Fortune magazine’s most recent edition covers the Top 100 Best Companies to Work For. Not surprisingly, the winner was Google. While few companies (or firms) can even dream about the levels of perks that Google offers, there are some simple things we can do to make our companies better places to work.
The top benefits offered were:
- Health care
- Child care
- Work-life balance
- Telecommuting
- Sabbaticals
- Unusual perks
One look at the average turnover rates and you will see why this is worth thinking about. Plante & Moran, a large, regional CPA firm in Michigan, reports turnover of only 11 percent versus the industry average of 30 percent!
I counted only five CPA firms in the study and two companies in Maryland (IKEA and W.L. Gore). The five firms that made the cut were:
It seems to me that with our severe shortage of staff, we need to focus more efforts in retention and staff satisfaction to keep the good people we have. I can’t help but relate this back to an earlier post I did on leadership, people and culture which talked about the ROI on the small investments made in these “intangibles.”
Another article from the Wall Street Journal about lawyers experiencing the talent crisis is worth reading here. And see Rick Telberg’s blog for a post on this same issue here.
Let us know what makes your company (or firm) a great place to work.