MEDIUM COMPANIES: FINALISTS

These days, nothing says “We Care” to employees quite like fully-paid health insurance. That plan is one option available to employees at Bank Liberty, the largest Northland-based bank in the Kansas City region. But the company demonstrates its concern for employees in multiple ways:

• A commitment to promotion from within, offering each member of the team an opportunity for advancement.

• Cross training for many employees, which creates operating efficiencies for the bank and increases job satisfaction for staff members.

• An education-reimbursement program for full-time staff, which promotes personal growth.

• Incentive pay that is available for many, on top of competitive salaries.

• And there’s even an additional paid holiday each year as the bank’s way of saying, “Happy Birthday.”

The bank continues to prosper because it extends that same level of collegiality to its customers, a relationship-nurturing approach that embraces the concept of ownership: Once you speak to a customer as a Bank Liberty employee, you see that customer’s issue through to completion.

As at any organization, things are done by the book, but that book isn’t written in stone; a prime directive for employees is to use their best judgment to make procedural decisions that are good for the company and for the customer as well. The bank also has a refined sense of civic engagement, with staff members serving on boards of various service organizations, chambers and business councils.

The great thing about working for an insurance company? It’s that the folks in charge know their stuff. You see it frequently with Best Companies to Work For honorees that hail from the insurance sector, and with Delta Dental, the pattern holds.

Take a look at the employee benefit package: It covers 100 percent of long-term care insurance, 100 percent of long-term disability insurance, 100 percent of group life insurance and 100 percent of family dental and vision coverage. All that atop traditional health-care coverage, 401(k) plan with company match, tuition assistance, reimbursements for gym membership and flexible work hours.

Annual bonuses are based not just on traditional financial measures, but on performance aspects that nurture customer loyalty. Attesting to the effectiveness of that are customer-satisfaction scores of 99 percent, and better than 98 percent on subscriber-retention rates.

Not surprisingly, employee-satisfaction surveys showed figures of above 90 percent on questions about whether employees take pride in working for the company, feel as though they contribute to its mission, understand the company’s strategy and their role in achieving success, know what is expected from them, and believe that customers rely on them to deliver superior quality of service.

You don’t have to look hard to find out the guiding philosophy at National Bank of Kansas City. It’s right there on the company’s correspondence, featured even more prominently than the logo: You Matter.

That message works both ways, for customers and employees alike. Owners Jim and Humbert Tinsman, along with CEO Brian Unruh, demonstrate the value of employees as soon as you step into the bank. The sprawling blue wall is awash in yellow Post-It notes that describe instances of employees’ going above and beyond, or from customers regaling staff for a positive experience. And there’s nothing stale about them—the notes have a shelf life of less than 90 days, taken down to clear the wall for the next round of staff and customer recognition.

Some places dread e-mails from the top; staffers at the bank were treated to a succession of good-news notices from Unruh over the past year, introducing everything from a new Everyday Café breakroom (complete with free healthy snacks, gourmet coffee and big-screen TVs), to news of a flex-schedule put in place between the summer holidays and, for employees with 10 years on the staff, eligibility for a company sabbatical.

Those perks and more demonstrate senior leadership’s own embrace of a value system built on respecting tradition, listening first, understanding fully, providing solutions for success and expressing gratitude.

For employees, it’s a great combination: An office small enough to know everybody who works there, and a company big enough to put serious financial resources to work on your behalf. That profile fits Turner Construction Co., a New York-based contractor with a regional office of 83 people working out of Kansas City.

The downturn that devastated the construction sector in 2009–10 separated a lot of employees from their jobs, but things are picking up, and the Kansas City office is part of a broader regional group that hired 195 new positions in 2013, with 15 percent of the staff already receiving promotions in 2014. Those employees enjoy industry-leading levels of benefits that go beyond a steady paycheck: in addition to a suite of insurance products for medical, dental, disability, life and accident coverage, there is an employee assistance program, gym reimbursement, wellness programming, flexible spending accounts, tuition reimbursements, vendor discounts, and as one would expect from a bigger company, a 401(k) plan.

In a sector where safety is always Priority 1, Turner makes a considerable investment in training. In addition to $2,000 a year on each employee’s training—every year—the company has an on-line campus teeming with Web-based and instructor led learning. And it also offers a Leading Women Program to help foster leadership skills among a segment of the work force badly under-represented in those ranks.