Available Now!
Coming January 2013
Joining the Great Workplace
Revolution
Author
Tom Klobucher
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Thomas S. Klobucher
476 Brighton Drive, Bloomingdale, IL 60108
630-671-4235 (phone); 630-980-4243 (fax)
[email protected]
CEOs, Beware: 60% of the American Workforce
Is Unhappy and Looking for a Great (New) Place to Work
The Great Workplace Revolution provides the tools businesses need to create
great places to work while helping leaders understand how to accommodate
the growing reality of multiple generations working side by side
in the workplace
The Great
Workplace
Revolution
By Thomas S.
Klobucher
Nextis Press
Nonfiction; $24.95
Available at
www.amazon.com
www.thegreatworkplacer
evolution.com
For more information or to
contact the author for
media commentary, email
[email protected]
“Companies become great from the inside out. It all starts with creating the right
culture and environment, and Tom Klobucher shows us how. Required reading for
anyone who wants to hire the best and keep them.” ~Shep Hyken, New York
Times’ bestselling author of The Amazement Revolution
Changes are coming to the workplace, and savvy leaders are actively working to
prepare for them. With studies showing that a good 60% of the American workforce
is unhappy at work and looking for a new job, leaders have an opportunity and an
imperative: if they wish to attract and retain the best workers, they are going to have
to address the reasons why employees are unhappy.
In his new book The Great Workplace Revolution, the two-time winner of the Top
Twenty Best Places to Work in Illinois offers twelve essential strategies for creating
great places to work. Part and parcel with this, Thomas S. Klobucher addresses the
new reality of multiple generations working side by side and the unique challenges
and opportunities this situation presents.
Soon, Mr. Klobucher notes, five generations of knowledge workers will be pooling
their talents, and it is a dire mistake to treat these generations as identical.
Consequently, The Great Workplace Revolution also teaches business owners and
CEOs how to leverage the strengths of each generation while consistently staying
ahead of the competition.
Mr. Klobucher comments, “Complacency is not an option. The workplace,
demographic, and social changes coming in the next ten years are going to make
this decade very exciting for CEOs, presidents, and company founders. The Great
Workplace Revolution offers the tools these individuals need to make sure their
employees are happy and their companies thrive.”
For more information, email Thomas at [email protected] or visit
www.thegreatworkplacerevolution.com.
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Author: Thomas S. Klobucher is the future-based entrepreneur and CEO of Thomas
Interior Systems, Inc., a Chicago-area office planning and furnishings firm that he
founded in 1977 with the corporate vision to “Improve the Office Work
Environment.” As a two time winner of the Top Twenty Best Places to Work in
Illinois, the Thomas Team has assisted well over 20,000 organizations throughout
the Chicago area and the Midwest in improving their office work environments by
helping them create great places to work.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Thomas S. Klobucher
476 Brighton Drive, Bloomingdale, IL 60108
630-671-4235 (phone); 630-980-4243 (fax)
[email protected]
CEOs, Beware: 60% to 80% of the American Workforce
is Unhappy and Looking for a Great (New) Place to Work
The Great Workplace Transformation provides the tools businesses need to create
great places to work while helping leaders understand how to accommodate the
growing reality of multiple generations working side by side in the workplace.
The Great
Workplace
Transformation
“Companies become great from the inside out. It all starts with creating the right
culture and environment, and Tom Klobucher shows us how. Required reading for
anyone who wants to hire the best and keep them.” ~Shep Hyken, New York
Times’ bestselling author of The Amazement Revolution
What is the secret to success in creating A Great Place To Work?
By Thomas S.
Klobucher
Nextis Press
Fiction; $24.95
Available:
January 2013
For more information or to
contact the author for
media commentary, email
[email protected]
Tom Klobucher answers that critical question in his new book, The Great Workplace
Transformation. Written in his distinctive “serial entrepreneurial” style, this
accessible “once upon a time: learning fable shows exactly how any organization can
build WOW into the workplace, improve internal communication, win market
share… and live happily ever after.
The practical, hands-on sequel to Klobucher’s highly regarded The Great Workplace
Revolution shows leaders, front-line employees, and everyone in the between how to
wage “a revolution where everybody wins.”
Experts tell us that the creeping dissatisfaction and dysfunction in the American
workforce has swelled to an alarming 60 to 80%! These workers are unhappy and
ready to jump ship.
At the same time, organizations are beginning to feel the upsurge of a soon to be
robust economy, and a huge demand for the most creative knowledge workers.
The Great Workplace Transformation will help you “fast track your organization into
a truly great place to work… help you hire and retain the most, creative, loyal, and
growth-driven employees… and transform your workplace into a powerhouse that
thrives during the most challenging and exciting multi-generational decade in history.
For more information, email Tom at [email protected] or visit
www.thegreatworkplacerevolution.com.
Author: Thomas S. Klobucher is the future-based entrepreneur and CEO of Thomas
Interior Systems, Inc., a Chicago-area office planning and furnishings firm that he
founded in 1977 with the corporate vision to “Improve the Office Work
Environment.” As a three-time winner of the Top Twenty Best Places to Work in
Illinois, the Thomas Team has assisted well over 20,000 organizations throughout the
Chicago area and the Midwest in improving their office work environments by
helping them create great places to work.
Tailoring Your Workplace to Attract and Retain
The Very Best People
The
Great
Workplace
Revolution
Twelve Essential Strategies
For Creating a Great Place to Work
By Thomas S. Klobucher
An Executive Summary
“The Great Workplace Revolution”
By Thomas S. Klobucher
Publication Date: January of 2012
A Great Place to Work is made up of many characteristics and personalities. Some have to
do with the physical place, furnishings and décor, but most of the high impact elements
center around the human interaction components that are more complex and dynamic.
The following is a summary of just a few of these important elements.
The 21st Century knowledge worker is awash in a changing landscape, consisting of five
very different generations of people working side by side. These workers are surrounded
by economic, social, political and of course, generational changes.
The book The Great Workplace Revolution, which was published in 2012, provides a
detailed roadmap for navigating through the next decade, which will be some of the most
exciting years in recent history.
THE FIVE WORKPLACE GENERATIONS
As the economy improves, competition for the most creative workers (the ones that everybody
wants) will become more demanding then ever. These innovative knowledge workers will
determine the fates of whole companies – and whole industries! Regardless of what is
happening in the rest of the job market, these workers will always have attractive options before
them. The questions is … will you be ready to do what it takes to attract and retain them?
To do that, you must move beyond some conventional assumptions about the design, look and
feel of your workplace. For most of our history, workplace designers have assumed that all or
most organizations and employees are essentially identical. Designing a working space for one
person in a given department meant designing the workplace for the entire department. This
book, as I have said, charts a very different approach: one of tailoring the workplace to the needs
of the knowledge workers.
If you think the idea of matching tools and workspaces to individual employee needs sounds
troublesome, expensive, or time consuming, you are certainly not alone. Yet, before you opt to
make the same decisions (and get the same results) that most organizations do when addressing
these questions, consider the AGES of the various people who now work for your organization
by conducting a workplace generational survey.
If your company is like most of those we work with, there are no fewer then four distinct
generations operating in your workplace at the same time. Each of these four generations has its
own priorities, its own distinct world view, its own communication preferences and its own
attitudes towards technology. Also a fifth generation is now preparing to enter the workforce,
making for unprecedented generational diversity in the workplace, starting around the year 2020.
If you, like me, are planning to be a part of the workforce in that year, it is up to you to learn the
workplace languages of the five very different demographic groups. All of us, regardless of our
age, now have a remarkable and unprecedented, “cross-pollination” opportunity to interact with
FIVE working generations at the same time, each speaking its own distinctive language and each
having unique needs and work styles.
Treating these five groups and identical as you plan or upgrade your organizations workspaces
would be a major strategic mistake, one that can cost you and your enterprise dearly in terms of
employee attraction, retention, productivity, and competitive advantage.

As a starting point in any discussion about workplace planning, you should know which
of the following groups any given employee on your team belongs to.
TRADITIONALIST (born before 1946): These workers – many of whom are working into
their seventies and eighties – lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean
War. Their primary values are DEPENDABILITY and SACRIFICE. They are willing to put
aside individual goals and aspirations for the good of the group. They are big on discipline, team
play and respect for authority. They tend to be conservative or even pessimistic, and strive to
think long term. They are the most resistant of the five generations to new forms of
communication technology. To work effectively with Traditionalist, you should be prepared
to appeal to the common good.
BABY BOOMERS (1946-1964): This large group includes most of the major decision makers
who will be “calling the shots” between now and 2030. Their primary values are to
CHALLENGE LIMITS and QUESTION EVERYTHING. They are willing to confront
authority when circumstances require, and they tend to have a stronger sense of social
responsibility and reform then the Traditionalists. They are, as a rule, profoundly optimistic and
willing to believe that any worthy goal can achieved. They’re generally less formal than
Traditionalist, and more likely to focus on their own individual career goals then on team
initiatives. They are generally receptive to new communication technologies, although they did
not grow up in a “wired” environment, and may even be perceived as “out of touch” in
comparison with younger workers in relation to certain technologies. The Baby Boomers like
the Traditionalists are often seen by younger workers as “digital immigrants” because they did
not grow up speaking the language of the digital world. To offer only the most obvious
examples, many Baby Boomers (like the majority of Traditionalist) took their time embracing
twenty-first century social media forums. A few Boomers are still holding out against this
powerful medium, which is second nature to younger workers. To work effectively with Baby
Boomers, you should be prepared to identify a new and exciting goal that has not been
attained before.
GENERATION X (1965-1976): More cynical than any of the other four groups, these workers
are likely to have little or no initial loyalty to the company they work for. Their primary value is
INDEPENDENCE. More than any other modern generation, their world is likely to be built
around the concept of “looking out for number one.” They expect to change jobs frequently and
are deeply wary of promises made by authority figures. They are comfortable with multiple
communication technologies, and they adapt to new media platforms fairly easily. In any
situation, they likely want to know “what’s in it for me?” They are much more interested in
short-term outcomes then in long-term outcomes. To work effectively with members of this
group, you must be able to prove to each individual Gen-Xer that you are worth his/her
valuable time, attention and/or money.
Millennials (1977-1997): The Millennials are well educated (roughly 60% are college
graduates). Their primary values are FUN and CONNECTION). Many of them received
significantly more parental attention and support in their youth than the Generation X workers
did. This generation grew up with computer games, cell phones, and World Wide Web. They
are not just comfortable with communications technology; communitcation technology is an
important part of their identity. They are tolerant, energetic, and demanding. They have
extremely short attention spans, thrive on visuals, prefer collaborative give-and-take to long
lectures, and expect to see results more or less instantly. Millennials will make up roughly 50%
of the workforce in the year 2020, which means that ignoring their priorities and communication
preferences is a big, and potentially fatal mistake for any business interested in retaining the most
creative people. To work effectively with them, you must be prepared to entertain them and
provide social stimulation because their whole life is about having fun and interacting with
others.
And…. Coming soon….
GENERATION 2020. This highly educated generation, born around or shortly before the year
2000, will enter the workforce by the end of the present decade, during a period when many
Traditionalist will likely still be quite active. Analysts are still working out what to expect from
this group. Words being used now to describe their values include:




Connected. Expect this group to be even more “wired” then the Millennials, because
their entire lives have been spent under the powerful influence of the Internet, on-line
video games, social media, and virtual worlds like Second Life. As you read these
words, they are updating their Facebook statuses.
Concerned. Members of Generation 2020 appear to be the most sensitive of all the five
groups to environmental problems and related social issues.
Careful. The recommendations of peers will carry enormous weight with this group.
Expect these workers to think twice before making big purchase decisions. Unlike the
Millennials, they are coming of age during a time of economic austerity. They are likely
to seek value and be much more cautious with economic and career decisions, and thus
share some important values with Traditionalists.
Collaborative. Like the Millennials, they are likely to be quite comfortable with
collaborative endeavors, either fact-to-face or virtual.
To work effectively with these young workers, you will have to be prepared to understand,
and become part of, their network.
You’ve now met the five workplace generations with whom each and every organization must
come to terms if it intends to be competitive in the coming years. To retain the best, most
creative, most mission-critical workers within each of these groups, you must be willing to tailor
your workspace in five different ways at the same time. Fortunately, this is easier, and more
enjoyable, than it sounds! We will share more ideas on how to do this in the book.
Twelve Essential Strategies for Creating a Great Place to Work
1. Core Values:
Identifying the organizations’ core values, and talking about those values frequently with
customers and employees. These are the customer-focused values you will hire
employees for … and fire employees for, if they consistently deviate from those values.
2. Creative Work Place:
Designing and refining a creative work space. This attracts and retains creative problems
solvers and people who care.
3. Human Resource Right Fit:
Putting the right person in the right job. Kolbe.com personality test can be a great
resource for this.
4. Understanding your employees:
Giving constant attention and understanding of the needs of the whole employee. Being
intentional about learning their hopes and future career aspirations. The result: Greater
buy-in to the mission, deeper loyalty, and more intense commitment to the Customer.
Other needs could include: flex time, shift swapping and extended leave when necessary.
5. Awards and Recognition:
Building public recognition for a job well done into the culture. Thank you cards and emails for colleagues (as well as for customers and vendors) need to become a part of
daily life. These should reflect authentic gratitude for any and every job well done.
“Most Valuable Player” Awards promote an “all crew and no passenger” workplace
philosophy, which ultimately serves the customer.
6. Collaborative Environment:
Supporting a truly collaborative workplace, both physically and emotionally. This kind
of workplace design and interpersonal support promotes: problem solving, quality
improvement, brainstorming, think tanks, and effective post-mortems when a project
concludes.
7. Director of Fun:
Appointing someone Director of Fun. Whether it’s a full-time position or an addition to
someone’s current list of responsibilities isn’t as important as whether your team
members see, and experience first-hand, the positive experience they are supposed to
deliver to the customer. Find new reasons to celebrate and new ways to enhance
enjoyment of the job!
8. Creative after-work events:
Creative after-work events that involve direct personal contact with customers. These
kinds of events amount to a fun, collaborative team effort that improves all aspects of
customer service. Bulls, Hawks, Cubs and Kane County Cougar games, as well as small
group activities like golf, table games and picnics.
9. Community Service Events:
Giving something back to the community. Doing this as a group improves team
cohesion, gives you a great P.R. opportunity, and helps customers understand your
values. Helping out with local homeless support groups, food pantries, PADS and
adopting a needy family each Holiday Season.
10. A Healthy Ergonomics Workplace:
Ensuring that each employee’s work space make good ergonomic sense. This reduces
stress, improves morale, and improves the quality of our interactions with customers (and
everyone else)!
11. A Learning Organization:
Investing in ongoing education and personal development for all employees. This pays
off for everyone. Thomas University, Learning vs. Training.
12. Employee Feedback and Evaluation:
Giving employees regular feedback. Recommended evaluation/review time: Every six
months. Evaluate them against your organization’s core value first, and against
performance metrics second.
2012 TGWR, Executive Reports
All rights reserved
Thomas Interior Systems, Inc.
476 Brighton Drive
Bloomingdale, IL 60108
630-980-4200
www.thomasinterior.com
www.thegreatworkplacerevolution.com