Picture This

 

At Cincinnati-based Kendle International, the company's headquarters feature a special kind of art -- photos of employees. The pictures, which were originally part of an ad campaign, feature employees posing happily with symbols of their favorite activities, from scuba gear to grandchildren. Chairman and CEO Candace Kendle found that displaying the photos not only boosted morale and a sense of belonging among employees, it also made the company more inviting to prospective hires.

"By recognizing the lives of our employees outside the workplace, we recognize our workers as people," says Kendle, whose company grew explosively from 288 employees in 1997 to 1,089 as of spring 1999. This contract research organization, which serves the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, is in the process of sharing the concept of a workers' photo gallery with its other offices in the United States and around the world.

Another entrepreneur, Herb Kelleher, cofounder of Southwest Airlines, also believes in the power of pictures. "In the hallways of our headquarters, we have photos of our employees -- about 1,500 pictures of our people engaged in various activities, being honored, given awards," says Kelleher. "Those pictures show that we're interested not in potted palms or in Chinese art but in our people."

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