By Shera Dalin
What St. Louis Companies Offer to Attract and Keep Good People
As competition stiffens to attract, keep and motivate talented employees, some St. Louis companies are becoming more creative in the array of benefits they offer.
Among the most unusual benefits packages are those conceived of and offered by Maritz Inc. The employee motivation and travel firm delivers incentive plans for its clients and offers a unique battery of rewards for its own workers.
“Employing, engaging and retaining top talent is the
No. 1 issue of human resources,” says Melissa Van Dyke,
a consultant in Maritz’s employee engagement practice. “We help organizations understand what keeps employees around in their organizations and industry. A lack of recognition, alignment, manager quality, and learning and
development are what causes employees to defect, according to our research.”
Maritz works with clients to create management improvement systems and reward programs based specifically on what employees are interested in.
With younger workers, the so-called Generation X and Generation Y, a traditional command-and-control management system will fail to motivate employees as much as a more collaborative approach will, Van Dyke says.
“The Boomers came up with command-and-control, and that’s what they are often more comfortable with. But they want to know what a collaborative style looks like,” Van Dyke explains. “It looks like meeting with the employee
to find out ‘What barriers are in place that kept you from meeting that goal? How can I help you meet that?’”
Maritz’s rewards programs, which can range in cost to clients from $10,000 to millions of dollars, offer a broad array of entertainment, goods, company-logo merchandise, services and more to keep employees motivated. Employees earn points toward rewards for anything from sticking
with a wellness program’s diet or exercise program, smoking cessation or sales.
The rewards can be as simple as a music CD, or as unusual as a pedigreed poodle. Maritz’s own program awarded nine poodles last year and is offering American Quarter Horses this year to employees who select that reward and are accepted by the breeding organization as responsible owners.
“You have to understand who your workforce is and what motivates them based on their lifestyles,” Van Dyke explains.
— BKD —
Accounting firm BKD, which is headquartered in Springfield, Mo., recently enriched its benefits package after an internal task force solicited ideas from employees on how to keep them in the fold. BKD accountants travel about 25 percent of the time and such wear and tear leads employees to leave for other firms that require little or no travel, says BKD recruiting manager Joe Thompson.
The new benefits include a $50 per day in travel pay, a four-day work week for employees who pack 40 hours of work into that span and a coaching program that pairs partners or managers with newer employees to help them navigate the company and work.
“There is an accounting shortage and the competition for accountants is high. We had to ask ourselves what can we do better as a firm. That’s where the whole people first initiative came from,” Thompson says. “If we don’t put our people first, the whole system breaks down.”
BKD’s new package hasn’t been in place long enough to produce data about employee retention, Thompson says. But employees tell managers that they like what they are seeing.
“I’ve gotten tremendous feedback,” he says. “It’s gone over real well.”
— Booksource —
Along with a lunch bag and briefcase, administrative employees at Booksource Inc. can bring their babies to the office with them. Booksource has allowed employees to bring their infants age six months and younger into the office for the last decade. Employees appreciate the policy and the trade book distributor gets happier and more productive workers, says President Neil Jaffe.
“It’s just a policy that makes a lot of sense and it works out well for us and for the parent,” he says.
Booksource Purchasing Manager Cheryl Dickemper brings her daughter Charlotte, four months, to work and can be seen
walking the halls and chatting with employees with the smiling baby in her arms.
Over the years, about 10 babies have come to work at Booksource. And when they pass the six-month mark, Booksource subsidizes the employees’ daycare costs.
“If you treat your employees right, they’ll treat the business right,” Jaffe says.
— S2Tech —
Even small firms are finding creative ways to recruit employees. Chesterfield information technology firm S2Tech fights hard to attract excellent employees in its super-competitive field. The 150-employee firm, which has a development center in India, gives new recruits a welcome packet that includes two Stephen Covey books, company-logo mugs and merchandise, and cookies or candy to signify the beginning of a sweet relationship, says recruiting manager Srinivas Tutika.
“It’s just to show that we care, we welcome you into our family and to offer them something as if they walked into our homes and we would offer them tea,” Tutika says.
About a year ago, S2Tech also launched an employee recognition program that rewards workers for “delighting clients” in a variety of areas. Employees can choose from a varied selection of rewards.
To retain U.S.-based employees who want to return to work in India, S2Tech will accommodate their requests and help them move back home.
To further strengthen their ties to the firm, S2Tech created a “Fortune Fund” that benefits charitable causes employees nominate. S2Tech matches employee contributions
100 percent to initiatives, such as a mentoring program for Indian schoolchildren, or installing computers in a needy U.S. school.
— Nestlé Purina —
Ever wish you could bring your dog to work? At Nestlé Purina, it’s an everyday occurrence. Employees are allowed to bring their dogs or cats to work, as long as the pets don’t wander freely and are well behaved.
“Bringing your pets to work really creates a fun laid-back atmosphere here. Everybody has stressful days at work and it helps to have a tail wagging in your office,” explains Brook Lashley, manager of sourcing strategies in the pet food maker’s human resources department. “We also have a lot of people who don’t own pets and they can get their fur fix here.”
Pets on the job is just one of the uncommon benefits Nestlé Purina employees enjoy. There is also job sharing, flexible schedules, free parking (including for nearby sporting events), an onsite gym, daycare, massage therapist, dietician, personal trainer, Weight Watchers’ meetings, and a company store. Alongside the discounted Purina pet foods, the store also stocks greeting cards, movies to rent, sporting/music/entertainment tickets and essentials. The campus also offers services such as tailoring, dry cleaning, watch repair and license plate renewals.
The benefits are an effort to provide employees a higher quality of life and make Nestlé Purina more attractive in an increasingly competitive employee market. Recently, the company launched an employment branding initiative aimed at recruits from Generation X (those born between 1960 and 1980) and Y (those born after 1980).
“Our hiring is up dramatically,” says Mel Kohr, director of talent sourcing. “When we do make an offer, particularly in the case of college grads, it is highly competitive.”
Nestlé Purina highlights its work-life balance benefits, as well as a culture that values individual contributions.
“Particularly with Generation Y, they like a balance in life, being closer to family and
a company with a social consciousness,” Kohr says.
“Total compensation was very low on the list,” Lashley adds. “They are interested in how much the company is investing in them and how much of an impact they will have coming in. They want to be heard by their managers and they want to know they will be listened to when they give an idea. Fortunately, our environment and what we had to offer was a really good match.” |
