Fortune magazine just came out with their annual list of the 100 best companies to work for. In the interactive presentation you can sort by components of the evaluation like “best” benefits, pay, growth in the number of jobs, turnover, % minorities and % women. These are all important things to consider when choosing a job, but I’m left wondering.
I’m left wondering why questions like “is this place a meritocracy?” or “does this company pay for performance?” or “what’s my chance of being promoted here?” or “how many jerk managers work at this place?” get lost.
While perks like free basketball games (Quicken Loans) or grocery delivery (Microsoft) or on-site laundry (Google) are great – studies have shown that they aren’t the most critical components of job satisfaction. So I’m left wondering – is this really a list of the best companies to work for?
January 9th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Being an HR professional, I have certainly pondered on this issue myself. The categories used in Fortune’s list are so popular because they are measurable and can be validated objectively (well, nearly).
However, as you have eluded to, the “best” employers to work for are the ones that consider those other areas that are not easy to measure, let alone correct. While benefits and great pay may attract one to an employer, at the end of the day it is the way they are treated that determines if they choose to stay. One best practice I always give to new managers is “find out what your employees value, and use that as a basis for determining rewards”. Not everyone cares about basketball games or laundry service over recognition (and compensation) for their unique and valuable contributions.
Great blog subject!
- Cherisse
January 11th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Getting rewarded as fortune Best company to work with means alot. Definitely pay factor is important but then there are other things one looks at and because of which an emplyee sticks to that company. And i strongly feel work environment and your boss’s behaviour towards you makes a huge difference.
January 11th, 2007 at 7:20 am
How come you didn’t accept my comment? I wasn’t trying to SPAM you. You asked a question and I answered it, didn’t I?
January 12th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Max, you have opened an inquiry here to learn from rather than a simple question with a black and white answer.
In fact, I would love to open a conversation that digs deeply into this.
Most people are not aware that my association began with HR, because I was a operations leader and in the practice that I worked, I created intentionally a seasonal challenge each year where I would replace 25% of my staff who returned to school full-time to become clinicians or go on for MBA or MPH programs. I had to personally attend to the recruitment and training at that time of year (July-August) to assure hiring because HR never met my demand, even though I designed it by intention.
In this process,I would intentionally select each year the top 2% of performers in my department(s) to develop on to a leadership track. By the time I left for my first maternity leave I had 12 talent to cover all my efforts and work and I returned after my daughter was born to a job of “chief learner” for the benefit of the health care organization in which I work.
While developing my course on the Shape and Substance of Social Networks, and beginning to really pay attention to the research of
Huselid and Pfeffer, I really began to take note, how mechanical HR is with respect to compensation and hiring and identifying talent and what some call MVP’s. (Most Valuable Players).
It is my belief that anyone within a network and perspective can become a MVP in a context and that social network analysis offers that context which moves us away from seeking talent like they are heroes and heroines.
Then your talent grows out of intentional social network design and you are designing a landscape in which people can learn on the job by learning from each other in a structure of work effectiveness and knowledge.
WorkEcology Thought Leaders,
Art Kleiner and Verna Allee, introduced this kind of strategy at Boeing. David Stroh, Michael Goodman and I are now close to launching http://www.appliedsystemsthinking.com where we will introduce this competence into the mix of WorkEcology. My course on the Shape and Substance of Social Networks is being beta tested this semester at a college in Boston for undergrads. I already tested it with mid career architects through a CEU program at Boston Architectural Center. Content based on this thinking is available to be customized for learning management systems, once an internal champion is trained
to leverage the thinking into practice with people for innovation, culture and change.
Max, the type of rewards you took question with, I call motivational rewards. These are not rewards that really add to the assets of a company and are simply attractors for hiring and keeping people during hard times. They are the icing on a cake. How you cook the cake and how it tastes is where Pay for Performance sits and lives and how the tools you use to lead this thought are best selected.
So if anyone is interested in digging deeply into this kind of thinking, email me.
I’ll begin to think more about how to potentially orchestrate it. Maybe at the next Success Factors client conference.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
An excellent question Max. I have to agree with Cherisse on this one: To be a good company and attract good talent, you have to pay fairly, have good benefits, etc. All the basics. To be a GREAT company, you have to do something exceptional that others don’t do. That’s how you keep your existing employees happy because you keep offering new great stuff (to answer the what have you done for me lately question), but may not attract ALL the top talent. This list helps the top 100 companies attract talent, but the list doesn’t tell you about every little thing they do that isn’t able to be measured.
January 18th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
This is a question that has been debated by professionals around the country. Numerous reports have demonstrated that money is not the key in making people happy. The solution is different for every person from industry to industry.
Maybe the Fortune survey is outdated? There was a time 50 years ago when employees were happy to show up, do their job, and go home. With technology now, do we ever really leave our jobs? To make up for always being connected to work, employees look for perks. This may be company paid lunches, casual work environment, or even flex hours. Technology is changing the world and employees are demaning more from employers because they feel they are entitled to.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Great subject for discussion! Based on my experience, I have seen the employee friendly environment takes over all other aspects. Especially, in India where work environment is still very conventional (not referring to BPOs) in any traditionally managed organization. Respect for employee makes a big difference. Environment should inculcated to VOC (voice of customer or employee). No matter how best policies, systems, compensation any organization have, if it does not respect its employees then no one would like to work for it over a period of time.