Who are your best customers? Which customers are bringing you
the most profits and which are the least profitable? Companies are
increasingly relying on complicated data mining software to answer
these and other questions. More than 92% of the top 100 companies
on the Fortune Global 500 list are using
software developed by SAS Institute Inc., the world’s largest
privately held software company, for their business intelligence
and analytical needs. The Cary, North Carolina, company is doing
extremely well by any measure. They have over 10,000 employees
worldwide, operate in over 100 countries, and reported $2.31
billion in revenue in 2009 (their 33rd consecutive year of growth
and profitability). The company is quick to attribute their success
to the performance and loyalty of their workforce. This is directly
correlated with how they treat their employees.
SAS has perfected the art of employee management. It has been
ranked on Fortune magazine’s best places
to work list every year since the list was first published.
Employees seem to genuinely enjoy working at SAS and are unusually
attached to the company, resulting in a turnover rate that is less
than 4% in an industry where 20% is the norm. In fact, when Google
designed their own legendary campus in California, they visited the
SAS campus to get ideas.
One thing SAS does well is giving its employees opportunities to
work on interesting and challenging projects. The software
developers have the opportunity to develop cutting-edge software to
be used around the world. The company makes an effort to
concentrate its business in the areas of analytics, which add the
most value and help organizations best analyze disparate data for
decision making, creating opportunities for SAS workers to be
challenged. Plus, the company removes obstacles for employees.
Equipment, policies, rules, and meetings that could impede
productivity are eliminated.
The company has a reputation as a pioneer when it comes to the
perks it offers employees, but these perks are not given with a
mentality of “offer everything but the kitchen sink.” There is
careful thinking and planning behind the choice of perks the
company offers. SAS conducts regular employee satisfaction surveys,
and any future benefits and perks offered are planned in response
to the results. The company wants to eliminate stressors and
anything that dissatisfies from people’s lives. To keep employees
healthy and fit, there are athletic fields; a full gym; a swimming
pool; and tennis, basketball, and racquetball courts on campus.
Plus, the company offers free on-site health care for employees,
covers dependents at their fully staffed primary medical care
center, and offers unlimited sick leave. The company understands
that employees have a life and encourages employees to work
reasonable hours and then go home to their families. In fact, a
famous motto in the company is, “If you are working for more than 8
hours, you are just adding bugs.” SAS is truly one of the industry
leaders in leveraging its treatment of people for continued
business success.
Based on information from Doing well by being rather nice.
(2007, December 1). Economist. Retrieved
April 30, 2010, from http://www.financialexpress.com/news/doing-well-by-being-rather-nice/247090;
Cakebread, C. (2005, July). SAS…not SOS. Benefits Canada, 29(7), 18; Florida, R., &
Goodnight, J. (2005, July–August). Managing for creativity.
Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8),
124–131; Karlgaard, R. (2006, October 16). Who wants to be public?
Forbes Asia, 2(17), 22.
Discussion Questions
SAS is involved in cutting-edge technology. Does this give it a
distinct advantage in employee retention and satisfaction over, for
example, Sloan (a company that focuses on the manufacturing of
toilet components)?
Do you feel that investing heavily in employee perks ultimately
pays off for a company? Would you feel the same way during hard
economic times, when the pool of highly qualified workers grows and
the number of available jobs shrinks dramatically?
How much of an advantage does SAS have, given that the company
produces analytic software to help businesses improve their
functionality?
What do you think you’d like about working at SAS? What would
you not potentially like?