Читать книгу The Obvious: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed - James Dale - Страница 21

Every year Fortune Magazine assembles a list of the best companies to work for. Take a look at a recent sampling. They’re of different sizes, categories, parts of the country and the world, seemingly with little in common but the fact that people like to work for them. But, in fact, there is a pattern, their management practices:

Ikea – This Swedish furniture retailer gives employees extraordinary opportunities. They’re encouraged to take international assignments, with employment opportunities or tuition allowances for spouses.

Pfizer – World-class benefits are offered at this huge drug company, including on-site childcare at four locations (parents pay on a sliding scale based on income) and an elder-care program that includes counseling.

Men’s Wearhouse – Company execs gave away 113 trips to Hawaii at holiday parties in 2003. For those who didn’t score tickets, a three-week paid sabbatical is available after five years; 619 employees took one in 2003.

General Mills – This food company makes it easy for employees to get smart: It reimburses tuition at 100% up to $6,000 per year, even for new employees. And if the employees leave afterward, they need not repay the money.

Proctor & Gamble – Now here’s an innovation: The consumer-products giant pairs junior female employees with a senior manager for reverse mentoring to help the mostly male higher-ups understand the issues women face.

In every case, management has been responsive, even pre-emptive to employee issues. These CEOs, COOs, and CFOs could have simply ignored the human needs of their workforces, rationalizing that each worker, whether on an assembly line or in a windowed office, was getting a paycheck and if any of them wanted different conditions or benefits or understanding, he or she could simply work elsewhere. Instead, these managers determined that they would get a much greater return by being reasonable, kind, decent, fair … that is, nice. And the attitude filters down through the ranks, through every level of management, perpetuating itself throughout the organizations. As it turns out, by and large, these companies are also highly successful, year after year, in up and down economies. Coincidence? Hardly.

Do business the way these kinds of corporations and executives do and you’re in good company. Do business as a jerk and you’re not. Either way, you can probably make money. But when it comes time to hire or win new customers or just look at yourself in the mirror, whose company do you want to keep?