When I travel, which is somewhat frequently, I often have a house sitter to care for my cat and dogs when they are not traveling with me. I have several different people to call upon depending on when I am traveling and which of my animals will need to be cared for. One of the other duties I ask of my house sitters, besides checking the mail, is to water the various plants in my greenhouse.

Now, I don’t claim to have a green thumb but I am much better at keeping my plants alive than I was in the past. I have herbs, vegetables, and flowers growing together in my greenhouse. Lately, though, my plants have been larger and healthier than ever. In looking for the source, as I haven’t changed my routines, I concluded that it was because I was traveling. Someone besides me was giving my plants the attention that they needed, perhaps even more than I normally would when I am there. This experience is what I would like to term the Greenhouse Effect.

Editor’s note: Jennifer Brigham’s article was the 5th most popular article on The Fordyce Letter in 2011. It originally ran in January.

The last two years have really proven challenging to any staffing firm, let alone a small, two-office firm specializing in worker bees—the entry-level workers that are often the first to be let go in a downturn. As our clients experienced layoff after layoff (starting with our temporary workforce), we were forced to do our own layoffs, trimming our staff from a dozen people to four. How could we not only survive, but thrive, in this downturn? This question—how to make “lemonade” out of the lemons that this economy was dealing out—was critical. And the reality and gravity of the situation really forced us to evaluate who we were—our values, our brand, our essence. We discovered some interesting things.