MEDIUM COMPANIES: FINALISTS
From Bishop Spencer Place, which provides eight bonus hours of pay for employees who work both Saturday and Sunday, comes our candidate for Understated Compensation Assessment of the year: “As you can imagine, absenteeism is very low on the weekends.” That’s just one way the senior living center strives to increase employee satisfaction—one of four stated major business goals. To that end, the company also retains an outside vendor to perform an annual satisfaction survey of the 110 employees, with the results of that used to set workplace improvement strategies for the following year. And a “Passion Team” of representatives from each department is charged with organizing fun, team-building activities throughout the year—and assigned a budget to make them happen.
For years, founder Faruk Capan’s Intouch Solutions has been ranked among Kansas City’s 100 fastest-growing companies—last year was the fifth straight appearance. Top-line performance got the company there, but the corporate culture is the foundation for that success, and Intouch has employee satisfaction front and center there. For starters, how does a combination of 401(k) plan with no vesting schedule and a company match, plus a profit-sharing bonus and performance bonuses sound? Or an 80 percent company pay on health-insurance premiums, including family plans? There are associate referral bonuses for the more than 300 local employees, three weeks of paid vacation from Year One of employment, paid time off for community service, annual beer pong competitions, an xBox lounge where you can take on the CEO himself, Happy Hour Fridays and short Friday work schedules over the summer.
The company culture at National Bank of Kansas City is like a coin: One side bears the company slogan, EveryDay Matters. The other addresses nearly 240 employees of the Overland Park-based bank: You Matter. Self-stick notes bear dollops of praise from one employee to another, adorning the blue EveryDay Matters walls at the bank, and customers are invited to post attaboys as well. Each quarter, an individual spotlighted there earns the EveryDay Matters plaque, a cash prize and a floating holiday. Managers can give out spot awards for extraordinary effort, and owners Jim and Humbert Tinsman say thanks by hand-delivering anniversary cards to each employee. Naturally, there are more tangible benefits like a 401(k) plan, flex spending accounts and summertime flex schedules, but we particularly like the EveryDay Café concept—gourmet coffees and healthy snacks, at no expense to the employees.
Rallying around a Design Mechanical, Inc. field technician diagnosed with cancer,
employees at the refrigeration contracting specialist stepped up after their own time on the clock to donate another hour of pay for their labor each week to their colleague—netting nearly 40 hours of weekly pay during his surgery, radiation treatments and recovery. You’d expect nothing less from a company whose philosophy is “Best People, Best Customers, Best Practices.” Among the latter are annual planning meetings with all associates to develop an operating plan and set revenue and margin goals, followed by monthly reviews to track progress and make needed adjustments. Pay that averages 10 percent over scale, health insurance plans that include a $150 company contribution to health savings accounts, 401(k) with a 3 percent company match and—nice touch, this—a 4 p.m. close of business on Fridays are but a few ways the company lives out the “Have Fun!” tagline of its corporate philosophy.
Children in the fitness center? Maybe not at the health clubs, but family fitness —for the employee, spouse and kids—is encouraged at TruckMovers.com, the Independence-based truck drive-away company. More than 100 employees work from the mother ship, nearly a fourth of the 17-year-old company’s work force, and they have no-cost access not only to the fitness center seven days a week, but to a personal trainer, at no charge. Other benefits include a 401(k) plan matching up to 4 percent of an employee’s salary, an 80 percent company share of employee health-insurance costs, vacation accrual from Day One of employment and a focus on promoting from within—every new job opening is posted internally first. The company also bolsters employee engagement with its TruckMovers Academy, offering training in time management, customer service and other aspects of business.
Successful relationships don’t stop with the customers at First National Bank—the relationship between company and employee gets a lot of nurturing, too: Four different health plans, including reduced premiums for those engaged in a wellness program, are but one example of that. Others include dental and vision coverage, company-paid short-term and long-term disability and basic life insurance benefits, a 401(k) retirement plan that gets a company contribution, even if employees don’t make one of their own. The 135 Kansas City-market employees can also take advantage of adoption assistance, paid paternal leave, and educational offerings for health, financial planning, parenting and college preparation. And nothing says “we understand” quite like an employer that covers the wages of employees snowed in by storms like we saw last winter, rather than compelling them to take a paid day off.
