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WORKPLACE
Team building can help others

Companies increase morale by encouraging philanthropy at work

By Darrell Smith
McClatchy Newspapers

Published on Monday, Apr 07, 2008

Chris Sharman did a couple of unexpected things at a team-building workshop with 44 of his co-workers from the data storage firm Xyratex in Sacramento, Calif. First, he built a prosthetic hand and placed it in a wooden gift box that he and his teammates decorated.

Then, after he saw a brief slide show about the landmine victims all around the world waiting to receive the device, he brushed away a tear.

Eschewing the rope climbs and trust falls that have long been the traditional exercises at such retreats, Xyratex, based in the United Kingdom, and other companies choose to cement team bonds by giving employees a project with a higher purpose.

''We figured out what it was for fairly early,'' said Sharman, a Xyratex vice president, who had safely stowed the prosthesis he helped build under his chair. But that didn't lessen the impact, he said. ''It pales into insignificance, your problems.''

''Philanthropic team building'' it's called, and Xyratex sought out a Chico, Calif.-based firm that has designed and facilitated team-building experiences like this one for the better part of two decades. Known as Odyssey, it helps employees and managers work better together while helping the larger community in a ''mix of inspiration and practical philanthropy.''

The Xyratex employees who came to Sacramento's Le Rivage hotel from around the world last month worked together to build not only prosthetic hands but also bikes that they donated on the


spot to nine smiling children from Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Sacramento. ''We've tapped into the humanity of business,'' said Lain Hensley, co-founder and chief operating officer of Odyssey. '' . . . You don't have to quit your job and join the Peace Corps.''

Utilizing firms from team bonding, with its twin homes in Boston and San Diego, to Team Building Unlimited in Oakland, Calif., to Repario of Lake Tahoe, Nev., more companies are fusing corporate team building with good works.

''It's not just the trick du jour anymore,'' said Danika Davis, chief executive officer of the San Francisco-based Northern California Human Resources Association. '' . . . Any time you add meaning, it's going to have an impact and drive the message home.''

The emphasis on good works might even be part of a larger trend in corporate giving. Harold McGraw III, president and chief executive officer of the McGraw-Hill Cos. and chairman of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, discussed the evolution in the committee's 2007 review.

McGraw said the New York-based forum of corporate leaders now spearheads ''holistic philanthropy'' which, in part, ''taps into the tremendous desire of employees to participate through their volunteerism.''

Odyssey's programs are a natural fit for Xyratex, which has focused on charitable giving to children who live near their sites in Malaysia, Europe and the United States throughout its 13-year history.

Todd Gresham, a Xyratex executive vice president, has seen the program's effects on his people.

''The IT industry has a unique culture. Many came from venture-backed organizations, and this type of (exercise) tears down walls of intellectual prowess or macho success,'' Gresham said. ''You see people who are very powerful in the industry broken down to their rawest levels of emotion.''

It works on a number of levels, said Dwight Burlingame, associate executive director of the Indianapolis-based Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, a leading center on giving.

Many companies use this approach to increase morale, give employees a greater and clearer sense of purpose and develop a stronger understanding of the company's mission, Burlingame said.

''Firms are focusing in on how they can use community involvement programs to increase pride within their companies and increase morale,'' he said. ''To be working for a company where you have that opportunity to build team pride in a business, that can provide another factor in the sense of engagement with the employer.''

Xyratex employees produce data storage technology that has been embedded in systems for machinery as diverse as the space shuttle and GE Healthcare's mammography equipment, Gresham said.

''The person you're building that for could be your wife or your daughter,'' Gresham said. ''It brings home that (the customer) is not just buying sheet metal and software.''

Chris Sharman did a couple of unexpected things at a team-building workshop with 44 of his co-workers from the data storage firm Xyratex in Sacramento, Calif. First, he built a prosthetic hand and placed it in a wooden gift box that he and his teammates decorated.

Get the full article here.


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