New Orleans Businesses Team Up for Local Community

New Orleans is deeply notched in a culture of cooperation among neighbors, especially since Katrina brought native residents closer together, while others were forced to flee. Small businesses join hands with local non-profits, building relationships and keeping a team connection in New Orleans style. Visiting and local large businesses help the local community with organized teamwork.

The local CVB is proactive in facilitating volunteer opportunities for groups who wish to enrich team relationships while visiting New Orleans. Giving back to the community is often a part of planning corporate team events in New Orleans, says David Lengyel, co-founder of Venture Up, a firm hosting charitable team events in New Orleans since 1983.

Corporate and association teams visiting New Orleans may donate time, money and supplies, build bikes for kids in need, or create art for homeless shelters and half-way houses. “Colleagues who may not work shoulder-to-shoulder in one office, or staff who do work closely but never see eye-to-eye, may find themselves getting along smoothly while focusing on others outside the office boundaries,” says Lengyel.

When it comes to local flavor, the Crossroads NOLA program feeds into the festive Garden District atmosphere, providing streetcar food services. District Donuts and Sliders Brew are two local companies behind the effort, donating 100 percent of the proceeds to local children and teens in foster care.

The mission at Crossroads NOLA is to connect children and teens in crisis to the families, individuals, and opportunities they need to thrive. The team aims to recruit, develop and support foster families.

The Garden District food-on-wheels service, named “Streatcar,” offers donuts, cheeseburgers, fried chicken and a full range of coffee steps from the sidewalk. Want a beer? They’ve got brews too, if you’re of age and it’s the legal hour.

According to a recent Entrepreneur article by John Boitnott, there are four ways any company can benefit from giving back , as follows:

1. Building respect and a good reputation in the community.
2. Making your community a better place to live.
3. Employees respect leaders who do well.
4. Connections and networking benefits for the company and staff.

Looks like New Orleans is ahead of the game.

San Antonio – New Braunfels Takes Top Spot for America’s Most Engaged Employees

Smooth-running organizations require high functioning teams, and the San Antonio - New Braunfels area ranks highest with 38.1 percent of its workforce engaged, according to Gallup. The organizational culture of San Antonio is a model for building strong engaged teams across the U.S.

Gallup categorizes workers as "actively disengaged," "engaged," or "not engaged." One way to get teams actively engaged, says David Lengyel of Venture Up, is to infuse fun into corporate training and meetings. “Ongoing team building events can enrich and maintain strong relationships,” he says. Since 1983, Venture Up. has provided team development programs in San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Austin and Midland-Odessa.

Gallup considers "engaged" employees as those involved in, passionate about, and committed to their job. Such staff members are creative, proactive and fuel growth through continuous improvement and innovation, maintaining a healthy company. Research linking engaged employees to high performing organizations is indisputable.

Companies with highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147 percent in earnings per share and realize 41 percent fewer quality defects, 48 percent fewer safety incidents, and 28 percent less shrinkage. Turnover is 65 percent less with low-turnover organizations, and 25 percent less with high-turnover companies. Absenteeism is 35 percent lower.

Staff members who fail to get engaged hurt companies. The astute manager takes notice right away to correct the behavior or eliminate it altogether in by firing staff whose attitude doesn’t cut it. Coopertive team players are the foundation of a top performing organization.

Employees who are not engaged often have one foot out the door. Whether they quit or get fired, they cost the company money and continue to damage corporate culture the longer they remain. They fail to take ownership in the company, have less concern for clients, and inhibit productivity.

Actively disengaged staff may harbor an entitled attitude, feeling the company owes them. They strive to spread negativity onto others. If management is lax or ignores these effects, the negativity can spread like a cancer and bring the organization down.

Unhappy employees may undermine the accomplishments of productive staff, monopolize the manager’s time with petty grievances, and contribute to defects in the process and products far more than engaged employees.

Gallup research shows low levels of employee engagement means high levels of active disengagement, but the two are not the same. Unengaged employees may be passively so, while others are proactive in their efforts to break the system, if they are not detected and fired as they should be before the damage can spread.

According to Gallup:

• Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota was in the middle on active disengagement, but near the bottom on employee engagement.
• Richmond, Virginia showed a low percentage of actively disengaged workers, but not among the top 10 in engagement.
• San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas, had the highest level of engagement, but was not among the 10 lowest on active disengagement.

Gallup attributes the wide range of engagement levels to multiple factors, namely economic measures such as unemployment and underemployment. Metro areas with higher employee engagement tend toward having lower unemployment and underemployment.

A good manager is the ticket to developing happy, supportive team members, such as the team culture in the San Antonio - New Braunfels workforce. At least 70 percent of the range in staff engagement scores across business units, according to Gallup.

Corporate leaders must support continuous improvement by giving managers the flexibility and freedom to support engaged work teams. Many teams attribute the growth of the team building industry to the growing awareness that happy employees lead to profits in the end.

Our Event Site Near Phoenix

Bring a red cape just in case. This is a typical day at Venture Up's event site near Phoenix. Here's a drone video of a people-free day in the wilderness. If you and your team come out, we an make a cool drone video!

The Petting Zoo at our Arizona Team Building Event site.

Why go to Spain when you can run with the bulls at our team event site in the Superstition Mountains near Phoenix?

Repurposing the car's sun visor at Dog Beach, Ocean Beach in San Diego.