It pays to encourage workplace friendships.

According to a recent study by the Conference Board only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs. While there are many reasons for rampant job dissatisfaction, there is one root cause that deserves a closer look. That is, the role that friendships play in creating a positive, supportive working environment.

Research by the Randstad Work Watch found that, “Interestingly, the top responses from the survey aligned <job satisfaction> more to workplace culture: a more creative and friendly workplace (70 percent); increases teamwork (69 percent); increases morale (59 percent); and increases knowledge sharing and open communication (50 percent).”

The survey pointed to the important role that close friendships play in employee job satisfaction. “There is no denying that workplace friendships can contribute to a positive workplace culture, including increased productivity and creativity, heightened morale, enhanced personal performance and stronger team cohesiveness.”

Other studies support these findings. The Gallup Organization, leaders in employee engagement research, studied high performing work groups and discovered that one of the things these employees had in common was having a best friend at work. In fact, “Do you have a best friend at work?” is the most controversial question on Gallup’s Q-12 survey.  According to the February 2008 Gallup Management Journal: “Gallup itself would have dropped the statement if not for one stubborn fact: it predicts performance. Something about a deep sense of affiliation with the people in an employee’s team drives him to do positive things for the business he otherwise would not do.”

Dealing with customer issues call after call, day after day is one of the most emotionally taxing jobs there is. That’s why it’s so important to foster supportive workplace friendships. You can bet that when front-line employees “feel the love,” they’ll pass that positivity on to their customers.

Be happy. Have a great week.

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If you don’t have regular team meetings you aren’t a team in the truest sense. What you really are is a collection of boxes on an org chart.

Managers and supervisors know how important meetings are to maintaining a healthy, high-performing team but find two things get in the way: finding the time to meet and figuring out what to do in the meetings so your time is well spent.

Team meetings provide a venue for supervisors and reps to build trust — the main ingredient to good relationships.The relationship between a supervisor and their team is one of the main drivers of employee engagement. Team meetings are absolutely, no-doubt-about-it, positively crucial to creating a highly engaged team.

The two best ways to kill team meetings is to let the discussion slide into a gripe session about what’s wrong and needs fixing or spending most of the time listening to “important information.” I call the latter the “Dump Truck Meeting Model.” That’s when the leader of the meeting backs up the truck and dumps a load of boring administrivia while the attendees passively sit there, eyes glazed over, wishing they were any where else (even back on the phone…).

Granted there are times when you need to provide need-to-know updates. Let the 80/20 Rule be your guide — spend 20% of your time on operational topics and the rest of your meeting Grtime talking about what really matters to your employees.

Six Tips for Better Team Meetings

1. Have an agenda.
Good meetings (and good parties or any other gathering of people) take advance preparation. Send the agenda out in advance and ask for input.
2. Learn how to facilitate good meetings.
Facilitating a great meeting is part art and part science. Pick up a book on the subject or take a class. Learn the do’s and don’ts.
3. Start and end on time.
Meetings time are essentially a promise that you need to keep.
4. Do everything you can to hold meeting times sacred.
Conduct meetings on the same day of the week, at the same time. You will find that your
employees will plan to be there — and have something to say.
5. Pick a topic for each meeting.
I don’t mean using the meeting as a training session. What I’m referring to is focusing on a specific subject for discussion that is relevant to the reps’ lives both at work and outside work.
For example, you could talk about achieving work and life balance; present a handout with bullet point tips (Google any topic and you’ll find scads of good information) sit around the campfire and share ideas on what the reps find works well.
6. Use a fable book.
When you think about it, fables and parables are the most ancient way of transmitting wisdom. Before I wrote my fable book, I used books like Who Moved My Cheese? as meeting topics. These are easy reads that even people who normally don’t read books enjoy. In fact, using these books convinced me to write my customer service fable, The Napkin, The Melon & The Monkey.

Got a comment or opinion? I’d love to hear from you! bb(at)barbaraburke(dot)com
www.barbaraburke.com

Resources:
For information on how you can transition your supervisors from ineffective “firefighting” mode to a service model that is proactive and intentional.

Interested in hearing more good stuff about how you can have better meetings? Click hereto listen to my July 14th interview with Bruce Belfiore at Benchmark Portal’s Call Talk show.