Engineers from Granite
Construction
gathered for posterity
in front of a huge piece of
Caterpillar equipment
In a clip from The Office, the Golden
Globe Awardwinning television comedy from BBC America, regional
manager David Brent, played by Ricky Gervais, tells his
subordinates that a pending merger brings with it some bad news and
some good news. The bad news is, “Some of you will los.0e your
jobs.” The good news is, “I’ve been promoted.” His staff stares at
their manager with a mixture of loathing and disbelief. “You’re
still thinking about the bad news, aren’t you?” he pouts.
One imagines no such scenes play out in the offices of the
firms that make Fortune magazine’s annual list of the 100
Best Companies to Work For. Organizations are chosen for this honor
mostly by contented employees. One great recurring theme of these
workplaces? A sensitivity to employees’ needs for recognition and
bonding.
For this year’s list, 46,526 randomly selected workers from 304
companies filled out a survey called the Great Place to Work Trust
Index, created by the Great Place to Work Institute in San
Francisco. Their answers accounted for two-thirds of the scores,
and information provided by the companies made up the rest.
M&C spoke with planners at six of the corporations
that made the list to find out how they weave the organization’s
culture and philosophy into the employee events they oversee.
Fire and ice
SEI Investments might sound like a stuffy Wall Street
firm; in fact, employees work at a 90-acre campus in Oaks, Pa.
Here, the office floor plan is very fluid, with desks on wheels and
“pythons” (clusters of wiring for computers and phones) hanging
from the ceiling.
“Whole teams can move within an hour; you don’t have to call
anybody for help,” says Caryn Taylor-Lucia, CMP, director of
corporate events for the financial services company.
SEI encourages teams to get to know each other or celebrate a
job well done off-campus, so smaller events like bowling outings
are scattered among Taylor-Lucia’s bigger projects.
One funky companywide celebration is Clean-Up Day, which
includes a competition among the 15 floors for the most Dumpsters
filled. “There are different points for what you turn in, things
like paper, furniture and computer equipment,” says Taylor-Lucia. A
big scoreboard is kept in the cafeteria; employees on the winning
floor get chair massages. The events team picks the cafeteria’s
menu for the day, which is offered free to all employees.
Taylor-Lucia is most fond of planning the company’s holiday
party, an annual black-tie affair at the Pennsylvania Convention
Center in Philadelphia, because it offers great exposure for her
team. Last year’s fire-and-ice theme featured CEO Alfred West
emerging from an ice formation, along with entertainment by
aerialists and fire-eaters. Four years ago, at the turn of the
millennium, many of the tech employees were scheduled to be stuck
in the office on New Year’s Eve, on a Y2K vigil. That year the
holiday party, themed as a New Year’s event a few weeks in advance,
held a countdown at 10:30 p.m.
Taylor-Lucia has been working at SEI for eight years; it’s easy
to see why she says, “I’m never leaving.”
AllStar game
Arbitron, the market research company that rates radio stations, is
another Best Company winner. Maybe that’s partly because Tony
Gochal, the director of event services based at the Columbia, Md.,
campus, spends much of his creative energy each year on the
employee-recognition AllStars conference. For what essentially is
an incentive trip, attendees are chosen by their peers.
Employees nominate their colleagues, describing how the person
meets customer service expectations, increases sales or
demonstrates the company’s values. From 800 eligible candidates,
about 30 are selected for AllStars honors by a committee of the
previous year’s winners.
“It’s not often there’s a repeater, but as we go along, we’re
likely to have more,” says Gochal, who won in 1994, the second year
the AllStars were awarded. “We have a long-tenured employee base,”
he notes. “I’ve been here for 25 years.”
The winners, who get to bring a guest on the trip, are
announced at a companywide meeting in February. This year, Gochal
told the 29 winners they would be traveling to Los Angeles in May,
staying at the Regent Beverly Wilshire.
Winners of the company’s sales awards also take the trip. The
itinerary includes a talk by a Universal Studios executive on the
process of movie-
making, followed by a private tour of the studio and a buffet on
one of the backlot streets; a free spa treatment at the hotel;
lunch at Spago with a speech by chef Wolfgang Puck, and plenty of
free time.
The executive staff tags along, of course. To enhance the
recognition of the AllStars, each of the top brass gets a write-up
and a photograph of the winners. “They make an effort to meet every
AllStar during the trip,” says Gochal.
After the event, Gochal sends out a survey to garner
suggestions for the following year’s trip. Gochal loves handling
the AllStars, “because I get to plan a three-day event that has the
employees smiling and enjoying themselves from the minute they
arrive to their departure.”
All in the family
Helping employees handle work and family is a focus at Robert W.
Baird & Co., an investment firm in Milwaukee. “We get graded on
how well we balance our life at the office and at home,” says Sarah
E. Roethel, assistant vice president and corporate events
planner.
Employee-recognition days are held throughout the year,
including the day everyone gets their annual bonus (which, for a
lucky few, can equal their salary), when breakfast also is offered
to the troops. The entire work force also receives a holiday gift;
last year’s was a popcorn bowl, some mixed popcorn and a gift card
to Blockbuster.
The big gathering for the investment firm is Baird Night at the
Zoo, which has been held for more than 20 years. All employees and
their immediate families are invited to the Milwaukee County Zoo,
which is rented out for the evening. About 2,800 people attended in
2003.
A band featuring a Baird employee gets to entertain at the zoo.
“Last year we had Crazy Man’s Basement, a cover band that also sang
some original songs,” notes Roethel, who has been at the company
for four years but attended Baird Night at the Zoo while growing
up, when her father worked for the company.
Roethel’s favorite internal event to plan is the Study Group
Trip, an incentive program for the financial advisers (and their
guests) who rank numbers 41 to 111 in the company (numbers one
through 40 take the Chairman’s Club Trip). “I get to use my
creativity to its fullest,” she says. “With invitations, amenities,
impeccable destinations, exciting activities and smashing evening
events, there is a world of choices, and I love making them to
accommodate and recognize our financial advisors.”
This year’s study group will travel to the Four Seasons Resort
Aviara, North San Diego. Attendees and their guests will start with
a convertible to tool around in for a day, then spend the evening
at the commissioned officers’ club of Marine Corps Air Station
Miramar, where a karaoke competition is part of the plan. “These
people are very, very competitive,” notes Roethel. “We try to feed
that need.”
A spirit of giving
The inclusive environment at Monsanto in Creve Coeur, Mo.,
is embodied by the company’s joint managers of meeting services,
Kathy Brassil, CMP, and Susie St. Cyr, CMP, who have been working
together as planners for 12 years, the last six at the agriculture
giant. “Susie oversees everything on-site and I oversee everything
off-site,” says Brassil, and they each manage two other
planners.
“Our leadership is very visible to the employees and has very
direct and open lines of communication,” Brassil adds, noting that
regularly scheduled town hall meetings are held by videoconference,
incorporating the global corporation (there are more than 60
Monsanto locations in the United States alone).
Each year, the company conducts a massive United Way campaign
($1 million was raised in 2003). To encourage the entire staff to
make pledges, a kick-off event is held, during which the CEO
speaks, the campaign theme is introduced, people who have benefited
from the charity share their stories and refreshments are served.
Last year, groups that accumulated the most pledges and groups
whose members best met pledge-card deadlines got an afternoon
break, with themed munchies such as Brain Freeze (ice cream and
soda), Hot Dog Daze (hot dogs and soda) and Snack Attack (assorted
junk food and soda) delivered to their area.
Every May, the headquarters campus is opened up to the
surrounding town for Creve Coeur Days, a carnival with games and
rides. “Half a day, the carnival is closed to the public and
becomes a private event for Monsanto employees,” says St. Cyr.
Everybody gets “funny money” to spend at the fair; about 2,000
people attended last year, counting employees, their families and
local retirees.
All employee events at Monsanto include people who ended their
working lives at the company. “We have been asked by upper
management to continue to include them, and to come up with an
event for them alone,” says St. Cyr. For example, at the United Way
kickoff last year, a special luncheon for retirees was held, at
which the CEO and CFO spoke.
Community service
VHA Inc. in Irving, Texas, is a network of healthcare systems,
where big employee meetings are few and far between. In fact, the
annual holiday party is no longer held; instead, monies that once
were earmarked for that event are now used to fund an all-employee
community service event.
Last Sept. 24, about 450 people (two-thirds of those working at
the Irving office plus the company’s senior management) worked with
five groups the Dallas Life Foundation (women’s and homeless
shelters), the Salvation Army, Our Children’s House at Baylor (a
nonprofit children’s hospital), Asford Hall Nursing Home and the
Irving Independent School District at 21 sites, doing everything
from painting and landscaping at an elementary school to holding a
talent contest and ice cream social at the nursing home.
At the end of the day, the spent employees were bused back to
the Omni Mandalay Hotel, across from the corporate offices, for a
laid-back evening of hot dogs and hamburgers outside by the
Mandalay Canal. “It was a time to come together and celebrate what
we had done,” says Sheryl Kolb, CMP, events planning manager, who
coordinated the buses, the T-shirts and box lunches.
“We accomplished so much,” adds Kolb. “A courtyard at an
elementary school was all overgrown. In a matter of four hours, a
group of 40 people transformed it, putting in a new flower
bed.”
VHA will hold a similar event this year, looking for
organizations that will be able to put larger groups to work. “Last
year’s groups ranged from 10 to 70 people; we’re trying to find
sites that could take a couple of hundred,” says Kolb. This year,
the company’s regional offices will do similar projects in their
communities to help them feel more tied to the corporate
headquarters.
Kolb also finds fulfillment planning the quarterly
service-recognition lunches that honor employees who have reached
five-year marks with VHA and its affiliates, Novation and HPPI
(both health-care supply-chain companies). “In 2001, we made major
changes to the format of this meeting based on employee feedback,”
she says. Before, the recipients were asked to stand in front of
the whole company while their managers talked about their
contributions to VHA. But many people didn’t feel comfortable
standing before a group, to the point of dreading their anniversary
date. Now, those who have reached the milestone and their immediate
supervisors join the senior management team for lunch at the Omni.
They get to choose a gift from a catalog of varied items such as
jewelry, bicycles and appliances.
“The response to these changes has been overwhelmingly
positive,” says Kolb, who will celebrate her own first five-year
anniversary in January 2005.
On-the-job training
Infrastructure is the job and the core philosophy of
Granite Construction Inc. The company builds bridges, highways,
power plants and dams (and the occasional home driveway, too). To
shore up employees, the company emphasizes training that goes
beyond the classroom to working on actual jobs.
For example, using the Green Valley, Ariz., training ground of
partner Caterpillar Inc., 60 project engineers chosen by their area
managers come together each year to learn how to manage, maintain
and repair the equipment used on the big jobs. It’s sweaty work for
people whose day jobs require them to be liaisons between the
customer hiring Granite and the workers out in the field.
“For this weeklong event, the engineers operate equipment they
don’t usually touch,” says Charlotte Patterson, CMP, the
Watsonville, Calif., company’s corporate meeting planner. “They do
an actual job that Caterpillar has for us as part of the
partnership, and they maintain the equipment at the end of the
day.”
The engineers love the event, she says, and are eager to attend
when they are chosen. Upon arrival, they are broken into eight
groups, staying together throughout the week, planning their
projects, dining together and doing homework. They’re deliberately
put with people they’ve never met before. “I’ve seen a lot of these
guys build relationships with each other that last for a long
time,” says Patterson. The final-night dinner is a program
graduation, followed by a casual Southwestern barbecue.
“The one thing I’ve noticed over the years is the individual
pride we have working at Granite,” says Patterson, a 26-year
veteran of the company. “We have generations working here. We have
fathers and sons and daughters, husbands and wives.”