Workforce Effectiveness

This week, once again, my e-mail inbox contained the disappointing results of a Gallup study that indicated that the Work Environment Index dropped to a new low in February. 

The Work Environment Index measures job satisfaction, the ability to use one's strengths at work, trust, and openness in the workplace, and how one's supervisor treats him or her.  The Work Environment score was 51.6 in February 2008; 48.7 in February 2009; and is now at 48.0 in February 2010. 

Why are these results so concerning?  Among other things, these scores say two things:

1. Quality of life is negatively impacted, and
2. Workforce effectiveness and workplace productivity aren't nearly where they could be. 

As a leader, do you want to make sure that these numbers don't apply to you?  Do you want a productive workplace with highly engaged employees and a culture of ownership?  If so, consider these actions: 

1. Take a hard look at your organization's culture.  What's the level of employee engagement?  Do your managers know how to manage and lead?  Do you sense a positive energetic organization or one that reflects fear and/or boredom? 
2. If you think there is an opportunity for improvement, get serious about it.  Start with doing an employee survey to better understand where you are doing things right and where you could improve.  If you are going to be serious about improving your workplace culture, don't guess.  Get the facts – directly from your team.
3. Once you have the facts, do something about them.  This is where the work gets hard.  Changing a culture, which means changing the way people behave, isn't easy.  Get outside help if you have to.  Be clear about your "end goal"; if you do this work successfully, what will your workplace culture look like in a couple years?  Develop a plan to get from where you are today to your end goal.  What are the key steps?  How will you measure your success?  How will you engage employees along the way?  How will you build trust, a foundational component of a great workplace? 

The workplace studies are yielding consistent results: there is a growing problem with job satisfaction and, in turn, productivity.  As a leader, do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem?

In the last few days, as the extent of the problem with the brakes on Toyota's Prius and other popular models has become widely known and finally acknowledged by the company, the media has rightly critiqued the automaker for its failures in leadership and public relations management.

What's been talked about less is how Toyota has dropped the ball in its customer service.  I found this segment by Prius owner and CNN reporter Jessica Yellin quite revealing.  It shows her struggle to first reach a real, live person to state her case, and then to get some accountability and next step recommendations.  Check it out:

As usually happens when a customer is also a member of the mainstream media, once Yellin told a manager that she was with CNN, she started getting some answers – and an acknowledgement of the problem by Toyota.

But what about the "little guy" (or girl) who doesn't have the clout that comes with a press pass?  I liken the customer service experience of regular Toyota customers in this situation to the Titanic not having enough lifeboats for every passenger.

Not having enough reps in place, and not equipping the ones that are with sufficient, actionable information for the customer – on a normal basis and especially in a massive recall situation like this – is not just Toyota's problem.  It's a persistent issue for most big companies.

Consequently, when smaller companies provide enough people or improve their processes so this hurdle is removed, they greatly increase their competitive advantage in customer satisfaction.  This, in turn, has a profound effect on new customer acquisition and revenue from repeat customers.

At our annual conference last year, the chairman of midsized company Rackspace Hosting, Graham Weston, called their main phone number to show attendees that they, in contrast to Toyota, do have enough "lifeboats" in place to keep everyone afloat, in good times and when disaster strikes.  Check out the video of this compelling demonstration:

The Bottom Line: Small businesses have an inherent workforce effectiveness advantage over their larger peers when it comes to communications team building/employee engagement innovation so that when crises hit, they're ready to continue providing excellent service.  This preparedness can mean only a negligible impact on sales and reputation.

If you missed Winning Workplaces' annual conference last October in Chicago, you can get a taste of what attendees experienced by watching the video below.  Especially noteworthy from an employee engagement research perspective is the section from :37 - 1:48, which describes the nomination, application, and judging process we undertook to select the 15 Top Small Workplaces that were honored at the event.

Check it out (if you can't see the video in your blog feed, click here):

In terms of the payoff of employee engagement activities, I love Bernie Dyme of Perspectives Ltd's definition of the ROI of a great workplace (starting at 5:38):

When people are so engaged in what they're doing and their employer that they want to be there no matter how bad the economy or the situation.  They're going to be there even when things are good after they're bad.

When it comes to employee retention tips and other strategies for greater workforce effectiveness, what would you like to see us cover in an event format this year?

Due to overwhelming response by interested small and midsized organizations, Winning Workplaces is pleased to announce that we have extended our original application deadline of today for 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces to Monday, January 25.

Applicants now have three additional days to tell us about the payoff of employee engagement and team building strategies in their bid to win the prize: being featured as a winner of this award in Inc. Magazine this June.

As I've mentioned here before, the process of applying has proven valuable for our current applicants.  Here's some of the most recent feedback we've received from them on how applying has shaped their approach to improving their workforce effectiveness in 2010:

The questions are ones we are continually challenging ourselves with and were on target.

The essay questions really made us give specific details, which we felt was different from a lot of the applications we have completed in the past for similar competitions.

This application really helped us to evaluate our company.  We had several meetings to discuss the questions and learned a lot about what we should be doing.  We set goals and strategies to reach them.

1. Go here to create your application login, complete the criteria pre-screen, pay (yes, there's a fee and here's why), and reach the application Table of Contents page.
2. Click here to download a sample application you can use to gather the required information offline.
3. Go back here to copy and paste your offline data into our online application.

Continuing the trend of some good news for small business I started here this week, I thought I would share this feel-good article (in my mind, at least) by our friend Ann Meyer at the Chicago Tribune.

Here are some of the good omens Meyer points to when it comes to the payoff of employee engagement in small organizations, which, as she writes, are a leading indicator of economic recovery:

• HR consulting firm Vantage Solutions is "seeing more interest in training and other pro-active approaches to human resource development, instead of pay reductions, furloughs and layoffs."
• She cites a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation that I wrote about late last year, which finds that firms younger than 5 years old have created about two-thirds of all new jobs as late as 2007.
• She quotes a senior researcher at Kauffman, who says despite the recession, "hundreds of thousands" of startups have emerged which will look to add jobs as they grow.
• At least in Illinois, according to a state management association, the percentage of companies that plan to reduce their workforce dropped from 66% to 15% over the past year.
• SBA loan programs, spurred by the defense appropriations bill that President Obama signed in December, are expected to generate over $4 billion in additional small business lending.

When I think of all the new, small, smart companies out there and their innovative team building and other strategies for greater workforce effectiveness – some of which are already competing to be named a Top Small Workplace in Inc. Magazine this summer – I can't help but smile when I come across an article like Meyer's.

Related: Check out Meyer's write-up on two of our 2008 Top Small Workplaces and two of that year's finalists for the award.

I should probably clarify my title for this post.  I do not mean to suggest that having an older workforce is painful, whether on other generations that work alongside them, or for your bottom line.

No, I am referring to the fact that comprehensive "share the pain" employee engagement strategies – wherein everyone from the CEO to the front-line worker makes some sacrifices in tough times like these in order to come out on the other side better positioned for growth – should account for retaining older employees just as much as Boomers and Gen Xers and Yers.

Why should the ratio of older employees within the workforce post-economic crisis be of concern?  It's enough of an issue that Newsweek columnist Ellis Cose calls the trend of employers axing older workers "idiocy" in this week's issue.  He describes the dubious tactics of said businesses in this regard as follows:

They may force supervisors to rank employees on subjective criteria – such as mental "flexibility" – that are essentially a license to discriminate.  Or they generate paperwork alleging drops in performance that have no clear explanation.

Cose paints organizations that engage in these actions as having a significant advantage over affected employees that allege discrimination because of the legal fees involved, which are tough if not impossible for workers to manage.  But really, argues Bernie Dyme of workplace services provider Perspectives Ltd, companies in this scenario are the ones losing out.  As he wrote last week on Working World Cafe,

[P]eople are more productive far longer.  And with the economy faltering of late, these folks will be in the workforce even longer than in the past.  ...  Older workers can bring experience, maturity and stability to the mix as well as strong values around customer service and company loyalty.

What are your thoughts on this issue that has everything to do with building teams in the workplace and, in fact, workforce effectiveness?

It's been a long nine months since the team at Chicago-based accounting and consulting firm Blackman Kallick released its last round of results of its ongoing survey of Chicago area business owners.

During that time, of course, President Obama's stimulus package has seemed to have had mixed results – partly because the congressional watchdog for it can't find the money trail, so we don't have a proper accounting of how it's helped Main Street vs. Wall Street.  This and various pieces of legislation in Congress designed to reform health care, some with an employer mandate, have many small business owners leary.

And leary seems to describe the current mood of Chicago business owners according to BK's September 2009 survey.  Here are BK's high-level observations of the feedback they received from the owners surveyed – over 80% of which run organizations with fewer than 500 employees:

• A year ago this survey showed owners had more optimism in the local economy than in the national economy.  Now "local business leaders believe Chicago is lagging out of the recession."
• A year ago 18% of respondents thought the U.S. economy would reach a "healthy" state in 24 months.  That percentage has risen to over 50%.
• Perceived difficulty in obtaining financing has edged up only slightly compared to January, and has remained flat across all three of BK's surveys going back to October 2008.  BK portrays this as a contrast to media hype around a financing crisis.
• In the optimism column, "Both hiring plans and profitability expectations are reportedly on the rise (as compared to January 2009).  The changes here are dramatic and seem to provide a counterpoint to recently reported unemployment rates."
• Finally, apparently mirroring what Winning Workplaces found when we last surveyed our small business honorees on the state of the economy in April (stay tuned to our upcoming October newsletter for an update of this survey), BK finds that Chicago area businesses are doing the following to seize opportunities presented by the current business environment:

1. Tightening operations
2. Revising strategic plans/restructuring
3. Undergoing a strategic expansion
4. Adding additional product/service offerings

For the full results of BK's September 2009 survey and to assess their impact on your employee engagement activities for greater workforce effectiveness, go here.

The press continues to be great for many of this year's Wall Street Journal/Winning Workplaces Top Small Workplaces.  Over this past weekend, for instance, Anthony Wilder Design/Build was featured on MSNBC's "Your Business" podcast.

In the video below, hear from Co-Owner Elizabeth Wilder how this 18-year-old, Maryland-based construction and engineering firm has bucked industry trends and persevered using open-book management, among other team building and employee engagement best practices:

I got the chance to meet Elizabeth and two other company leaders at our annual conference last week, where we honored the 2009 Top Small Workplaces, and I can tell you these are great people who are doing a wonderful job inspiring confidence in their employees for greater workforce effectiveness.  Learn more about this innovative small business on our website.

Congrats to Anthony Wilder on being featured on MSNBC!

Would you pay $100 for a "mini MBA"?  I think that's a steal in any economy.

That's just what the over 200 registrants for The Wall Street Journal's Insight Exchange breakfast this Friday, October 2, in Chicago – part of our annual conference – are in store for, according to Journal Editor and Insight Exchange host Wendy Bounds.

Hear her answer to my question of the return on investment (ROI) of attending these breakfasts:

mp3 - 737 KB - :47

Bounds says the value of these gatherings is getting to hear the employee engagement best practices, and other strategies for greater workforce effectiveness, of exemplary entrepreneurs who have "been there and done it."  Plus, networking with them and fellow small business leader attendees.

So if you'll be in Chicago this Friday, what are you waiting for?  Call Winning Workplaces at 847-328-9798 to register to attend the WSJ Oct. 2 Insight Exchange breakfast at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.

Related Posts:

• Six Ways That Companies Participating in the WSJ Insight Exchange Are Managing Through Difficult Times
• The Wall Street Journal's Wendy Bounds: Why Their Insight Exchanges Rock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lately most discussion of employees, companies, and health care has revolved around the reform proposals currently being worked on in Congress.

A less covered narrative that involves these three elements, however, is that in the absence of governmental or other assistance in controlling the exorbitant costs of employee medical coverage, an increasing number of small businesses are becoming health and wellness partners with their employees.  By helping employees improve their own personal, body metrics they are seeing improvement in their business metrics via:

• reduced premiums for healthier workers
• greater productivity due to fewer unscheduled absences and lower presenteeism

This new article from the St. Petersburg Times underscores this trend.  Irene Maher outlines how Pepin Distributing Co.'s weight-loss program, in effect for less than a year, is on track to return up to $4 for every $1 the company invests in it.  Not a bad ROI.

In fact, this is a theme Winning Workplaces identified as common among our 2008 Top Small Workplace Winners.  In our Benchmarking & Best Practices Report on them, we wrote:

The leaders of Top Small Workplaces understand that helping employees achieve balanced and healthy lifestyles makes good business sense as these types of work cultures are better able to attract and retain top talent.  In addition, there is much evidence to suggest that firms that take a proactive approach to employees' health realize a decrease in workplace stress, absenteeism, sick days and a reduction in insurance premiums.

This is an important development when it comes to employee engagement activities for greater workforce effectiveness.  I hope more in the media report on this trend.  The Wall Street Journal, for one, will expand on this when it announces our 2009 Top Small Workplaces in its September 28 issue.

Related Posts:

• Why the Small Business Angle on Health Care Coverage Matters
• Healthcare as Employee Benefit Reduces Absenteeism and Improves Productivity
• Medical Coverage Divide Between Top Small Workplaces and Others Widens
• In Defense of Wellness Programs
• Two Benefits Where the 2008 Top Small Workplaces Beat the 25 Best Small Companies to Work For in America

What should small business leaders be asking themselves when it comes to employee engagement and commitment in an economic climate that seems to be slowly tipping back in the favor of job seekers?

Max Caldwell, a managing principal at global professional services firm Towers Perrin, has three good ones, according to today's release of their second-quarter analysis of employee engagement performance at 69 companies worldwide:

• How much muscle has the organization lost?
• Are short-term efficiency gains sustainable?
• Is there a risk that good performers will be more likely to leave when the economy picks up again?  

Prompting these questions was Towers Perrin's alarming finding that employees' positive perceptions of corporate efficiency dropped 16% from Q1 to Q2 2009.  The release makes the case that while leaders have done a good job of bringing workers together around a common purpose – increasing revenues and profits – their measures to make their workplaces more lean and improve efficiencies are not being interpreted as sustainable by a majority of employees.

I take this to mean that small business CEOs can make best use of their existing workforces, for the long term, by actively engaging and empowering them to continue to improve organizational efficiencies.  Note Towers Perrin's supposition from this same analysis that

[C]ustomer demand and therefore workload have diminished in the wake of reduced consumer purchasing in many companies, so even with fewer staff, employees may feel underutilized.

What conclusions do you draw from this research in terms of your employee development strategies for greater workforce effectiveness?

Monica Navascues, a workforce effectiveness professional, asked a great question a few days ago on LinkedIn:

Why (or why not) do small businesses need an HR department or partner? And if needed, when is it appropriate? [sic]

Here's a summary of the five answers she received:

• All businesses need it in all circumstances (James Cavalluzzi, Andrew 'Sid' Salmon, Andrew Coulson)
• "Unless the person/department is directly contributing to generating revenue, then outsource it or dump it altogether" (Tim Stephens)
• "When you hire the first non-family and non-partner employee, you will need some HR assistance" (Payson Hall)

I presume that Navascues did not get all that many responses because she pegged her question as specific to Toronto, Canada.  That, or everyone reading the question after the last respondent agreed with the majority opinion – that you must have an HR function at any stage in a company's life cycle.

I think this is certainly true in the compliance sense.  In very small startups, often the CEO is also director of HR simply because of the paperwork that's required.

But my question to you is, how does this function change (or should it change) as the company grows?  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.

So what do you think?

One of the richest resources for inspiration and learning on employee engagement for both workers and their bosses is closing up virtual shop.

Yesterday Slow Leadership's creator and lead writer, Carmine Coyote, posted the text of a goodbye note he sent to their newsletter subscribers on their website.  There is wisdom in his last word that relates directly to the power of employee activities for greater workforce effectiveness:

[T]he very best leadership, I am convinced, is engaging in as few “managerial” activities as possible [emphasis his].  By this I mean creating plans and budgets, setting strategies, setting up mergers and acquisitions, discussing policies, holding meetings, marketing, branding, analyzing data and the like.  Nearly all such actions get in the way of real business and lie at the heart of most problems that leaders face.  If you must do something, encourage and train your staff, talk with customers, monitor quality and spend as much time as you can with “non-managerial” actions like inventing new products and services and improving old ones.

The vast repository of knowledge Coyote has built up over the last five years will surely live on in some online incarnation.  I encourage you to continue to visit Slow Leadership when you need help getting employees engaged.

This resource has served as the jumping-off point for several posts on this blog.  Check them out below:

• Mark of a Top Small Workplace: Less 'Delusional Optimism'
• Let's Hear It for the Ladies!
• The Three C's of a Thriving Work Culture (Really One C)
• 30 Blogs for Small Business and Entrepreneurship

One of our goals here at Winning Workplaces is to be the kind of firm that could apply for and win our Top Small Workplaces award.  That means demonstrating a commitment to workforce effectiveness through team building and employee engagement best practices.

In a collaborative sense, therefore, when we're on the hunt for vendors we look for enterprises with a similar focus on getting employees engaged to increase productivity.  Our webinar provider that we've turned to for close to two years, Colorado-based ReadyTalk, is such a firm.

We were happy to read last week that ReadyTalk has been named a Finalist for the Best Companies to Work for in Colorado competition, a joint project of Coloradobiz, the Colorado State Council of the Society of Human Resource Management, and Jobing.com.

ReadyTalk's CEO, Dan King, said of his company's inclusion on this list (for the third year in a row),

For me it makes all the sense in the world that engaged employees are the ones who are going to deliver outstanding customer experiences....  We’ve always endeavored to provide an environment that’s consistent with having highly engaged employees.  We believe that if we ... hire people that really care about customers, the bottom line will take care of itself.

The proof of King's belief is in the customer satisfaction pudding, as it were: 90% of ReadyTalk's customers would recommend their services according to the company's most recent survey of them.

We congratulate ReadyTalk on their achievement.  If you'd like to get a taste of their superior service as a result of their people practices, visit this page on their website for a free live product demo.  I also encourage you to attend one of our two upcoming live webinars, featuring CEOs of successful small businesses, that they're hosting for us.

This spring Winning Workplaces staff selected 35 Finalist organizations from the over 300 that applied for Top Small Workplaces 2009, an annual recognition project we co-sponsor with The Wall Street Journal.

Since the Winners were chosen by our panel of judges in late June, the Journal has been busy going inside these organizations to dig in to their bottom line-enhancing workplace team building strategies – all for your benefit when these small firms are revealed in the September 28 Journal Report on Small Business.

Until then, I thought you would find value in learning about what the 35 Finalists are doing when it comes to building teams in the workplace and making them highly productive.  Check out this list of best practices:

1. A financial services firm runs a Team Leader Development Program in addition to a Self Directed Loan Officer Program.
2. At one firm there is only one position (the Team Leader) between the 180 front-line salespeople and the President of the company (a "flat" organizational design).
3. At another company, the dining room is set up like a team building space, to meet and chat, with families invited to join.
4. "Ideas Unlimited": Any employee may present any idea – big, small, or off-the-wall – to the leadership team.  All presentations are reviewed and ideas that are selected for immediate action are transformed into personal or company-wide initiatives.
5. One organization funds a charity bike team with company matches.
6. In an ESOP company, the E3 team (ESOP, Education, Enthusiasm) actively works to encourage everything ESOP.
7. Employee recognition example: the ACE award, reinforcing core values of Attitude, Commitment and Excellence.
8. At one firm the CEO does 6-hour leadership training sessions for all team leaders and supervisors.
9. At one company field staff votes on team leaders, who then run monthly technical meetings and teach classes for cross-training purposes.
10. Employee communication example: a weekly newsletter, whose title is a take on the company name, shows financial status and team accomplishments.

As I mentioned, you can learn a lot more about the workforce effectiveness of these great small firms in The Wall Street Journal on September 28.  We will also be honoring them at our annual conference on October 1-2.  Join us for this event in Chicago and save $100 on your registration.

Now based in Southern California, I hear from both friends and people in my apartment building, as well as people on the street in often unsolicited conversations, that they're mad at their employers and they can't wait until they have the leverage to bail on them.

Why?  The potpourri of bad leaders and/or managers (many of the latter no doubt allowing the stress of having to do more with less manifest itself in poorer relations with subordinates), shrunken departments or units as a result of layoffs, and equally stressed remaining coworkers who wonder if they're the next to go are often the cause of this frustration.

An article in The Press-Enterprise that came out yesterday, specifically addressing the SoCal area, underscores this resentment.  But while employees may be the disgruntled ones now, business owners and leaders may be even more so in a year or two: the article cites a new Deloitte Consulting study which finds that when the job market in this area picks up, "there could be an exodus of key, longtime employees that might create a serious brain drain for companies."

This study reminded me of a clipping from a July issue of Newsweek our chairman shared with me recently, which made it into our most recent Workplace Perspectives editorial.  The magazine did a study and found that over half of American employees say they will look for a new job once the recession ends.  That figure jumps to 7 out of 10 among 18- to 29-year-olds.

How can SoCal organizations and firms across the country prevent the exodus of these high-performing but bitter workers?  For greater workforce effectiveness, we recommend they turn to employee engagement and team building strategies to share the recovery, when and as it is apparent in their bottom line, with their people.

Sharing the recovery can take many forms, from restoration of pre-crisis wages or a one-time bonus to smaller, personalized rewards for sticking with the firm through hard times such as those Cindy Ventrice writes about.  The important thing for owners and leaders is to act now if they're able to avoid losing top talent to competing firms as the economy – and staff's employment options – improve.

Want more advice on how to share the recovery with your workers?  Give us a call at 847-328-9798.

Image credit: Independent Icelandic News

I thought you'd appreciate an almost-packed view of my old office, and one of my office-to-be out of my new home in Los Angeles:

As Winning Workplaces tries to practice what we preach in terms of using innovative employee engagement ideas for greater workforce effectiveness, I am very happy the staff here is OK with my change to telecommuting from home full-time to accommodate a family move.

I plan to follow up soon with some do's and don'ts for other telecommuters and would-be telecommuters out there based on my own experiences.  In the meantime, as I need to finish packing, I leave you with these two resources:

• From today, Renee Oricchio's Inc. Technology post on The Sub-$1000 Home Office
• Helpful answers to my recent LinkedIn question on things to do and avoid in setting up a home/satellite office

More to come in August....

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

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credit: 2008 Top Small Workplaces Finalist Steppenwolf Theatre Company

I blogged last week asking for your help in supporting our continued operations – specifically our below-market-rate consulting work for small businesses and nonprofits and sponsoring folks to attend our upcoming conference.

I'm happy to report that the response to our appeal has been positive.  Here are some of the latest people and groups that have contributed to our Scholarship and Special Assistance Fund, and which now appear on our Supporters wall:

• Anonymous
• Peter and Katharine Darrow
• Craig J. Duchossois
• Mr. & Mrs. James M. Florsheim
• Mr. & Mrs. James S. Frank
• Allen and Evi Goldberg
• Peter and Carol Goldman
• Doris B. Holleb
• Bruce and Martha Karsh
• Paul and Nancy Lederer
• Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation
• MDP
• Julie Stagliano
• Esther Saks
• Mr. and Mrs. John P. Sall
• Mr. & Mrs. Donald M. Schwartz
• The NDH Group, LTD
• The Redwoods Group
• Elizabeth Tisdahl

We greatly appreciate their support for our mission to instill in more small firms, and disseminate via the web, actionable team engagement activities for greater workforce effectiveness.

If you would like to become a Supporter you can do so in one of three ways:

1. Purchase a Dinner Table for eight at our ROI of Great Workplaces Conference in October in Chicago.  You can purchase a table for your employees, vendors, customers, or others you'd like to sponsor to attend.
2. Buy tickets to the conference.  Again, these could be for you, people you work with, or others.
3. Donate on our website to our Scholarship and Special Assistance Fund.

Photo credit: GuyLunardi/flickr