The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace

Is a company a great place to work because it is wealthy, or is it wealthy because it is a great place to work? Ron Friedman has gathered a vast array of quality research to answer this question. As you work your way through this exceptionally valuable book, the answer will become increasingly clear and compelling.Fortune magazine has ranked Google the world’s best place to work, 7 times in 10 years. Employees can have massages, haircuts, foreign language courses, doctor appointments and more, all on the campus, and free of charge. More instructive is Wegmans, a U.S. grocery chain that has been high on the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ list for the past 14 years. During this period, annual sales have nearly tripled! Many retailers try growing by squeezing labour costs, Wegmans did the opposite: they invested more in their people.The conclusion Friedman has drawn from wide research, is that “the more invested and enthusiastic people are about their work, the more successful their organization is on a variety of metrics.” Happy employees are more productive, more creative, and provide better client service, and are less likely to call in sick. They also act as brand ambassadors outside the office.Focusing on workplace happiness doesn’t cost the company money in the long run: it ensures the company’s revenues grow. Those on the Best Companies to Work For list outperform the market as a whole, by a factor of 2 to 1.Friedman demonstrates across the 11 chapters of this book, that very little wealth is required. All of the advantages can be achieved by any company, irrespective of the staff or balance-sheet size.In a chapter entitled “Success Is Overrated - Why Great Workplaces Reward Failure,” Friedman shows that accepting failure is not only a way of making it easier for employees to be risk-takers, but often proves to be the only reliable path to success.Shakespeare, Beethoven, and da Vinci were all far more productive than their contemporaries. Their most interesting common denominator is the volume of attempts they made to produce great work. Thomas Edison’s hundreds of failures led to his successfully inventing the lightbulb. Prior to the huge successes of the iPhone and iPad, Steve Jobs racked up a remarkably long list of failures that includes the Apple I, the Apple II, the Lisa, the Newton personal digital assistant, and NeXT hardware. As Larry Page of Google points out, “Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely. That’s the thing that people don’t get.”But failure alone won’t add to success unless the failure is interrogated for insights that can help the next attempt.I was particularly intrigued by chapter five: “How to Turn a Group of Strangers into a Community.” Dr Donald Clifton, founder of the Gallup organization, developed the Q12 survey to identify employee engagement. One of the items measured is whether employees have workplace friendships - one of the strongest predictors of productivity. Employees with a best friend at work tend to be more focused and more loyal to their organizations. They are sick less often, suffer fewer accidents, change jobs less frequently and have more satisfied customers.In a variety of clinical studies, friends outperformed acquaintances. Friends were more committed at the start of a project, communicated better, and offered teammates positive encouragement. Acquaintances preferred to work alone and did not help others to avoid mistakes. They engaged others only when absolutely necessary, and were less comfortable seeking help.The reduction of staff churn is particularly important in contexts where there is a shortage of talent. If co-workers are friends, it is harder to leave. The opposite is also true.Workplace friendships, however, do not have to be left to chance.What can organizations possibly do about employee’s friendships, since friendships are voluntary and people can’t be persuaded to become friends. There are three ingredients in building friendships and they are all surprisingly straightforward. All have been verified by research.The first ingredient for friendship is physical proximity. Co-workers who work nearby increase the chances of forging friendships more than if they worked in different departments.The second ingredient is familiarity. Psychologists call this the ‘mere exposure effect’ and argue that our minds are designed to distrust the unfamiliar. Studies show that the mere exposure effect doesn’t just affect our impressions of people: it also applies to paintings, songs, and consumer products.The third and strongest contributor to friendship is similarity. The writer C.S. Lewis once observed, “Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” Similarity is reaffirming. If I like what you like, your opinion validates mine and increases my self-liking.Even if all the ingredients are present, friendships might still not blossom. Research by Art Aron shows that factual exchanges aren’t enough to create friendships. People need to reveal intimate information about themselves in a reciprocal fashion; both partners need to self-disclose. This self-disclosure needs to progress because without deeper revelations a relationship can stall.Is mutual self-disclosure with co-workers really wise? Research conducted by professor Patricia Sias suggests it is, at least if your goal is to make friends.How can you tell if coworkers are friends? By the amount of time they spend discussing nonworkplace topics. When talk is only about work, you might develop a reputation for being competent, but you’re not likely to develop many friendships.While we know a lot about the formation of friendships, we seem to apply very little of that knowledge to cultivating relationships in the workplace, despite their proven work value. “Surprisingly little thought is given to the way onboarding can contribute (or undermine) a sense of connection between team members.” Most company introductions to newcomers consist of little more than being shown your workspace and going through the corporate equivalent of speed dating - back-to-back meetings with key people, at breakneck speed.Intelligent onboarding must reflect the reality of both the needs of the employees as well as those of their companies, and must accomplish two major concerns: demonstrating competence and connecting with their colleagues.Introducing new employees by more than just their professional background, such as their hobbies, their favourite entertainments or an unusual talent, is valuable. The Great Place to Work Institute’s Best Companies to Work For award in 2011, has made personal interests a key feature of their onboarding practices.Providing a colourful introduction, makes it easy for teammates to have nonworkplace topics to talk about the first time they meet, a short cut to possible workplace friendships.There are so many superb insights and so much practical advice for anyone who recognizes the value of creating a great place to work. Such a place is unlikely to happen by chance. Friedman offers advice across too wide a range of issues to cover in this column. The book should be read by all HR professionals and managers with organizational responsibility.Readability Light ---+- SeriousInsights High +---- LowPractical High +---- Low*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. .

Some day I am going to own a manufacturing company. I don’t know what we’re going to make, but I do know I will engage many of the strategies Dr. Friedman outlines in this easy to read book.

Healthy organizations are also best places to work. In fact, creating a best place to work is one of the three main reasons for starting a worksite wellness/wellbeing program. As the vernacular in worksite wellness shifts to wellbeing (even though there is no real difference between the two!), increasing recognition is being paid to how the other dimensions of wellness/wellbeing contribute to organizational health, besides just the physical health of the employee. These dimensions also contribute to the creation of a best place to work.The nature of the workplace is changing. This creates the need for the organization to not only be more efficient, but to also create the conditions that create the opportunity for both the workplace and its employees to thrive. Dr. Friedman put it this way: “Creating the conditions that allow employees to do their best work.” Dr. Friedman makes the point that today’s workplaces need to “harness intelligence, creativity and interpersonal skill.”The book is divided into three parts:1. Workplace design2. Motivation3. Employee recruitment and retentionI found the book easy to read despite the significant reference to the published research literature. In addition to reporting on the research literature, the book contains a nice mix of stories and suggestions about how to apply the research learnings. I also appreciated the action items for managers and emerging leaders at the end of each chapter.If you are interested in or involved in or desire to create healthy, best places to work, this book should be on your reading list.

I am a nurse. I was promoted to a hospital management position over a year ago. A litany of tasks will be required of my team regardless of the way that I decide to lead. A few months back I began searching for ways in which to strengthen my team, improve employee morale, and strengthen the support that we deliver to clinicians who are our end users and customer equivalent. I have read many leadership books at this point and a colleague recommended Ron Friedman's The Best Place To Work. I purchased it immediately and so should you. I take a sheet of paper and use it for both taking notes and saving my place in the book. I have compiled a list of over fifty specific strategies that I can use to increase my effectiveness as a leader, but to also create a culture of both happiness and success. Specifically I have changed the way that I structure my staff meetings, onboard team members, plan activities, give praise, and delegate to my team among other things. I have a list of new year's resolutions specifically regarding the way that I listen, give feedback, and interact with other leaders. It's amazing how much room we all have to grow. I got more from the book than I did from my graduate studies.

This was an interesting read.I'm growing an overseas team of skilled professionals that we manage remotely, and many of the ideas Friedman presented in this book have been instrumental in developing our culture and earning "buy-in" from our employees.While I disagree with Friedman's opening premise -- that having an "extraordinary workplace" in and of itself leads to superior economic performance (an argument he supports with data pertaining to the superior performance of one index fund that happens to invest exclusively in companies listed on the "outstanding workplace" index) -- I think his suggestions for improving morale and performance are sound.

An excellent read

Book arrived as expected. Good read!

Very easy read but superficial treatment of many of the issues covered.

Really enjoyed the book.Lots of useful information and good for re-sharpening the skill set.