Verizon Wireless

If your mission is helping individuals, businesses, and communities create additional value in their lives, it’s just good business sense to build a company that demonstrates the value you place in every employee, and allows them to unleash their talent and realize their potential. Before any of that happens, though, you have to get ’em in the door, and Verizon makes an employment offer tough to resist. Competitive salaries and benefits are standard fare in the HR menu of large companies, but this isn’t: a 401(k) retirement plan that includes a dollar-for-dollar match of up to a whopping 6 percent of an employee’s salary.

Next comes a training program that starts with eight days of face-to-face instruction for new hires, eight days of virtual training and five days of in-store application. With updates every year. That positions each employee to embrace Verizon’s credo, a series of statements that defines the company and the way each employee interacts with others, and with customers. It’s a kind of personal mission statement for employees: Providing customers with the best experience. Embrace the highest ethical standards. Value teamwork and diversity. Display integrity. Embrace change. Take personal accountability and meeting challenges head-on. That formula has produced a workplace recognized on multiple levels for its attractiveness. Working Mother has had Verizon on its list of best companies for working moms for 13 straight years, and the company is one of the 100 Best Places to Work in IT, according to Computer World.

The long-term outlook for those employees would appear to be promising; as the nation’s largest wireless carrier, Verizon serves 102.8 million retail customers. As an active member in communities where it operates, the company encourages employees to participate—and they do, to the tune of 6.8 million hours of volunteer service since the company was formed in 2000. It also sports its own grant-making arm, the Verizon Foundation, which supports employees’ volunteering efforts with potential grants of $750 for non-profits where an individual employee volunteers at least 50 hours a year.

 

TVH Parts Co.

You just don’t see a lot of family businesses—in any sector—thriving on six continents. Were there a bigger market for industrial equipment in Antarctica, you can bet that Belgium-based TVH Parts Co. would be offloading products there, too. It’s come a long way since its founding in 1969, and over the past 11 years has seen its U.S.-based operations in Olathe simply explode. The co-founder’s daughter, CEO Els Thermote, arrived in 2003, and the former Systems Material Handling has rebranded and expanded, with success metrics everywhere: Now with operations in seven states, its revenues are up fivefold. The employee count has gone from 211 to more than 750. And it replaced a 225,000-square-foot warehouse with a mega-facility covering an astonishing 1.2 million square feet. The fuel for that growth? Employees responding to calls for teamwork, creativity and initiative. They benefit from TVH’s emphasis on a healthy work-life balance, a focus on open communication, incentive programs, and educational opportunities for employees.

The name of the company’s employee wellness initiative tells you a lot about how it sees its role in improving employee lives: the Nudge program. To encourage healthy and productive lives, TVH has opened a new on-site gym at the Olathe headquarters. Fitness classes, weekly “fruit days,” reimbursements for gym memberships, free flu shots, and health challenges all combine to elevate the overall health of the work force. There are three health plans are on the benefits menu, along with vision, dental and prescription-drug coverage, life and disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts.

To address fiscal fitness, TVH sponsors financial-management seminars and offers a 401(k) with matching on the first 5 percent of employee contributions. That work/life thing? Covered: Flexible working hours, seven paid holidays, vacation and sick-day accrual, and an additional personal day each year. All of that comes with an extensive investment in each employee’s training, including TVH Leadership Academy for managers and emerging leaders, an employee-recognition program called TVHONE, and continuing-education assistance.

 

KPMG

Opposites may indeed attract on occasion, but there’s something to be said for the power of affinity, too. Think about it: Big companies, which tend to get big by being well-run and great places to work, also tend to align with corporate partners who share their values. No surprise, then, that KPMG’s Kansas City office counts among its considerable client base nine of the 20 biggest public companies and nine of the biggest private companies in this region.

The local office is but one branch of a global professional-services firm that has 155,000 employees worldwide, 28,000 in the U.S., and nearly 300 in Kansas City. With 2013 revenues of nearly $23.5 billion, it has serious muscle to put into its appeal as an employer.

Getting that many people to pull the oars in sync starts with a learning and development package for new hires and veterans alike. Advisory, Audit or Tax Fundamental trainings, each running a week long, help new hires understand the company, its culture and the vast array of technical aspects they must command. Veterans, as well, undergo 80 hours of annual training—that’s nearly 4 percent of an employee’s annual hours devoted to absorbing guidance from thousands of sessions of live, instructor-led and on-line courses.

A highly competitive compensation package includes a 401(k) with a match of up to 25 percent, a suite of health-insurance options, dental and vision plans, flexible-spending accounts for medical and dependent care, discounted fitness programs and facilities, flexible work arrangements, part-time schedules and a sabbatical program.

The collaborative work environment, company officials say, has a lot to do with favorable responses to in-house surveys in which 86 percent of employees say they take pride in working for KPMG. That, no doubt, is what helped the firm earn inclusion on Fortune magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For, plus a slew of other organizations’ recognition as a quality employer.

The benefits of working at KPMG flow both ways: to employees and back to the community, via a national volunteer program called Involve, and with service on boards of non-profit entities. Among the beneficiaries of the local office’s largesse are the United Way and charities identified by KPMG’s own Community Giving Campaign. The office here also sponsors the Kansas City chapter of Women’s Corporate Directors, the Young Athena award and other programs that promote women in business.