{"id":32267,"date":"2010-03-08T09:18:31","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T09:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/blog\/?p=32267"},"modified":"2010-03-05T14:20:53","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T14:20:53","slug":"best-companies-pt-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/best-companies-pt-1\/","title":{"rendered":"“New” Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fortune<\/a><\/p>\n

The February 28th<\/sup> edition of CBS\u2019s popular Sunday Morning<\/em> show led with a profile of SAS, the top shop in this year\u2019s Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For<\/a>.\u00a0 But the title of the story wasn\u2019t \u201cWorkers in Paradise\u201d\u2014it was:\u00a0 \u201cThe Great American Paycheck Squeeze<\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fortune<\/em> explains the choice for first place:<\/p>\n

SAS boasts a laundry list of benefits — high-quality [onsite] child care at $410 a month, 90% coverage of the health insurance premium, unlimited sick days, a medical center staffed by four physicians and 10 nurse practitioners (at no cost to employees), a free 66,000-square-foot fitness center and natatorium, a lending library, and a summer camp for children.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more about the culture (based on “trust between our employees and the company”), the continuity of leadership, the profitability of the company, and so on.\u00a0 But the big deal is obviously the Edenic workplace, which also boasts 40 miles of running trails, a hair salon, three subsidized cafeterias, an onsite massage therapist (of course), and an artist-in-residence program.<\/p>\n

So what could possibly be wrong with this picture?<\/p>\n

As the Sunday Morning<\/em> story observes:\u00a0 \u201cThe reality is, for more and more Americans in these recessionary times, SAS might as well be Disney World.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an inherent discontinuity in the list between what we might call the \u201ccampus\u201d companies, where life is made easy for employees (Intel, Intuit, Genentech, Qualcomm, the list goes on) and the \u201cshirt sleeve\u201d companies, where employees are offered emotional reward in lieu of creature comforts.\u00a0 Stew Leonard\u2019s, Build-a-Bear Workshop, Umpqua Bank and a few others compete mainly on charm\u2014fun at work, family feeling, respect for and from management\u2014plus health care benefits, with few other tangible perks.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a discontinuity between companies where many people might work and those where few need apply.\u00a0 SAS actually did grow jobs last year, by a modest 2%.\u00a0 But the people they hire are for the most part already selected out of the general population by high skill levels.\u00a0 And many of the more applicant-accessible companies on the list had negative job growth, ranging from -2% to more than -20%.\u00a0 Across the board, from FedEx to Zappos, CarMax to Men\u2019s Wearhouse, the job news for non-geniuses was not good.<\/p>\n

So who grew? \u00a0Biggest increases were at the Scooter Store (up 51%) and Smucker\u2019s (up 44%).\u00a0 The \u201cwhy\u201d at Scooter Store seems obvious, given the aging population and the general decline in fitness.\u00a0 As for Smucker\u2019s . . . well, sales have increased 58% since their acquisition of Folger\u2019s in 2008, so effectively they bought a bunch of new jobs.\u00a0 And coffee has turned out to be a great space for expansion, since decreases in disposable income have driven coffee drinkers to brew at home.\u00a0 On the flip side, job growth at Starbucks was -27%.<\/p>\n

More analysis, and some lessons from the list, in Part 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The February 28th edition of CBS\u2019s popular Sunday Morning show led with a profile of SAS, the top shop in this year\u2019s Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.\u00a0 But the title of the story wasn\u2019t \u201cWorkers in Paradise\u201d\u2014it was:\u00a0 \u201cThe Great American Paycheck Squeeze.\u201d Fortune explains the choice for first place: SAS boasts a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,25,6147],"tags":[2931,6231],"class_list":{"0":"post-32267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-best-practices","8":"category-careers","9":"category-featured-careers","10":"tag-corporate-recruiting","11":"tag-fortune-100-best-companies-to-work-for","12":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nBest Companies to Work For<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fortune 100 offers a new list of Best Companies to Work For. 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