leadingtoday.org
Leadership Tip of
the Month
January 2004
Copyright 2004ã weLEAD, Inc.
What is the Best
Company to Work For?
In 2004 Fortune Magazine
announced its annual ranking of the best U.S. companies to work for. For the year
2004, the winner was a family owned business from northeast Ohio named the J.M
Smucker Co. They have consistently
been recognized as one of the best companies to work for year after year. 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
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.”
On
the weLEAD Website you will
find over 70 other free helpful leadership
tips. They are all available in a text version or as an MP3 audio!