If you follow SAS news at all, you probably noticed that SAS ranked No.1 on the FORTUNE 2011 100 Best Companies to Work For list for the second year in a row. Last year, when FORTUNE honored SAS with the title, I provided my "So What" perspective, explaining why employee perks really matter and how they contribute to the bottom line success of SAS.
SAS employees celebrate the FORTUNE award.
This year, as I’ve been talking to colleagues and reading employee reactions to the news, I’m struck by the level of sincere enthusiasm that employees are expressing about the award. Reactions on social media sites are especially strong and characteristic of the pride that SAS employees have for this company and the work they do here.
On Jim Goodnight's Facebook fan page, employees are saying:
- "Still Crazy Good....after all these years! 18 for me and it just gets better all the time."
- "Congratulations!! Best place to ever work..and play..and be creative...and be healthy. Thank you Dr. Goodnight."
- "Congratulations and Thank You for your vision which continues to make SAS so successful ... this repeat ranking was particularly sweet as it fell in the same month as my 25th anniversary with SAS!"
On the SAS blogs, employee bloggers told personal stories about what the award means to them:
- "Whether you've been at SAS 30 days or 30 years, you know you're part of something special here. Here at headquarters, our friends and neighbors tease us about the gourmet lunches, gym and massages. But they slip us their resumes when they see job openings, right?"
- "I will personally tell you that one of the greatest benefits is not all of the perks, but that SAS fosters a culture that thrives on collaboration and innovation, and allows us to individually influence decisions that make us the best analytic partner we can be for our customers."
- "All that, and more, adds up to a work environment that lets me and my peers get our jobs done with fewer distractions, less time away, and less stress. That means we can remain more focused on delivering better software to our customers."
Naturally, comments from our intranet reflect the same level of excitement, and the tweets we were monitoring yesterday in the thousands were all expressing very positive sentiment as well.
I've talked a lot on this blog - and in other places - about the importance of trusting employees to participate in social media channels and to represent your brand fairly and honestly in open forums. We have the same faith that employees will say positive things when they fill out the surveys from FORTUNE magazine (2/3 of the award ranking is based on employee surveys).
The quotes I've read online from our employees over the past few days say it all. If you set up a culture of trust and respect, those same attitudes will be reflected in the way your employees represent your company online. Every day, our employees are answering customer questions, providing help where needed and acting as brand ambassadors on Twitter, LinkedIn and many other sites in the same way they talk about the FORTUNE award. They're excited to do it, and proud to represent SAS online and off.
Finally, I'm convinced that workplace recognition and revenue growth are not coincidental. SAS continues to prove year in and year out that treating employees well is good business, and social media makes that even more transparent.
One Trackback
[...] to the SAS campus in Cary, NC often walk away feeling inspired by our corporate culture and our creative surroundings. I felt the same sense of inspiration after a recent visit to [...]