Every year, the Great Places to Work Institute analyzes comments from thousands of employees and compiles a list of “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America®,” which is published in Fortune magazine. Having compiled its list for more than 20 years, the institute concludes that the defining characteristic of a great company to work for is trust between managers and employees. Employees overwhelmingly say that they want to work at a place where employees “trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with.”^[1] They report that they’re motivated to perform well because they’re challenged, respected, treated fairly, and appreciated. They take pride in what they do, are made to feel that they make a difference, and are given opportunities for advancement.^[2] The most effective motivators, it would seem, are closely aligned with Maslow’s higher-level needs and Herzberg’s motivating factors. The top ten companies are listed in Figure 10.8.

Job Redesign

The average employee spends more than 2,000 hours a year at work. If the job is tedious, unpleasant, or otherwise unfulfilling, the employee probably won’t be motivated to perform at a very high level. Many companies practice a policy of job redesign to make jobs more interesting and challenging. Common strategies include job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment.

Job Rotation

Specialization promotes efficiency because workers get very good at doing particular tasks. The drawback is the tedium of repeating the same task day in and day out. The practice of job rotation allows employees to rotate from one job to another on a systematic basis, often but not necessarily cycling back to their original tasks. A computer maker, for example, might rotate a technician into the sales department to increase the employee’s awareness of customer needs and to give the employee a broader understanding of the company’s goals and operations. A hotel might rotate an accounting clerk to the check-in desk for a few hours each day to add variety to the daily workload. Through job rotation, employees develop new skills and gain experience that increases their value to the company. So great is the benefit of this practice that many companies have established rotational training programs that include scheduled rotations during the first 2-3 years of employment. Companies benefit because cross-trained employees can fill in for absentees, thus providing greater flexibility in scheduling, offer fresh ideas on work practices, and become promotion-ready more quickly.

Job Enlargement

Instead of a job in which you performed just one or two tasks, wouldn’t you prefer a job that gave you many different tasks? In theory, you’d be less bored and more highly motivated if you had a chance at job enlargement—the policy of enhancing a job by adding tasks at similar skill levels. The job of sales clerk, for example, might be expanded to include gift-wrapping and packaging items for shipment. The additional duties would add variety without entailing higher skill levels.

Job Enrichment

Merely expanding a job by adding similar tasks won’t necessarily “enrich” it by making it more challenging and rewarding. Job enrichment is the practice of adding tasks that increase both responsibility and opportunity for growth. It provides the kinds of benefits that, according to Maslow and Herzberg, contribute to job satisfaction: stimulating work, sense of personal achievement, self-esteem, recognition, and a chance to reach your potential.

Consider, for example, the evolving role of support staff in the contemporary office. Today, employees who used to be called “secretaries” assume many duties previously in the domain of management, such as project coordination and public relations. Information technology has enriched their jobs because they can now apply such skills as word processing, desktop publishing, creating spreadsheets, and managing databases. That’s why we now use a term such as administrative assistant instead of secretary.^[3]

Work/Life Quality

Building a career requires a substantial commitment in time and energy, and most people find that they aren’t left with much time for non-work activities. Fortunately, many organizations recognize the need to help employees strike a balance between their work and home lives.^[4] By helping employees combine satisfying careers and fulfilling personal lives, companies tend to end up with a happier, less-stressed, and more productive workforce. The financial benefits include lower absenteeism, turnover, and health care costs.

Alternative Work Arrangements

The accounting firm KPMG, which has made the list of the “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” for 19 years,^[5] is committed to promoting a balance between its employees’ work and personal lives. KPMG offers a variety of work arrangements designed to accommodate different employee needs and provide scheduling flexibility.^[6]

Flextime

Employers who provide for flextime set guidelines that allow employees to designate starting and quitting times. Guidelines, for example, might specify that all employees must work eight hours a day (with an hour for lunch) and that four of those hours must be between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Thus, you could come in at 7 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m., while coworkers arrive at 10 a.m. and leave at 7 p.m. With permission you could even choose to work from 8 a.m to 2 p.m., take two hours for lunch, and then work from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Compressed Workweeks

Rather than work eight hours a day for five days a week, you might elect to earn a three-day weekend by working ten hours a day for four days a week.

Job Sharing

Under job sharing, two people share one full-time position, splitting the salary and benefits of the position as each handles half the job. Often they arrange their schedules to include at least an hour of shared time during which they can communicate about the job.

Telecommuting

Telecommuting means that you regularly work from home (or from some other non-work location). You’re connected to the office by computer, fax, and phone. You save on commuting time, enjoy more flexible work hours, and have more opportunity to spend time with your family. A study of 5,500 IBM employees (one-fifth of whom telecommute) found that those who worked at home not only had a better balance between work and home life but also were more highly motivated and less likely to leave the organization.^[7]

Though it’s hard to count telecommuters accurately, Global Workplace Analytics estimates that, in 2016, “at least 3.7 million people (2.8 percent of the workforce) work from home at least half the time.”^[8] Telecommuting isn’t for everyone. Working at home means that you have to discipline yourself to avoid distractions, such as TV, personal phone calls, and home chores and also not be impacted by feeling isolated from the social interaction in the workplace.

Family-Friendly Programs

In addition to alternative work arrangements, many employers, including KPMG, offer programs and benefits designed to help employees meet family and home obligations while maintaining busy careers. KPMG offers each of the following benefits.^[9]

Dependent Care

Caring for dependents—young children and elderly parents—is of utmost importance to some employees, but combining dependent-care responsibilities with a busy job can be particularly difficult. KPMG provides on-site child care during tax season (when employees are especially busy) and offers emergency backup dependent care all year round, either at a provider’s facility or in the employee’s home. To get referrals or information, employees can call KPMG’s LifeWorks Resource and Referral Service.

KPMG is by no means unique in this respect: more than 7 percent of US companies maintained on-site day care in 2012,^[10] and 17 percent of all US companies offered child-care resources or referral services.^[11]

Paid Parental Leave

The United States is one of only two countries in the world that does not guarantee paid leave to new mothers (or fathers), although California, Rhode Island and New Jersey are implementing state programs, and many employers offer paid parental leave as an employee benefit.^[12] Any KPMG employee (whether male or female) who becomes a parent can take two weeks of paid leave. New mothers may also get time off through short-term disability benefits.

Caring for Yourself

Like many companies, KPMG allows employees to aggregate all paid days off and use them in any way they want. In other words, instead of getting, say, ten sick days, five personal days, and 15 vacation days, you get a total of 30 days to use for anything. If you’re having personal problems, you can contact the Employee Assistance Program. If staying fit makes you happier and more productive, you can take out a discount membership at one of more than 9,000 health clubs. In fact, many employers, like North Carolina software company SAS, now have on-site fitness centers for employee use.^[13]

Unmarried without Children

You’ve undoubtedly noticed by now that many programs for balancing work and personal lives target married people, particularly those with children. Single individuals also have trouble striking a satisfactory balance between work and non-work activities, but many single workers feel that they aren’t getting equal consideration from employers.^[14] They report that they’re often expected to work longer hours, travel more, and take on difficult assignments to compensate for married employees with family commitments.

Needless to say, requiring singles to take on additional responsibilities can make it harder for them to balance their work and personal lives. It’s harder to plan and keep personal commitments while meeting heavy work responsibilities. Frustration can lead to increased stress and job dissatisfaction. In several studies of stress in the accounting profession, unmarried workers reported higher levels of stress than any other group, including married people with children.^[15]

With singles, as with married people, companies can reap substantial benefits from programs that help employees balance their work and non-work lives. PepsiCo, for example, offers a “concierge service,” which maintains a dry cleaner, travel agency, convenience store, and fitness center on the premises of its national office in Purchase, New York.^[16] Single employees seem to find these services helpful, but what they value most of all is control over their time. In particular, they want predictable schedules that allow them to plan social and personal activities. They don’t want employers assuming that being single means that they can change plans at the last minute. It’s often more difficult for singles to deal with last-minute changes because, unlike married coworkers, they don’t have the at-home support structure to handle such tasks as tending to elderly parents or caring for pets.

Compensation and Benefits

Though paychecks and benefits packages aren’t the only reasons why people work, they do matter. Competitive pay and benefits also help organizations attract and retain qualified employees. Companies that pay their employees more than their competitors generally have lower turnover. Consider, for example, The Container Store, which has appeared on Fortune magazine’s list of “The 100 Best Companies to Work For.”^[17] The retail chain staffs its stores with fewer employees than its competitors but pays them more—in some cases, three times the industry average for retail workers. This strategy allows the company to attract extremely talented workers who, moreover, aren’t likely to leave the company. Low turnover is particularly valuable in the retail industry because it depends on service-oriented personnel to generate repeat business. In addition to salary and wages, compensation packages often include other financial incentives, such as bonuses and profit-sharing plans, as well as benefits, such as medical insurance, vacation time, sick leave, and retirement accounts.

Wages and Salaries

The largest, and most important, component of a compensation package is the payment of wages or salary. If you’re paid according to the number of hours you work, you’re earning wages. Counter personnel at McDonald’s, for instance, get wages, which are determined by multiplying an employee’s hourly wage rate by the number of hours worked during the pay period. On the other hand, if you’re paid for fulfilling the responsibilities of a position—regardless of the number of hours required to do it—you’re earning a salary. The McDonald’s manager gets a salary for overseeing the operations of the restaurant. He or she is expected to work as long as it takes to get the job done, without any adjustment in compensation.

Piecework and Commissions

Sometimes it makes more sense to pay workers according to the quantity of product that they produce or sell. Byrd’s Seafood, a crab-processing plant in Crisfield, Maryland, pays workers on piecework: workers’ pay is based on the amount of crabmeat that’s picked from recently cooked crabs. (A good picker can produce 15 pounds of crabmeat an hour and earn about $100 a day.)^[18] On the other hand, if you’re working on commission, you’re probably getting paid a percentage of the total dollar amount you sell. If you were a sales representative for an insurance company, like The Hartford, you’d get a certain amount of money for each automobile or homeowner policy you sold.^[19]

Incentive Programs

In addition to regular paychecks, many people receive financial rewards based on performance, whether their own, their employer’s, or both. Other incentive programs designed to reward employees for good performance include bonus plans and stock options.

Bonus plans

Texas Instruments’ (TI) year-end bonuses—annual income given in addition to salary—are based on individual and company-wide performance. If the company has a profitable year, and if you contributed to that success, you’ll get a bonus.^[20] If the company doesn’t do well, you may be out of luck—regardless of your personal performance, you might not receive a bonus.

Bonus plans have become quite common, and the range of employees eligible for bonuses has widened in recent years. In the past, bonus plans were usually reserved for managers above a certain level. Today, companies have realized the value of extending plans to include employees at virtually every level. The magnitude of bonuses still favors those at the top. High-ranking officers often get bonuses ranging from 30 percent to 50 percent of their salaries. Upper-level managers may get from 15 percent to 25 percent and middle managers from 10 percent to 15 percent. At lower levels, employees may expect bonuses from 3 percent to 5 percent of their annual compensation.^[21]

Profit-sharing plans

Delta Airlines^[22] and General Motors^[23] both have profit-sharing arrangements with employees. Today, about 40 percent of all US companies offer some type of profit-sharing program.^[24]

TI’s plan is also pretty generous—as long as the company has a good year. Here’s how it works. An employee’s profit share depends on the company’s operating profit for the year. If profits from operations reach 10 percent of sales, the employee gets a bonus worth 2 percent of his or her salary. In 2011, TI’s operating profit was 22 percent, and employee bonuses were 7.9 percent of salary. But if operating profits are below 10 percent, nobody gets anything.^[25]

Stock-option plans

The TI compensation plan also gives employees the right to buy shares of company stock at a 15 percent discount four times a year.^[26] So, if the price of the stock goes up, the employee benefits. Say, for example, that the stock was selling for $30 a share when the option was granted in 2007. The employee would be entitled to buy shares at a price of $25.50, earning them an immediate 15 percent gain in value. Any increase in share price would add to that gain.^[27]

At TI, stock options are used as an incentive to attract and retain top people.^[28] Starbucks, by contrast, isn’t nearly as selective in awarding stock options. At Starbucks, all employees can earn “Bean Stock”—the Starbucks employee stock-option plan. Both full- and part-time employees get Starbucks shares based on their earnings and their time with the company. If the company does well and its stock goes up, employees make a profit. Starbucks believes that Bean Stock pays off because employees are rewarded when the company does well, they have a stronger incentive to add value to the company (and so drive up its stock price). Starbucks has a video explaining their employee stock option program on this webpage.^[29]

Benefits

Another major component of an employee’s compensation package is benefits— compensation other than salaries, hourly wages, or financial incentives. Types of benefits include the following:

• Legally required benefits (Social Security and Medicare, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation)
• Paid time off (vacations, holidays, sick leave)
• Insurance (health benefits, life insurance, disability insurance)
• Retirement benefits

The cost of providing benefits is staggering. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, it costs an average employer about 30 percent of a worker’s salary to provide the same worker with benefits. If you include pay for time not worked (while on vacation or sick and so on), the percentage increases to 37 percent. The most money goes for paid time off (6.9 percent of salary costs), health care (8.1 percent), and retirement benefits (3.8 percent).^[30]

Some workers receive only the benefits required by law while part-timers often receive no benefits at all.^[31] Again, Starbucks is generous in offering benefits. The company provides benefits even to the part-timers who make up two-thirds of the company’s workforce; anyone working at least 20 hours a week is eligible to participate in group medical coverage.^[32]