The employee benefits and perks at SAS, a privately held business software company in Raleigh, North Carolina, are so many and varied it boggles the imagination. The company’s 300-acre campus houses a gym, weight room, meditation garden, sauna, and Olympic-size swimming pool. It seems unlikely any of the complex’s 4,200 employees would fall ill with such health-building options to choose from, but just in case, there’s a healthcare center with a staff of 56 including four doctors, ten nurses, physical therapists, and a psychologist. All care is free. “We charge you for one thing,” says the health service director, “if you miss your appointment and don’t give us notice. That’s $10.” Free or subsidized programs include Pilates, Zumba, yoga, weight management, smoking cessation, Wii bowling, massage, and aerobics. Two subsidized daycare centers care for 600 children, and there’s a summer camp. Job sharing, telecommuting, and domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples are offered. Employees can get their clothes dry cleaned, car detailed, and income tax return prepared while they work. They can eat in any of three subsidized cafeterias during the day (one has a piano player who takes requests) and grab take-out for the family at day’s end. They can prepare their own snacks in one of the many kitchens. But with free snacks every day, including Krispy Kremes (Fridays) and M&Ms (a long-standing Wednesday tradition), why would they? Jim Goodnight, the company’s only CEO in its 34 years, believes treating employees well is simply good business. Rather than thinking it’s unusual for SAS to be so generous, he wonders why other companies don’t follow suit. And with revenues that have risen every year of the firm’s existence, recently topping $2.3 billion despite the global recession, it appears he’s right. SAS has been one of Fortune’s best companies to work for in each of the last 13 years and recently earned the number-one spot on the list. “Some may think that because SAS is familyfriendly and has great benefits we don’t work hard,” says a communications employee. “But people do work hard here, because they’re motivated to take care of a company that takes care of them.” That sentiment expresses the culture of trust Goodnight has worked to create. “What we don’t do is treat our employees like they’re all, you know, criminals,” says his vice president of human resources. Employee turnover among the 11,000 SAS employees worldwide is 2 percent, well below the industry average, and the company receives about 100 résumés for every open position. (About half its employees work in the United States.) The typical employee works 35 hours per week and many make their own schedules; no one counts sick days. Average tenure is ten years. About 17,000 customers worldwide use SAS data mining software, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, national retailers, banks, insurance and pharmaceutical firms, universities, the Census Bureau, and even professional baseball teams. Goodnight spends much of his time on the road meeting and talking with these clients, though he sometimes admits he would rather be programming. But he’s well aware of where the real value of the company lies, and that’s the reason he’s willing to spend so much on making SAS a great place to work. “My chief assets drive out the gate every day,” he says. “My job is to make sure they come back.”
Questions for Critical Thinking
1. Explain how flexible and family-friendly policies have played a role in SAS’s success.
2. What kind of relationship does SAS seem to have with its employees? With its customers?
Sources:
“100 Best Companies to Work For: #1 SAS,” CNNMoney. com, http://money.cnn.com, accessed February 4, 2010; David A. Kaplan, “SAS: A New No. 1 Best Employer,” CNNMoney.com, January 22, 2010, http://money.cnn.com; Stefan Stern, “A Good Day for Dr. Goodnight and SAS,” Financial Times, January 22, 2010, http://blogs.ft.com; Rick Smith,“ ‘We’re Hiring’ Sign Remains Out at SAS for 2010,” Local Tech Wire, January 21, 2010, http://localtechwire.com.
