Assessing a company from the outside can be tricky business – but it shouldn’t be. That’s why we’re pulling back the curtain on the #saslife. From our values to our vision for the future, we’re giving a transparent look at what it’s really like to work here.

We kicked off the series with a deep dive into our culture, and today we’re chatting all things perks and benefits!

Total Rewards

At SAS, we believe in providing an exceptional employee experience, and that means everything from meaningful work to a great work environment to personal benefits. The work we do every day makes a difference, and we recognize the way we live matters too – both on and off the job. So we take a total rewards approach, providing both financial and unique personal benefits. SAS Total Rewards focuses on what’s important to our employees:

• Your Money. Reward you for a job well done.
• Your Health. Help you live a healthy and well-balanced life.
• Your Career. Provide opportunities to continuously grow and learn.
• Your Life. Programs that are meaningful to you, wherever life may take you.  

Designed to make life easier

Our Total Rewards philosophy has led us to offer some unique perks and benefits – after all, most companies don’t have a free health care center or a subsidized hair salon. We’re a global company with offices in 60 countries, so we customize our offerings to provide a world-class experience no matter where you are in the world. While perks vary globally (Norway’s got beer on tap, and our UK office has a cricket pitch!), they’re all aligned to a common goal: make life easier for our employees, so they can bring their best, most creative selves to work.

Whether you’re a recent grad, a new parent or navigating life as an empty nester, we’ve got something for everyone!

A few of our most-loved perks include…

• • Generous vacation and volunteer time off policy
  • Unlimited sick days
  • On-campus health care center – free to employees and dependents. (Seriously – they don’t have a billing department!)
  • Subsidized childcare
  • 6 subsidized cafés with everything from sushi to wood fired pizza ovens
  • Full recreation and fitness center with a pool, group fitness classes and basketball courts.
  • Onsite hair salon, nail salon and massage therapy
  • Work/Life center helping everyone from our young professionals, to new parents, parents with about to go to college, eldercare – you name it!
  • On-campus shipping center
  • Paid maternity and paternity leave and adoption assistance
  • Tuition assistance

Centered around employees 

Over the years, our benefits have evolved organically, with employees at the center. Our childcare benefits are a great example. In 1981, one of our female employees was planning to leave SAS to stay at home with her kids due to a lack of childcare options. Her predicament led to our current high quality childcare and preschool benefits that we're proud to offer our employees.

Another example is our onsite Health Care Center, which began when a review of our health care plan claims revealed that we were spending a lot of health plan dollars on primary care. Fast forward 35 years, we how have a 56-person on-campus primary care center that provides top-notch, accessible healthcare for our employees and their families – and saves us $4 million per year. We’ve also added an onsite pharmacy!

While we’ve said “yes” to many different perks over the years, not every idea has come to fruition. When we're considering a new benefit or service, we talk to employees, crunch the numbers, and if it makes sense, we do it! If it doesn’t pan out, we let our employees know why. Our philosophy has led to benefits that are both meaningful to employees and practical for the business.

Better for business

We believe our perks and benefits are the right thing to do for our employees – but they also make sense from a business perspective. “Innovation is the key to success in this business, and creativity fuels innovation," says our founder and CEO, Jim Goodnight. "Creativity is especially important to SAS because software is a product of the mind. Ninety-five percent of my assets drive out the gate every evening. It's my job to maintain a work environment that keeps those people coming back every morning."

By investing in our employees and reducing everyday stress and distraction, our employees are more engaged, focused and productive – which positively impacts business results.

In addition to having happier and healthier employees, our unique approach has led to…

• Being listed as a Best Workplace for Innovators with the ability to create new products innovation, and fueling employee productivity
• Lower turnover rates – our average is about 5-8%, compared to the industry standard of about 13%.
• Increased tenure – our people grow their careers in-house and have average tenure of 12 years (compared to 4.2 years at other companies).
• Year-over-year revenue growth
• Our ranking as a Great Place to Work Legend, with a place on the US list every year
• A ranking as a Top 10 World’s Best Workplace

At the end of the day, happy employees stay longer, are more engaged at work, learn more about our products and develop lasting relationships with our customers. And that leads to greater success for our company.

But don’t just take our word from it – our people have amazing stories to tell. Check out our own Natasha Collins’ story of how SAS’ healthcare benefits helped her start her family, and search #SASlife on social media to hear from our employees firsthand.

Stay tuned for more! In the meantime, let us know in the comments – what work perks make your life easier? And if you’re a SAS employee, what’s your favorite SAS perk?