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Leadership Tip of the Month

January 2004

Copyright 2004ã weLEAD, Inc.

What is the Best Company to Work For?

Recently Fortune Magazine announced its annual ranking of the best U.S. companies to work for. This year’s winner is a family owned business from northeast Ohio named the J.M Smucker Co. The 107-year old jam and jelly maker was founded by Jerome Monroe Smucker at Orrville, Ohio in 1897. Now in its fourth-generation and led by two brothers, J. M. Smucker employs about 2,800 employees at 12 manufacturing plants and four fruit processing facilities. They control 42 percent of the highly competitive U.S. fruit-spread market and recent acquisitions have nearly doubled its annual sales to $1.3 billion in 2003. These acquisitions included Jif peanut butter and Crisco brands from Proctor & Gamble.

How does an organization achieve this prestigious award? It starts with a survey of more than 46,000 randomly selected employees from 304 candidate companies. Additionally, the companies are also asked to fill out questionnaires on their people practices, philosophies, and policies. Yet, employee opinions are given two-thirds of the weight in the scoring. This award for the J. M. Smucker Company was not totally unexpected since it has been on Fortune’s rating of the 100 Best Companies to Work For since the list first began in 1998. In 2002 the organization rated eighth in the nation. What qualities were mentioned by employees and others that set apart this fine organization to earn this distinction? Here are a few…

There are extensive employee training programs and appreciation. The J. M. Smucker Company believes in continuous employee training averaging 70 hours a year per employee! On top of this, a strong effort is made to show genuine appreciation to all employees including holiday gifts, thank-you luncheons, celebratory barbecues for hitting production targets, summer picnics and an annual catered lunch. To smooth the recent acquisitions, the company held picnics for the employees at Jif and Crisco to make them feel welcome and part of the Smucker family. Spokeswoman Brenda Dempsey commented, “We can point to a lot of the specifics, but when we come right down to it, it’s more the feeling and culture of the company and the great camaraderie that we have that make this a great place to work”.

Benefits are not lavish – but competitive. J.M. Smucker offers competitive wages and benefits. These include health, disability, and life insurance, a 401 (k) plan and pensions. However, they don’t offer avant-garde perks offered by some of the newer high technology companies. Richard Smucker stated, “We don’t have pet sitting. We don’t have massages. We believe that people come to work for a company because of their fellow employees and because of the atmosphere it provides”. The company has never had layoffs!

Kindness and respect are company priorities. Richard Smucker, president and co-CEO attributed the recognition to his great grandfather who founded the company. It’s “the concept of treating people the way you want to be treated…the golden rule”. The J. M. Smucker Company maintains a team-based attitude and structure about management. Employees are not simply responsible for their own area but must share responsibility for everything around them.

It is interesting to note that many of these organizational traits have been discussed in past issues of weLEAD Online Magazine and our “Leadership Tip of the Month” section. How many of these qualities do you find in your present organization?

For weLEAD, this is Greg Thomas reminding you that it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “Activity is contagious”.

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