The Wall Street Journal sent along three articles (all in their free space for bloggers to use) that speak to team building in a growing company. For many high growth businesses it all comes down to creating the right culture and building critical systems.
The first article offers some useful ideas on how small businesses can help retain key employees by having a little fun.
Team-building exercises are used as way to get employees to stick around. Often, though, they consist of co-workers grudgingly playing group games. But the efforts may be a more natural fit at small companies than at larger ones, where they may feel forced.
The article offers three simple examples of fun stuff that entrepreneurs use to help in team building — a treasure hunt, a derby-car race (think pine wood derby on steroids), and a after work parties.
There a lots of ways to let loose, have fun, and build camaraderie. Bowling outings, golf tournaments, softball teams, setting up a basketball hoop in the parking lot, talent contests, are just a few of the other activities that I have seem small business owners use effectively.
The second story also looks at the power of culture in entrepreneurial firms. It is about a small business owner who has be able to create remarkable employee retention in an industry notorious for high turnover.
Almost all of the telemarketing-services firm’s 350 full-time employees earn an hourly wage. And the work, the president and chief executive admits, is often “repetitive and monotonous.” Even so, turnover at the Atlanta-area company was 27% last year and is consistently under 30%, compared with an average of 43%….Mr. Wilson, 47, credits an emphasis on training, as well as efforts to foster a caring environment — a sharp contrast to other call centers where employees are often treated as commodities, he says.
Building a good company culture is a powerful tool to retain employees. In spite of what we may think, it is not all about the money for employees. They also want a good place to work.
The final story looks at a high growth company where turnover was part of a system upgrade that many emerging companies need to address at some point along the way.
As recently as three years ago, 60% of the employees at technology company Protus IP Solutions Inc. quit annually.
Perhaps worse, Chief Executive Officer Joseph Nour wasn’t sure why. Though employees usually completed exit interviews, notes from those conversations often were shoved into a drawer….
Step one in stemming the problem, says Mr. Nour, was hiring Janice Vanderburg as director of human resources from a bigger, more-established employer. Ms. Vanderburg says she walked into a company lacking in structure and processes. One example: Some employees were eligible for profit-sharing incentive pay and didn’t know it. No one had explained it to them.
As a business grows, culture needs to be consciously managed, and critical systems need to be intentionally built. These are two of the reasons that seemingly successful growing companies fail.