Trust, Pride and Camaraderie-transform your company into a "Great place to Work" The Great Place to Work Institute develops the annual ranking of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For. In this book, the authors explore the model of a Great Place to Work For-one which fosters employee trust, pride in what they do, and enjoyment in the people they work with. They answer the fundamental question, "What is the business value of creating a great workplace?" and brings the definition of a Great Place to work alive with anecdotes, best practices, and quotes from employees working at the best workplaces in the U.S. 
<ul>
<li>Reveals the essential ingredients in and the trends of the best places to work </li>
<li>Explores Great Place to Work model developed in 1984 and validated through its enduring resonance in both the United States and in over 40 countries around the world </li>
<li>Written by Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin two Great Place to Work Institute Insiders </li>
</ul>
 If you organization is struggling with the challenges of leveraging human capital, discover why some companies have what it takes to be great. Q&amp;A with Authors Michael Burchell and Jennifer Robin What prompted you to write this book? Author Michael Burchell Both of us have served in various capacities at Great Place to Work® Institute, the research and consulting firm that produces the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® Annual List. After our speaking engagements, people would tell us that they wanted to bottle up the knowledge of the Institute and our advice so they could better take action back home. The message in The Great Workplace encapsulates what we teach in our workshops: great workplaces are ones in which people trust those they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with. And, we know that any workplace can be or become a great one. We wrote this book to share that message with more people and to serve as a reference tool long after our workshops were over. It inspires us to know more leaders will be empowered to create more workplaces built upon trust, pride, and camaraderie. What is one thing that people are often surprised about when they hear about great workplaces? People are often excited to hear about the best practices at and the perks offered by companies that make the list, many of which are profiled in the book. But, they are surprised to learn that behind every company’s great workplace is not a magical set of programs or practices, or an unlimited budget for perks. What we find behind the curtain are leaders who build strong relationships with employees. We often say that “it’s not what you do; it’s how you do it.” The policies and programs and the perks and celebrations are all examples of “what” is done. But it’s not about those things at all. It’s about the relationships that these leaders foster, and that depends upon the “how.” If a great workplace isn’t about policies, money, or time, but about creating strong relationships, why do you think managers have such a difficult time doing it? We have never met a manager who didn’t intend to create trust, pride, and camaraderie in the workplace. But, in most cases, those intentions aren’t supported in today’s competitive workplace environment. Managers are often working managers who produce alongside employees--in addition to being held accountable for financial and production goals, upstream and downstream communications, performance management, and countless other administrative responsibilities. Relationships form whether a manager is paying attention or not. Strong relationships, however, take more conscious effort--at least up front. Author Jennifer Robin What are the three key relationships that are found in a great workplace? Great Place to Work® Institute has been researching great workplaces for 30 years, and in the millions of employee interviews and survey comments, it is clear that trust, pride, and camaraderie are the relationships that matter. Trust: It is the first of the relationships, and the one that employees spoke of the most often as they described their workplaces. In fact, their comments about this relationship were so numerous and nuanced that they form three dimensions in the Great Place to Work® Model©. They are: 
<ul>
<li>Credibility: The degree to which leaders communicate openly and honestly, are perceived as competent in their decisions and in the direction of the organization, and match their words with actions. 
</li>
<li>Respect: The degree to which employees feel supported and cared for and sense that their ideas matter. Employees in great workplaces feel that they have appropriate resources and training, and that they can make suggestions and recommendations. They also feel appreciated, and that their work life-balance, physical work environment, and benefits are all contributors to their great workplace experience. 
</li>
<li>Fairness: The degree to which employees feel that there is a level playing field: they are treated with equity, impartiality, and justice. </li>
</ul>
Pride: The second of the three relationships found in great workplaces (and the fourth dimension of the Great Place to Work® Model) is the relationship between the individual and his or her work. Essentially, people experience a great workplace when they feel as though they make a difference in their organization, that their work is meaningful. They are also proud of their team’s accomplishments, and the contributions the organization makes to the community at large. Camaraderie: The final dimension of the Great Place to Work® model is camaraderie. At great workplaces, people describe strong relationships with coworkers, feeling welcomed from the very first day, feeling everyone is working toward one common goal, and feeling that they can be authentic at work. What problems are eliminated when companies become great workplaces? Great workplaces are not perfect workplaces. They still run into breakdowns in communication, false starts, suboptimal results, and premature decisions. The difference is that in great workplaces, these inevitable snags are much easier to navigate. If people don’t trust their leaders, they hesitate, weigh the consequences of action and inaction, and may determine that the safest thing to do is wait and see. In great workplaces, trust is there, so people more easily move forward into unknown territory--and find their way out if it was a bad idea. Moreover, in time, a relational shorthand develops whereby communication happens more quickly and team members can read one another and the environment in a way that saves time and money while avoiding workplace breakdowns. How do you use the principles of great workplaces in your day-to-day life? Jennifer here: So many ways! But one that I return to again and again is the value in responding to the person first, and then the issue at hand. According to Great Workplace principles, doing so builds respect and people are better able to extend trust. When people email, call, or approach me, I take the extra time to acknowledge them, their situation, or their life outside of work before launching into more tactical discussions. And Michael? Now that I’ve begun to see the world through the lens of trust, I can’t see it any other way! When I observe groups in my own job, or in other areas of my life, I often ask myself if I or other leaders are establishing credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. I used to manage a team that was located on the opposite coast. Because I wasn’t there day to day, and couldn’t read body language or interact as easily with my team, I put a pulse survey into place that would help me gather information from my team so I could make changes. While that survey in and of itself served to build my credibility as a leader, it also provided me insight into other areas where I could make changes.

The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why It Matters

Business & Money

Robin, Jennifer

Burchell, Michael J.

Business Culture

Jossey-Bass

Trust is the key to developing a positive workplace culture in which employees have pride in what they do and enjoy their colleagues. This training package and assessment shows how to implement this concept in the workplace by providing strategies and development activities. Created by the authors of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For List, it is designed to increase employee productivity and boost performance. Companies currently on that list or trying to get on it, consultants, executives, team leaders and managers, will want to learn and utilize the effective strategies in this program.

The Great Workplace: Building Trust and Inspiring Performance Self Assessment

Management & Leadership

Pfeiffer

Praise for The Great Workplace Workshop "If you're looking for a no-nonsense, step-by-step guide to creating a Great Place to Work®, this is all you need. Burchell and Robin understand exactly what it takes and serve it up in an accessible, ready-to-go way."—Hal Adler, CEO, Leadership LandingTM and former president, Great Place to Work® Institute "Creating a Great Place to Work® has never been more straightforward; for facilitators, it's like having the authors with you in the room guiding your steps as you take them. If you want to bring the Great Place To Work values alive in your organization, this is how to do it." —Stacy McManus, principal, Park Spencer Group What separates a Great Company from a merely good one? More than offering great pay and quirky perks, a great workplace is one where employees trust the people they work for, take pride in what they do, and are inspired to achieve superior performance. Based on a many years of research and training conducted at the Great Place to Work® Institute—producers of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® Annual List—The Great Workplace: Building Trust and Inspiring Performance Workshop provides managers with a set of powerful, effective exercises that will help them understand the conceptual and practical considerations of creating a high-trust work environment. In the workshop, participants will: <ul>
<li> Examine the essential elements of a Great Place to Work®, especially the crucial role of trust. </li> <li> Build an understanding of the key role managers play in building a great workplace. </li> <li> Identify opportunities and generate ideas for making change within the scope of their responsibility. </li> <li> Gain practical tools for improving the quality of their work environment. </li> </ul>
This Facilitator's Guide includes everything you need to conduct one-day and half-day workshops, including agendas, objectives, and scripts; tips, best practices, and exercises; a Participant Workbook and a Great Workplace Leadership Assessment; a poster and a takeaway card; and a flash drive with PowerPoint® presentations to accompany the workshops.

The Great Workplace: Building Trust and Inspiring Performance Facilitators Guide Set

The business leader's guide to creating a great workplace from the Great Place to Work Institute In this follow-up guide to The Great Workplace, experts from Great Place to Work® Institute, Inc. reveal the most common excuses managers use for why they can't create a great workplace. Authors Jennifer Robin and Michael Burchell poke holes in every single excuse. Whether the reasons involve the organization's leadership, employees, environment, or any other factor, the authors explain that if managers lead people properly, they can create a great workplace. The authors explore how managers can interrupt their own negative thought patterns and instead create lasting change, and they describe how great workplaces have surmounted very real difficulties with aplomb. <ul>
<li>Includes case studies, stories, tips, and tools for managers who want to transform their organizations</li> <li>From the experts at the Great Place to Work, a global research, consulting, and training firm that operates in nearly 50 countries</li> <li>Proves that any and every organization can change for the better when managers have the right tools and mindset</li> </ul>
Creating a place where people want to work and want to succeed is the primary key to success for every manager. No Excuses shows that managers in any organization can transform their workplace―if they'll only get out of their own way first.

No Excuses: How You Can Turn Any Workplace into a Great One: How You Can Turn Any Workplace into a Great One

Reach new levels of organizational productivity and achievement by redefining the phrase "workplace health" In Make Work Healthy, a team of distinguished organizational transformation professionals delivers an insightful how-to manual for improving organizational performance with a new approach to workforce management. The book offers organizations, leaders, and managers with the knowledge, data, frameworks, and methodologies they need to radically transform how they approach day-to-day operations into a sustainable and resilient business success model. The authors focus on workplace health--in a broad sense--as a way of focusing organizational attention on culture, building work capacity, productivity, and sustainability. They explain the tangible business value that comes from focusing on wellbeing as well as the symbiotic relationship between organizational health and employee health. Make Work Healthy includes: <ul> <li>Strategies for moving beyond typical "wellness" initiatives such as just addressing illness and absence reduction to a more holistic understanding of "healthy work"</li> <li>Ways to locate, attract, recruit, and retain talent over the long-term by aligning organizational goals with employee health</li> <li>Tactics to help managers of dispersed, hybrid, and remote teams manage feelings of pressure and isolation</li> </ul> An indispensable, effective, and holistic new take on organizational and employee health, Make Work Healthy will earn a place in the hands of managers, executives, board members, and other business and human resources leaders who seek impressive gains in company productivity and fulfilment.

Make Work Healthy: Create a Sustainable Organization with High-Performing Employees

Ryan, John S.

Processes & Infrastructure

wiley