here.

Marcia Yudkin, the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity, has a new article on the Entrepreneur & Self-Employed Business Journal website in which she offers five reasons to say no to blogging.  These include the fact that quality content can be more professional and less conversational in tone (the latter quality being associated with bloggers) and that you shouldn't fight your commitment to other areas of your business, and/or your exhaustion, just to deliver new blog content for your audience.

1. Believe me, especially for small business owners who already wear way too many hats, I get the exhaustion thing.  But to be "too busy" is to ignore the three out of four search engine visitors who cull organic search results (the unpaid – non-PPC campaign – results) to find what they're looking for.  Simply put, this means ignoring a vital channel for new business.  You can blog and do this through free platforms like WordPress, or paid ones like the one we use, Compendium.
2. Picking up on the "get traffic from search engines" line of thinking, blogging gives you a chance to send additional visitors to key areas of your website that give you quantifiable results.  We were recognized today, in fact, by Compendium for our blog being a top referral source to our free newsletter signup page: 48% of all visits to this page come from our blog.  That's ROI, baby!
3. It gives you a chance to identify and connect with your most engaged audience members, and potential customers.  Blog and encourage comments to your posts, and get ready to dialogue!
4. When combined with other social media tools, your blog content can "go viral."  It's no accident that our more value-added, original posts contain a link at the top asking satisfied readers to click to share them on their Twitter feeds.  In short, you can use this strategy to reach even more people.  (Eyeballs, baby!)  (I must be on a "baby" kick from watching too much Seinfeld on DVD....)
5. Maybe most importantly, combined with an open and relatively unrestricted policy for workers' use of social media, you can engage employees and harness their expertise to reach both current and potential customers.  Does marketing and sales have to fall under that department?  More and more small firms are saying, "Not necessarily."  The result of this is that, because social tools are free or very affordable, you can multiply your sales force with a smart approach to employee leadership development and trust building activities geared toward social media, including blogging – and not break the bank.  (Examples of this done well from our network include King Arthur Flour and New Belgium Brewing.)

Related Post: Small Business Trends Primer on Getting Set Up in Social Media, Plus Twitter ROI

Photo credit: SEO Blog

Citing several studies which show that, at least in Australia, working men use little if any paternity leave after their child is born, Management Line's Leon Gettler asked today if we even need paternity leave.

When it comes to employee engagement and team building activities to build a more productive workplace, I must offer a counterpoint view and say, Yes.  Here's why:

1. It lowers turnover among male employees, as has been the case at our Success Story firm Tom's of Maine.
2. It empowers employees, increasing their respect for and commitment to the company.  See our Success Story on Stellar Solutions.
3. It helps companies walk the talk of their dedication to the greater community.  Read how this works in our Success Story on Healthwise.

I think the takeaway here is that, while some studies may show that paternity leave is an underused benefit, its inclusion in a company's employee benefits package shows both new and current employees that their employer takes their work/life balance as seriously as they do.  This show (and investment) of good will has a ROI regardless of the practice's actual usage in the form of greater employee trust and commitment, which leads to lower turnover and longer tenures.

This, in turn, helps keep recruiting costs down and the knowledge base intact to maintain high service levels for customers.  And as we know, top-notch service that leaves more customers highly satisfied results in more repeat business and referrals – primary revenue drivers.

Related: Another organization in our network, Top Small Workplace Guerra DeBerry Coody (GDC), has benefited handsomely from its investment in family-friendly workplace practices including paternity leave.  Learn about GDC's ROI from these practices and tips on implementing or tweaking them in your business by accessing this webinar their CEO co-hosted for Winning Workplaces.

Photo credit: PregnancyRights.com