Great workplace builders in a position to grow

A question business leaders should be pondering is which organisations are emerging from the recession in better shape than others, and why? Those who adopted a "slash and burn" philosophy over the past 18 months might have leaner organisations, but do their employees still consider they have a great place to work? Others navigated a different path, and whilst their short-term results might have taken a hit, the decision they made to continue building a great workplace puts them in a strong position to capitalise on the economic upturn.

JRA's research indicates that one of the characteristics of these great workplaces is that they never stop investing in their people - especially their leaders. "When we analysed our 2009 JRA Best Workplaces Survey data we found that the top performing organisations placed a much higher priority on leadership coaching and development, and that their leaders in turn performed the role of coach, mentor and developer significantly better," says Brett Oetgen, a senior consultant at JRA. "We found satisfaction with measures such as 'receiving regular feedback', and 'coaching to help improve performance' rating 14 per cent higher in Best Workplaces, where 'dealing effectively with poor performance' and 'confidence in leadership' also rated 24 per cent and 14 per cent higher respectively."

One of the leadership development tools used with increasing frequency by Best Workplaces is 360-degree feedback. "Organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the need to develop and measure leadership capability," says Oetgen. "Multi-level feedback via a 360 tool is a highly effective way of doing that, and of providing leaders with the means to see themselves as others see them."

A recent study by JRA research consultant Jessica Xu highlighted the fact that managers identified as "great leaders" (top 25 per cent of leaders) had significantly more "engaged" staff (62 per cent) compared to less effective managers of whose staff a mere 12 per cent were classified as "engaged".

The 11th annual JRA Best Workplaces Survey is run in association with the New Zealand Herald, and is available June through August. More than 120 registrations have already been received.

ON THE WEB: bestworkplaces.co.nz