(CNN) -- They've got it all: Free food, fitness
facilities, massage rooms, hair dressers, laundry rooms and on-site
doctors. Are they Hollywood celebrities?
No, they're Google employees in Mountain View, south of San
Francisco, and if you're an employee here you're encouraged to spend 20%
of your time on a project of your choosing. It's no surprise Google
places fourth on the U.S. Fortune '100 Best Companies to Work For' list.
First place belongs to SAS, the world's largest privately held
software company which offers free on-site medical care for employees
and their families, low-cost high quality child care, a fitness center,
library, and summer camp for children of employees.
How could this possibly pay off? "It pays off spectacularly," says
Milton Moskowitz, journalist and co-author of the Fortune '100 Best
Companies to Work For' list since its beginning in 1998. "We keep track
of stock market performances of companies on this list, and they are
consistently outperforming other companies," he adds.
You don't need a lot of money to do what Google has done. If you give people freedom, they will amaze you.
Lazlo Bock
The payoff shows up in increased innovation and productivity, low
turnover, low sickness rates, and high employee satisfaction. In a world
warring for increasingly sparse talent, a strong employer image is also
not to be underestimated. "It means you can attract and attain some
amazing people", says Lazlo Bock, senior vice president of people
operations at Google. "People who are exceptional and motivated, and who
are driven beyond a good job and a paycheck."
"Employees matter, and the thought that they just 'turn off their
lights' when they come to work is ridiculous", says Jennifer Mann, vice
president of human resources for SAS. "You are not going to succeed
unless you have a stable workforce. Our voluntary turnover is 4% or less
in an average industry of 22%, and we estimate it is saving the company
hundreds of millions in company turnover."
The approach is a far cry from the 1900s sweatshops of the U.S. So,
what's changed? Perhaps not as much as you might like to think.
The companies on this list are "exceptional," says Moskowitz. "They
are not the norm. We still have a lot of ground to cover, but 25 years
ago it was such a hierarchical business structure and that's changed a
lot."
"The realization that there is a relationship between employee
welfare and productivity is actually not new," says Daniel A. Wren,
author of Evolution of Management Thought. "Henry Ford tried a workers'
welfare program to deal with high turnover, even paying people $5 a day
at a time when that was unheard of. Others have tried similar programs.
But, we've come a long way since the backbreaking work of the 1920s.
Workers today are smarter, more skilled, more demanding. They want
different things."
Research by the Great Place to Work Institute, co-publisher of the
Fortune annual list, shows us that today's employees really do want
different things - and it is not in their paychecks. Their work with
more than ten million employees worldwide reveals that what people want
is: Trust in leadership and each other, pride in their work, enjoyment
of the people they work with, and fairness and transparency; all things
that companies like Google and SAS seem to do well. The key to making
this approach successful, they say, is a sincere focus on employee
wellbeing.
"A lot of companies think, they can fix just one thing, says Mann,
who through SAS also works with companies globally to help them create
better work environments, "They think that if they add a healthcare
centre then that will do. But it's a much bigger picture."
Bock agrees, "The important thing to note is that you don't need a
lot of money to do what Google has done. If you give people freedom,
they will amaze you."
So, how can you begin to reap the benefits of a happy staff?
Simple, says Moskowitz: "Sit down and talk with your employees. Ask them what they want."
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