It’s no secret that California, where I live and telecommute for Illinois-based Winning Workplaces, has been largely an economic failure in recent years.  While Silicon Valley continues to do well (did you hear that Google is going to embark on its biggest expansion to date this year?), overall the state has unemployment of 12.5%, the second-highest in the nation after Nevada.

Yet, a new report by researchers at the Washington, DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research and the City University of New York shows that an employee benefit that Winning Workplaces has long touted as part of a successful people practices program – paid family leave – is substantially helping the state’s businesses, even as it alleviates the stress of their workers.

Today on the Sloan Research Network Work and Family Blog, Mary Curlew pulls some revealing findings from this employee engagement research.  According to  Eileen Appelbaum and Ruth Milkman’s survey of 500 workers at over 250 employers, California’s 9-year-old Paid Family Leave (PFL) program had either a "positive effect" or "no noticeable effect" on:

• Productivity (89%),
• Profitability/Performance Order Generic Cialis Online without Prescription (91%),
• Turnover (96%), and
• Employee morale (99%).

This is hard data that can’t be ignored by business leaders who don’t think paid leave leads to improved organizational metrics.  For those critics, we have more data to share.  Not surprisingly given California’s status as our most populous state, it had the highest number of small businesses that applied for our 2011 Top Small Company Workplaces award with Inc. Magazine: 37, or 11% of our 342 total applicants this year.

Among the 37 California-based award applicants, here’s the breakdown in the share that were profitable in 2010 and average employee turnover in 2010 among those that offer paid leave starting at one year of employment, versus those that offer no paid leave:

As you can see, among our research sample those that offer paid leave tend have slightly lower turnover; also, more of them are profitable.  (I should note that among those that offer paid leave, the average number of days/year is 17.5, with a range from 5 to 36 days.)

Do you think this data suggests that all other states should implement a paid leave program?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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Our past annual conference speaker Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal wrote a blog today on a notable development when it comes to the intersection of workplace culture practices and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).  Shellenbarger notes that with Australia now requiring their employers to offer paid leave, the U.S. is now "alone among developed nations in offering no financial support for new parents post-childbirth."

The 12 weeks of leave that our government does mandate, for both eligible new mothers and new fathers, is unpaid.

Where the government is in supporting unpaid versus paid leave is a stark contrast to what the applicants, finalists, and winners of our 2010 Top Small Company Workplaces competition offer.  Here’s what we see in our employee engagement research of this pool of 497 total small businesses:

• 100% of the 20 winners offer paid time off (PTO)
• 100% of the 20 finalists offer PTO
• 97.6% of the remaining 457 applicants offer PTO
• 11 (2%) of the 497 total applicants go further and specifically offer paid paternity in addition to maternity leave (above and beyond general paid leave)

Why do these organizations, which are small and lack many of the resources (including financial) of big companies, make this kind of investment as part of their employee benefits packages?  Certainly it keeps them competitive on the recruiting front.  Yet, considering their overall people practices allow them to keep workers for a long time – 7 years on average among our 2010 winners and finalists; 4 years among the remaining applicants – they see being generous in supporting time off for personal as well as family commitments as a means toward achieving industry-best retention and employee leadership development.  This in turn directly affects their ability to maintain and improve both customer and vendor relationships.

Related: This article on our website describes the push for paid sick leave legislation in the U.S., including some of the major players involved.

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If you’re like me and believe that organizations that are strong on communications team building and instill the Golden Rule in their values experience a bigger payoff of employee engagement in their productivity and profitability, you might Provigil online No prescription get a kick out of reading this blog post by Harrison Barnes, the CEO of LawCrossing, a job search resource for the legal profession.

Within the context of an industry that everyone knows churns lots and lots of good talent, Barnes kicks off his missive with the declaration, "Fortunate are the people who find themselves in situations where their bosses are demanding of them."

From here, things only get worse: Among seven factors he offers that should be ruled out when only one person out of a law school class of 75 stays long enough to become a partner is that "the firm is a horrible place."  In other words, the employee and his or her weaknesses are to blame, never the workplace culture of the law firm.

I don’t buy it.  And neither do the leaders in our network who run law firms.  As Reno & Cavanaugh, PLLC Managing Member Megan Glasheen, a 2006 Winning Workplaces Best Boss, told us,

People are leaving law firms in droves.  I think the takeaway from what we’re doing is that you can have a good work environment and still be a profitable business, and that it makes sense for the bottom line because it retains people.

Just how bad is out there for law firm partners?  This Lawyers Weekly article says firms could face turnover as high as 40% this year if they fail to meet staff expectations.

This is a stark contrast to law firms we study as part of our Top Small Company Workplaces recognition project – those that, while not perfect in all cases, have started down the path of progressive people practices.  Consider: Among our 497 award applicants this year, the seven law firms had average turnover in 2009 of only 12%!

Related: While we’re on the topic of law, check out this guest article by attorney Paula Brantner of Workplace Fairness on how to prevent employee lawsuits.

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