Leadership Skills in the Workplace

Maintaining Gains Made

LEADERSHIP BRIEFS

11 Family Day

Objectives

Encourage employees to feel proud of their work and their organization

Generate positive support for your organization in the community

Lesson

You are certainly aware that your employees have personal lives beyond the workplace. In fact, they often bring their personal problems with them to work, impacting the mood on a day-to-day basis and even impacting productivity. Tom’s son just got arrested, Ann is worried about her best friend’s cancer, and Jorge is fighting with his wife again.

It’s often challenging to force them to keep their personal lives separate from what they do for a living. Rather than fight this, try embracing it instead. If we can’t keep the family out of the job, then let’s bring them to the job…at a convenient time and in a structured way. Give your employees a chance to show off and be proud.

Many companies have an annual event (in the summer or around the holidays) to which family members may be invited. These are generally completely social events, held off premises, and are often great fun for employees and their family members too. But this does not give your employees a chance to really let family members see them at work and on the job.

Try a variation on this idea. Pick a reasonably convenient date during your regular workday and work shift. Announce, with plenty of notice, to employees that their spouses, children, and significant others are invited to visit them for a specified length of time (one hour? two hours?) and/or have a meal with them.

Encourage employees to let them watch you doing certain things that you do routinely, give their family members a tour, and introduce them to people they work with. Don’t assume that your family will think your work is boring or worthless.

Part of the point of letting them watch what you do would be to have people ask questions. Employees also get a chance to show off their family members to their coworkers.

To encourage participation in this activity, the organization could offer inexpensive gifts to all and/or a drawing for a nice gift for the families who participate. It would also help if the family members of some or all the top leaders took part in the Family Day.

Questions for Group Discussion

1. If we tried a Family Day here, what are the possible benefits for the individual employees who participate?
   
2. What are the possible benefits for the organization?

Group Action

Discuss with your group whether something like this is feasible in your situation. If the group has concerns (such as safety, which is essential), think about how you could make it work out.

Start simple and see if you can implement this idea. When you do, pay attention to the mood or culture that is generated. If the event goes well, you may wish to submit your story to the local newspaper to generate positive press and name recognition for your organization.

Building a good reputation in your community is always an organizational advantage.


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