One of the blogs I follow is Engaged Employees, Remarkable Results! by Mark Hirschfeld.  Mark is Principal in the Human Capital practice at SilverStone Group, and on the side he also writes about how better employee engagement leads to stronger business results.

On his blog yesterday he pointed to an interview he recently did with Jennifer Benz of Benz Communications.  The first question and answer from this article stood out to me:

Of all the programs and incentives you heard about in your interviews [for your book with Leigh Branham, Re-Engage], which stood out to you as the most innovative?
The thing that impresses me about highly engaged employers is how thorough and methodical they are in their efforts to create a great workplace.  Truly, nothing seems left to chance.

This is a valuable insight for both business leaders looking for team building and employee retention tips to cut hiring, training, and other HR costs, as well as employees who are fed up with their subpar workplace cultures (if you're one of the latter, tell us about your experience and learn from those of others in your shoes here).

Mark's truism – that great workplaces are achieved methodically, not by happenstance – is one that we've communicated over the years based on our findings from our small workplace recognition project.  Leaders of our award-winning small and midsize businesses understand that more cohesive work cultures aren't a means unto themselves; well nurtured, they lead to improved metrics ranging from lower absenteeism and turnover to process improvement/cost savings and higher revenues.

To underscore the methodical-versus-random nature of the human capital strategies the small firms in our network use, check out the table below.  It features people practices we've shared weekly with our email subscribers since late July.  Note the bottom line results these enterprises track and enjoy from their investment on the people side!

(If you're reading this in an RSS feed, you may need to click here to view the table in its proper format.)

*Source: 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award application/survey

To start getting practices and results like the ones above in your email, go here.  (Side benefit: You will be registered to receive our next IDEAS newsletter, which will contain our review of Mark Hirschfeld's book Re-Engage.)

In mid July I told you about a September 14-15 Summit on the New Green Economy being hosted by SJF Advisory Services.  In addition to partnering with this great organization for a live event in Georgia in 2007, they were our producing partner for one of our Executive Learning Series webinars in 2008 featuring two CEOs we honored for creating a productive workplace that generates a payoff of employee engagement on the bottom line.

Why am I mentioning SJF's upcoming green economy summit again?  Because this Friday, Sept. 10, is the last day to register for this unique event.  My contacts at SJF tell me that registered attendees span business, community, capital, government, and academic circles and feature well known names such as Kleiner-Perkins, Bank of America, the EPA, and the MacArthur Foundation.  Some of the most common job titles of registered attendees are CEO, COO, Managing Partner, President, Principal, and Director.

Whether you're looking to join the green bandwagon or want to benchmark and improve your current practices, you will definitely get your money's worth by attending, as there will be 55 speakers (!) over the two days.  Keynote speakers include:

• Bruce Kahn, Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors
• Dr. Robert Wallace, Bith Energy
• Bruce Usher, former CEO of EcoSecurities
• David Orr, Oberlin College

As I mentioned, this is last week to register for this event.  For more information, and to register, go here.

One nugget when it comes to your efforts to improve employee engagement for a more productive workplace culture that you might have missed this Labor Day weekend is Norm Brodsky's advice for employers, posted on Inc.com.

Here is the advice Brodsky, the founder of the incredibly successful business CitiStorage, shared, which Inc. put in a slideshow format:

• Hire Wisely
• Build a Culture of Service
• Create Uniform Pay
• Target Your Incentives
• Avoid Layoffs at All Costs

It's not surprising that these tips are hallmarks of a Winning Workplace – Brodsky has written at length on team building strategies for some time in Inc. Magazine, and in fact he is a speaker for Inc.'s upcoming conference on progressive leadership strategies (with which we're affiliated).  And his wife and former CitiStorage co-owner, Elaine Brodsky, was a judge this year for our Top Small Company Workplaces award.

Given this connection, I thought you might get some value by digging deeper into each of the tips listed above that Norm Brodsky shared on Inc.com.  Here are our selected blog posts related to each of his tips:

• Hire Wisely - Starting Today, Don't Hire for Skills Ever Again
• Build a Culture of Service - If You Have a Captive Customer Base, Smart Hiring and Employee Engagement Are Absolutely Vital
• Create Uniform Pay - Unorthodox Trust Building and Its ROI for the Company
• Target Your Incentives - Six Characteristics of a Winning Workplace and Their ROI
• Avoid Layoffs at All Costs - Gentle Giant Moving Shares the Pain - And Retains Their Valuable Employees for When Conditions Improve

What are your top tips when it comes to improving your organizational culture, especially as a means to achieve greater revenue growth and market share?

Late last year America's Best Companies shared tips on naming a business.  At the top of their list was to make it "memorable, quirky, and unique."

Much more recently (on Tuesday) I saw this post from Lennie Rose on her blog for Big Ooga, a Chicago area resource for finding and connecting with accomplished entrepreneurs, in which she shares how she came to choose that name.  Big Ooga "sounded so Google, so Yahoo, but with a honk," she writes.  You have it admit, that name is definitely memorable in the vein of those other, now household name sites/businesses.

This got me thinking about applicant firms for our workplace award over the years that have succeeded – in addition to because of their progressive employee engagement, team building, and other people practices – by choosing a name that stands out in the minds of stakeholders including customers, suppliers, and investors.

Here are 8 such companies (* indicates an award winner; follow the link to learn more about them on our website):

1. Big Ass Fans
2. Boingo Wireless
3. Gentle Giant Moving*
4. iRobot*
5. Jump Associates*
6. King Arthur Flour*
7. Skullcandy
8. The Redwoods Group*

How important was being "memorable, quirky, and unique" when it came to naming your business?

Since I talk at you on this blog about human capital strategies to improve employee engagement for a more productive workplace, I'm delighted when you talk back to me (well, really to all of us at Winning Workplaces – we're a very small team like many of the businesses we research and consult for).

Here are 10 recent posts I wrote that resonated with your fellow readers.  Check out what I said and what they said in response, and please add your thoughts to the mix.  Thanks!

1. Small Business CEO Makes Compelling Case for Hiring the Right People
2. My Top 5 Things to NOT Do When Business Blogging
3. New Deloitte Survey Highlights Connection Between Employee Trust and Retention
4. Three Resources to Help Leaders Set New Managers Up for Success
5. Guitar Magazine Poll: Team Building Matters More Than Skills
6. Ride the Remote Work Wave for Cost Savings, Greater Productivity, Lower Turnover
7. ESOPs Declining, But More Employees Are Stockholders Among Our Award-Winning Small Businesses
8. Is Size the Enemy of Consensus Decision Making?
9. 10 Ways to Make Performance Reviews Meaningful
10. Four Reasons Why Gen Y Entrepreneurs Might be the Ones to Pull Us Out of the Recession

What’s the first thing to get cut when companies are economizing?  It’s always training.  In the last three years, training budgets have fallen by nearly a quarter.  It’s stupid.  ...  Because when you’re battling for customers and trying to do more with less, your most valuable asset is your staff.  And they can do more and better if you train them more.

These are the wise words of "serial CEO" Margaret Heffernan on BNET this week.  If you found our blog searching for employee engagement or employee development strategies, I'm sure you're already on the same page as Heffernan (and us).

But having the willpower and carving out a budget for training is one thing – implementing tactics that work (eg, have yielded results for other businesses your size or in your sector) is another.

Fortunately, I'm happy to share the five resources below to get you started, or help you improve upon your current efforts to keep employees engaged...and ever more productive:

1. 21 articles on our website covering "training program" in leading workplace research we've synthesized, and successful small businesses we've profiled.
2. Our blog post: 20 Effective Employee Learning Initiatives for Small Businesses
3. Our blog post: People Practices ROI of the 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces
4. Our blog post: How a Small IT Firm Creates Knowledge Leaders, and the Company ROI
5. And new from WorkAwesome: 11 Tips from Training People at Work

If you are already systematic about employee training, what have been your successes and lessons learned?  Please share in the comments for the benefit of your fellow readers.

Yesterday in an email to our subscribers, and recently on this blog, I urged readers to register by August 31 for Inc.'s October 27-29 Leadership Conference in Denver so they can attend at the early bird rate, which is $300 less than the conference rate.

Well, three things have changed:

1. Inc. has a new website for their event (same dates and city/venue, though),
2. The conference has been retitled/rebranded as a Leadership Conference (it had been called "Creating Competitive Cultures [C3]"), and
3. Best of all if you have not yet registered, you can still get in at the early bird rate through next Friday, September 10.

Visit the new website for this event and mark your calendar.  With Inc.'s promise to turn you into a "smarter, more proactive and responsive business leader," you will be better equipped to improve employee engagement for a more profitable and productive workplace culture.

As we've observed every year that Winning Workplaces has sought out and honored small businesses that excel in exemplary people practices, a payoff of employee engagement is strong, year-over-year revenue growth relative to their peers – even (sometimes especially) in down economies.

So we're proud to list below the applicants to our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces award that our media partner for this project, Inc. Magazine, recently recognized as among the fastest-growing, private, for-profit companies in its annual Inc. 500 List:

Congrats to these amazingly resilient, employee-friendly small businesses!

Click here to join our mailing list for news on our future workplace award programs.  You will start getting value immediately from our weekly, bottom line-improving people practice email (the next one goes out tomorrow).

Last week I enjoyed a week off with my family in Canada, specifically Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  But before I had even left the states, I was reminded of an important lesson when it comes to hiring for fit as well as employee engagement and workplace team building.

My wife and I flew from LAX to Newark Liberty International Airport before connecting on a flight from there to Halifax.  Between our arrival and second departure gate was a small, '50s-style diner.  Not having much time and knowing there'd be at least a snack on our second-leg flight, we sat down there to split a plate of fries.  We wanted to keep ourselves hydrated, so we each opted for free glasses of water instead of sodas (you'll see why this is important in a second).

When we arrived the place was maybe a third full – not too busy for the one waiter to serve us, as I can say with authority from my high school days as a waiter.  Yet it was immediately apparent that he preferred to favor tables with more people who were ordering more items.  That's understandable because, in theory, that's where the bigger tips were.

What he shouldn't have assumed, though, is that we would leave a proportionally smaller tip.  It so happened that we had bills and no change so, proportionally, had he done an even passable job, he would have gotten a very nice tip for his time involved.  But he initially ignored us, literally rolled his eyes when we asked for a plate of fries and two waters, didn't check on us once he delivered our order, and, worst of all when it comes to waiting etiquette, took our check and tip before we had left!

On our way out, when my wife shared that his tip could have been a lot higher if he had treated us better, the waiter said lazily, "Well, you only ordered fries."  Since when does amount spent dictate the service level received!?  (This is an equation that doesn't factor into the business models of our Top Small Company Workplaces, BTW.)

If you run a company, especially in the hospitality industry, you might be thinking that this experience reflects more on the individual employee and doesn't impact the business as much.  Not necessarily; on our return visit to the same airport en route from Halifax to Los Angeles, we noticed the same waiter in the same restaurant – steering clear of both and getting our food on elsewhere in the terminal.  A different customer-employee experience could have meant repeat business for that diner.

The takeaway?  When you have a more or less stable, captive audience such as in an airport or mall, people practices including hiring for fit and using employee development strategies to deliver excellent service can make a huge difference on your bottom line.

Related: In this webinar recording on our website, two of our award-winning small business CEOs share proven tips for creating a fantastic customer service culture.

Photo credit: Maurice Prather

Given this blog's focus on how employee retention tips and other people practices lead to a more productive workplace culture – and how leadership strategies such as succession planning reduce dependency of the business on key people if they leave or are otherwise taken out of the equation – a reader might conclude that decisions made in the C-suite matter less now than they once did.

This conclusion would be wrong, however, argues Tyler Leverty, assistant professor of finance in the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business.  According to this Newswise article, which references Leverty's paper "Dupes or Incompetents: An Examination of Management’s Impact on Firm Distress," some CEOs significantly improve a firm’s performance, while others hurt it.

Writes Newswise,

[Leverty] found ... good CEOs can remove their firms from regulatory scrutiny 8 to 16 percent faster than a poor manager.  And in insurance companies that are going out of business, a more talented CEO can get a better return on the firm’s assets by up to 10 cents on the dollar.

The takeaway is that events and other learning opportunities that deliver a good ROI for leaders are worth the investment – even in tough times.  This is why Winning Workplaces is excited to partner with Inc. Magazine to host the Creating Competitive Cultures (C3) Conference in Denver on October 27-29, 2010.  As Inc. says on their C3 website, CEOs and other attendees can expect to learn "the newest leadership strategies for developing the best possible company culture, one that results in a loyal, motivated, inspired, and focused team."

Click here to learn more about this event.  You'll want to register by tomorrow, August 31, to get the early bird rate, a $300 savings.

Since I wrote this "line in the sand" post back in March arguing that you should abandon a strategy of hiring for skills in favor of hiring instead for attitude and fit (for a more harmonious and productive workplace culture), I've written several more citing outside sources – as opposed to our own employee engagement research – that help make this case.

But perhaps Brett Owens, CEO of software startup Chrometa, makes the most compelling case for getting the "right people on the bus" in the first place; his post on the Small Business CEO blog pits this as a choice for leaders as opposed to using effective employee leadership development strategies to get the most from the people already on your team.

Creating a hypothetical example from his own experience, Owens says the "coached up" productivity gains of current staff members might make them, at most, 50% more productive than a baseline performer.  Yet, a new hire who's a better workplace fit might be three times – 300% – more productive than the baseline employee.  Thus, he concludes that getting the best from your current staff is

important - but when we do the math, we small business owners know it’s not nearly as important as getting the very best people in the first place.

Related: Leaders, do you have any bad workplace experiences that have resulted from not hiring the right people?  Share them, and your solutions to this issue for the benefit of your fellow readers, here.

SmartBrief on Leadership was one of the sources I noticed that touched upon what appears to be a relatively new employee engagement approach: allowing workers to take unlimited paid vacations.  Recently they linked to this NPR article on the trend.

But then last week they raised the topic again; linking to this article by Chris Grams, SmartBrief wrote:

An increasing number of companies are taking a relaxed approach to worker management, letting staff decide for themselves when they take vacations and how they spend their time at work.

The emphasis on the word "relaxed" above is mine.  It's only one word, but in my opinion in terms of leaders taking something away from their summary, it's an important one.  "Relaxed" can imply "quick and easy."  In fact, getting your workplace culture and productivity to a place in which your organization can truly succeed with a "no policy" vacation policy requires a lot of time and, especially, buy in and long-term commitment from leadership.

I think of the pinnacle of an unlimited vacation policy as the visible part of an iceberg – there's a whole lot more going on under the surface than what's apparent:

What's your take on this trend, and on the team building progress and other people practices work that needs to happen before it's feasible to jump on it?

My thanks to one of the bloggers I follow, Aaron Juckett of The One-Stop ESOP Blog, for pointing me to a new study by Hewitt Associates which uncovers some of the most conclusive evidence I've seen that poor employee engagement leads to an undesirable outcome for the top-priority stakeholder for many companies: shareholders.

As Hewitt explains on their website, since the onset of the economic downturn in July 2008, they have analyzed changes in employee engagement levels by quarter for more than 900 global organizations.  Juckett points to their most recent findings published last month, which show that

Organizations where 65% or more of employees are engaged had total shareholder returns 19% higher than the average total shareholder returns.  Companies with less than 40% of employees engaged had total shareholder returns that were 44% lower than the average.

I find this to be incredibly powerful, especially when I look back to a 2007 study by another leading workplace trends research firm, Towers Perrin (now Towers Watson after merging with Watson Wyatt in January), which we've summarized on our website.  That year-long study of 50 companies found that those with the most engaged employees had a 28% increase in earnings per share, while those with the least engaged workers had an 11% decline in earnings per share.

When we put the results of these two studies back to back, the payoff of employee engagement and team building on shareholders and other investors could not be clearer:

Likely due in part to layoffs and other workforce cuts made after 2007, shareholder returns for companies with the highest engagement – while still above the average – did drop 147%.  But look at the whopping drop of 400% in returns among companies with the least engaged employees.  Ouch, or as my Norwegian ancestors might say, Oofta!

These findings serve to advance the case that it's in companies' best interest to take up, or improve upon, their long-term strategy to motivate employees to create a more harmonious and productive workplace.

Related: Among the best practice articles that those who share their bad workplace experiences with us receive as part of our free, 20-page white paper is one on employee practices that increase competitive advantage.  Get the white paper by sharing your bad experience (and solution) here.

Could the current worker strike of the Mott's plant in Williamson, New York – as expertly covered last week by The New York Times – be to the workforce and the economy what the Google-Verizon deal is to advocates of Net Neutrality?  (That is, a sign of bad things to come?)

Check out this excerpt of the NYT article on the Mott's strike, which began almost three months ago:

The strike has become so important because of the prominence of the brands and because of its unusual nature: a highly profitable company is taking the rare and bold step of demanding large-scale concessions.

...

The workers ... are incensed that the company is demanding givebacks when it posted record profits last year and increased its dividend by 67 percent in May.

This represents what I'm seeing as a trend: companies – typically, large public corporations – holding onto profits after already making moderate to significant workforce cuts, as opposed to following their pattern in past economic recoveries and reinvesting the returns back into the business in the form of employee development strategies (including benefits).

However, if this plays out on a larger scale (other large companies taking a cue from Mott's if they're successful, regardless of whether there's union involvement), it could potentially lead to a deflationary outcome if workers' wages slowly spiral downward.  If that happens, companies could join workers in a lose-lose situation, because that would mean even less disposable income from most Americans to spend on their products and services.

Winning Workplaces takes the position that for the long-term good of companies and individuals, midsize and larger companies (especially) should change their workforce investment strategy from one of further cuts to one of sustained, smart investment.  Using employee engagement best practices, they can benefit quickly and over the long haul from the increased productivity, lower turnover, etc., that come from treating workers fairly, and not unnecessarily harshly, when it comes to what to do with their profits after bouncing back from the worst of this recession.

Related: Read this post which argues, based on business school research, that a consequence of deep workforce cuts is long-term industry lag.

The following is a guest post by Sean Conrad.  Sean is a Senior Product Analyst at Halogen Software, one of the leading providers of performance appraisal software.

Most of us are familiar with Gallup's employee engagement research and the twelve statements they use to measure it.

When I look at the list, it strikes me that there are some basic employee performance management practices that, if done well, address most of these needs.  They include:

• Giving employees meaningful feedback on a regular basis.
• Being clear about goals and helping employees see how their work matters to the organization.
• Recognizing and rewarding employees fairly.
• Giving employees opportunities for growth and development.

Given their importance and impact, we'd do well as managers to give them our time and attention.

Give Employees Meaningful Feedback on an Ongoing Basis

Research consistently tells that employees want meaningful, ongoing feedback.  But many of us struggle to make it part of our work culture.  Here are some things that can help:

Increase the frequency of your performance appraisals
Instead of just doing annual performance appraisals, conduct quarterly mini reviews.  This helps to give managers and employees a regularly committed interval for dialogue and feedback.
 
Gather feedback from others
Feedback from multiple sources is broader and more objective, and helps the manager and employee get a more accurate view of their performance.  You can keep it simple, and just request feedback from another employee or manager who works with the employee, or conduct more formal 360 degree assessments.

Keep ongoing notes on performance
Keeping and sharing notes on performance year-round helps to better document performance, opens up the dialogue between a manager and an employee, and makes writing performance appraisal faster and easier.  Highlights, challenges and disconnects that might not otherwise be discovered until the annual performance appraisal meeting can be shared and explored in a timely way.
 
Define Clear Goals and Link Them to Organizational Goals

Employees need to clearly know what is expected of them, and understand how their work contributes to the organization's mission and success.

SMART goals are broadly recognized as the most effective way to write clear goals.  Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound goals let employees know what is expected of them, how success will be measured, and when they must complete work.

But we should also give employees a context for their work by linking their goals to higher-level organizational goals, so they understand how they're contributing to organizational goals.

Recognize and Reward Your Employees Fairly and Consistently

Recognition and rewards should be frequent and come in many forms.  Since we're all motivated by different things, it's important to know what your employees value, so you can reward them effectively.  But all programs should be tied to employee performance. And your employees should know the metrics used as measurement.

Provide Opportunities for Growth and Development

Employees need to feel as though they have a future with an organization, and a career path that helps them further develop their knowledge, skills and abilities.  Make sure you provide things like formal training, challenging work assignments, mentoring programs, etc.

Related: For more guidance on creating an effective performance management system as part of a winning set of team building and employee development strategies, check out our Ask An Expert column on measuring key competencies.

On August 4 I told you about our new feature for email subscribers, a weekly people practices email geared toward improving your company's bottom line.  Tom Walter, CEO of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace Tasty Catering, commented on that post saying it's a great idea.

This week he shared specifics with me on exactly why he thinks business leaders should sign up for this free email (emphasis mine):

The Weekly Bottom Line-Improving People Practice email should benefit all business leaders.  The world has become commoditized.  The true marketplace differentiator is human capital.  I enjoy learning the Best Practices other companies use with their most valuable asset - their people.

An engaged workforce is typically harmonious, productive and profitable.  These Best Practices eliminate the need to manage.  We have replaced management with effective leaders armed with Best Practices, and the difference has been remarkable.

While Winning Workplaces surely plays only a small part in Tasty Catering's success, you can't argue that they're not doing a lot of things right in their staff engagement that comprises their highly productive workplace culture: As we shared in the company's award profile, in a very tough year broadly and certainly in their industry (2009), their employee leadership development and other strategies helped them earn above-average revenues.

Register now to start getting our weekly, bottom line-improving people practices email FREE in your inbox.

I had a "wow" moment yesterday when I was reviewing my post history in our Compendium software and realized today's post will be our 900th.  900 blog posts in roughly 800 days (our blog has been running since June 4, 2008) – that works out to about one new post per day on employee engagement and team building strategies to help small businesses create a more productive workplace.

In addition to the writing I do here to (hopefully) make your work life easier, I also follow over 100 blogs in Google Reader, choosing some of the best stuff from them to share here as well as on Twitter.  In all this time I've picked up on some important best practices when writing business blog posts – along with some things to avoid.

I want to focus today's post on the latter to help you draw in and better engage your readers, and – addressing what CEOs and others who hold the purse strings care about – get them to take a desired action that meets your goals or helps your bottom line.

Here's my top 5 list of things to NOT do when business blogging:

1. Truncate your RSS feed.  In layman's terms, this means setting up each new post so the reader only sees a bit of teaser text in their RSS feed (explained here if you don't know what this is), and must click through to your blog to read the full article.  I'm on the same page as Techdirt CEO Mike Masnick as to why this is a bad business decision.  I'm sorry, but I look at this the same way I do a pay wall: you're putting a barrier in front of me, and my gut reaction is to leave.
2. A "link dump" or "flashback" to an earlier week or month of posts.  I've seen a growing number of blogs do this, and although I do get why they do so (more targeted, quality links help with search engine optimization), it's really a disservice to the reader.  A link dump says to me, "I've found this collection of articles, but I don't care enough about your time to put any kind of analysis or framework around them...and I'm sure you have an hour to kill reading all my links until you get to the last one."  A flashback is even worse; usually it's a linked list of dates corresponding to posts – that tells me nothing about what I can expect to read by clicking through.  You have to ask yourself if even your most engaged readers will go with you on your stroll down memory lane.  I guarantee a huge percentage of them will not.
3. Use too much "inside" language.  There's a prominent blog I follow, which I won't name, where lately almost all of the posts are about the author's spouse – who is not relevant to the title (read: promise) of the blog.  This author has written some great material over the years, but lately I've been tempted to hit "Delete" next to that blog for this reason.  The lesson?  Keep your first-time readers in mind and don't veer too far off course from the promise to your readers stated or implied in your blog title.  (Or, do it but then change your blog title/focus.)
4. Write too many posts per day.  Speaking of moves that are great for SEO but bad for the average RSS follower, don't publish so many posts per day that it becomes burdensome for your average reader to keep up.  How many posts/day are too many?  My number is five.  Tip: Survey your readers to learn the max that they're comfortable with, and don't go over it.  (Side note: A number of the blogs I've seen that publish what I consider to be way too many posts/day accomplish this volume by enlisting guest writers.  If your goal is build relationships with these folks and to get great SEO at the expense of the average reader's time, then by all means keep doing what you're doing.)
5. Write posts that are too long.  Frankly, this was not a concern of mine when I started writing here.  But the more I've written with the reader's time in mind, and seen this come up again and again as a blogging best practice, I've tried not to do this.  Right now, in my mind, this post is getting to be too long, and I'm at 734 words.  That's about 100 words shy of the average, feature-length article on getting employees engaged in our quarterly newsletter.  Too long for everyday consumption, so this list is ending...now.

What's on your list of pet peeves or things to avoid when blogging for business results?

Image credit: oz 2 designs

Last week my wife had a birthday, so in celebration we decided to spend part of the day miniature golfing in Sherman Oaks.  On the way back home, I noticed that the Bookstar Barnes & Noble in Studio City was using its marquee (the building used to be a movie theater) for a very important purpose – to recognize its employee of the month.

Here are pics I took of both sides of the marquee:

I write almost exclusively about employee engagement and recognition in small businesses – because of their small size and typically reduced hierarchies/flat structures, they tend to shine in making employee rewards and recognition meaningful.

But that doesn't mean the "big boys" can't excel here, too; the pics above are a great example of this.  Can you imagine if more organizations – of all sizes – put employee recognition front and center at the same level as their product news?  I can, and I think the result in terms of a more robust culture of ownership and team building would be substantial.

Have you seen any businesses in your area that do employee recognition in big or unconventional ways?  I'd love for you to add a comment pointing me to links to photos – especially if they're your own!

Hat tip to Burt Klein at PortionPac Chemical Corporation – one of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplace award winners – for sharing this post on the Letters of Note blog.

The post is a compilation of memos from the last years of the now-defunct, Texas-based Tiger Oil Company.  The memos, which appear to be real, show a CEO who was far more concerned with finding faults in employees than focusing on what they do well – the latter being a more effective approach to creating a productive workplace culture, to which many of our award winners and finalists can attest.

While we're on the topic of bad bosses, I wanted to point you to a new feature on our blog.  As a service to your fellow readers, if you are facing a bad workplace experience we invite you to share it and, most importantly, what you would do about it if you were king or queen for the day.

Learn more about our call to action regarding bad workplace experiences and solutions here.  Those who share their stories and insights receive a FREE white paper on great people practices that produce a payoff of employee engagement on the bottom line!