Tag Archives: employees

Conscious Capitalism: A Mechanism for Prosperity

Companies that practice conscious capitalism benefit from putting their employees first. The Container Store, REI and Joie de Vivre have shown this to be true, even as the lagging economy has pushed other companies to downsize. At The Container Store, employees are prioritized over customers and shareholders. It’s a core company principle that influences all business decisions. Full-time employees earn an average […]

Has McDonald’s Gone Walmart on Us?

McDonald’s just penetrated my prejudice-painted blinders to score some points.  Like Walmart before, McDonald’s was once my favorite company to malign. Animal cruelty, lousy work conditions, rainforest destruction, supplier coercion, detrimental marketing and obesity (yes, I think McDonald’s has a responsibility for the products they sell) were some top offenses. But McDonald’s has been systematically […]

Why Investing Smartly Means Choosing Companies With Happy Employees

How does good beget good? And what are you doing to tip the domino? In his book, The HIP Investor: Make Bigger Profits by Building a Better World, R. Paul Herman lists employee satisfaction as an indicator of strong investment returns.  He points to Wharton finance professor Alex Edmans’ work identifying a “direct positive correlation over […]

Don’t Choose One Tactic and Expect Success

It takes more than one action to empower your employees.  As simple (and obvious!) as that sounds, it’s what struck me the most while writing yesterday’s post on enabling your employees.  Maybe a better way to structure the post would be to highlight tactics by company since each of the companies I included–King Arthur’s Flour, […]

Start With You: The Easiest Way to Build a Social Mission–with Renee Spears

“Why build a business with a social mission?” For Renee Spears, the reason was because she wanted a great place to go to work everyday. She didn’t conduct extensive market research and she didn’t wait until she had an MBA. She just built what she liked. It worked and now she’s helping other companies do […]

7 Reasons Why Your Small Business Can Have a Better Social Mission

Social missions are wonderful, right? They reward your cause, employees, customers, image, bottom-line and conscious. I’m sure you’d love to create a business around a social mission or build one into your current company…some day. Some day when you’ve proven your business model, raised funding, grown your market share, found the right business partner or […]