LARGE COMPANIES: FINALISTS

In the age of the Affordable Care Act, employees everywhere are wondering what might happen to the health-insurance coverage they get from work. Nobody has a crystal ball that can project the full consequences of ACA through full enactment in 2018, but for those working at Bank Midwest, there’s a certain security in knowing that the employer places a premium—literally—on their service.

In addition to three comprehensive medical insurance options, the bank offers dental and vision insurance, prescription drug coverage, group life and accidental death insurance, company paid disability insurance for both long term and short term, supplemental life insurance, health-care flexible-spending accounts and health-care savings accounts, both on a pre-tax basis.

Rounding out a robust series of benefits at Bank Midwest are a 401(k) retirement plan with company match, 10 paid holidays a year, plus two floating holidays, bereavement leave and sick leave, all in addition to vacation time. Employees also enjoy discounted interest rates on loans made through the bank, as well as fee-free checking accounts with no minimum balances to maintain.

That robust package of perks comes wrapped in an organizational commitment to fiscal discipline and community service. The former is addressed with a long-term M&A strategy meant to create shareholder value through disciplined acquisitions, as is a stock repurchase program that saw a $147 million buyback of 14.2 percent of outstanding shares, with an additional $50 million repurchase spend authorized. The latter comes through financial support for the arts, education and civic organizations, with additional backing from staffers serving on the boards and commissions of dozens of area non-profits.

An elegant logic defines the workplace at Orginal Bread, a Prairie Village-based Panera franchisee: A mission to ensure that guests have incredible experiences must recognize that the first people in the door each day are members of the team. To ensure their experience, as well, the company promotes an environment that values fun, high accountability and long-term reward. The framework for that is a set of values embracing integrity, the long-term view, commitment, belief in the individual as well as the power of small teams, fairness, and a sense that everybody is in the same boat.

To get them rowing together, the company strives to provide wages that are above industry standards for associates, and work weeks that are less demanding than often found in restaurant concepts—a starting minimum wage of $8.25 an hour, a dollar more than the federal level, and for managers, a 50-hour work week over five days, with all salaried staff eligible for bonus opportunities. The need for consistency across a platform of 34 locations—24 of them in the Kansas City region—is met with an intensive training program for potential managers, and for positions above assistant manager, promotion is only from within the company’s ranks.

The company is also a good corporate citizen, with nightly product donations that came to $5.1 million in retail value in 2013, and its fund-raisers generated $85,000 for Operation Breakthrough, JDRF, Gilda’s Club of Kansas City and Children’s Mercy Hospital.

One benefit routinely ascribed to federal health-care reforms has been a new emphasis placed on individual accountability for one’s own health. The need for that was no revelation to the leadership at Saint Luke’s Health System—more than a decade before those reforms passed Congress, the hospital network was one of the first employers in the region to link participation in a health-risk appraisal with a health-benefits discount. They followed that up in 2003 with a four-point program that they say yields a holistic approach to benefit design planning: focusing not just on physical, but emotional, spiritual and financial well-being.

The physical side is bolstered with a 50-percent premium discount and deductible credit on a health-savings account contribution for employees who meet annual wellness criteria, including an exam at least every other year. Tending to financial interests is a retirement plan that automatically enrolls new employees at 4 percent of their pay, qualifying them for the company match—50 percent on that first 4 percent. The system also issues annual lump-sum retirement contributions of 2 to 4 percent of salary.

Long one of the region’s biggest private-sector employers, Sprint employs roughly 7,500 people on its sprawling campus in Overland Park. Sprint places a high value in connecting its own work force with corporate goals that focus on a commitment to people, product and planet.

Compensation levels at Sprint exceeds salary averages overall, and a robust suite of benefits addresses career, social, financial, physical and community needs.

Employees also have access to personal health advocates, on-site health clinics and fitness centers (Sprint was a pioneer in this perk, opening its first on-site center in 1985), financial counseling and seminars, education assistance and other programs.

For nearly a decade, the company has employed a pay-based scale for health-insurance premiums; that means front-line employees bear less of the cost burden than do higher-paid employees for a selection of medical/prescription drug coverages, two dental plans and vision coverage. Company-paid and supplemental life insurance are available, as are short-term and long-term disability coverage.