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Subscribe via emailToday’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has a great article by Kelly Spors on the top small workplaces of 2007. It reflects yet again how startups can compete with Microsoft, Google and other large companies when recruiting for top talent. The article highlights 15 small companies having great work environments:
1) Alaska Wild Adventures
2) Barclay Water Management
3) Corporate Ink Public Relations
4) Cowden Associates
5) Exactech
6) FRCH Design
7) Gentle Giant Moving 
Guerra DeBerry Coody
9) Healthwise
10) NRG Systems
11) Phelps County Bank
12) Point B Solutions Group
13) Reflexite
14) Restek
15) Summit Aviation
Congratulations to all of the companies recognized in the article. The one company on the list with which I’m familiar is Point B Solutions Group, which like blist is a Seattle company. The consulting industry is one where many employees are fatigued with burnout and facing difficult career change decisions because traditional consulting practices are tough on family life. Point B innovates by keeping its consultants local so they don’t have to travel and can be home with their families every night. Another innovation is eliminating the concept of vacation time. Employees are paid hourly, with the ability to decide if and when they’ll work. Want to take 3 months off to tour Europe? No problem. Just take the time off. Of course this means people need to take more self-direction in their financial lives so they can afford to go without a paycheck for a few months. That’s the right step people should be taking anyway, in my opinion.
The article is a great read and I highly recommend you all read it. My take-away key points from it were that great small companies:
* Offer employees tremendous autonomy
* Provide deep transparency to employees
* Encourage employees to manage their careers, including finding the right work/life balance
* Allow employees to significantly influence company direction
* Structure themselves to allow employees to share in profits
* Encourage open communication
* Provide an environment that fosters collaboration, teamwork and camaraderie
* Create career growth opportunities for employees
blist didn’t make the list this year, but hopefully we’ll be considered in the future. We think we share a lot of the same traits. As an example, one way we’ve been able to compete with Amazon, Google and Microsoft for software engineers in the Seattle area is by courting engineers who aspire to be entrepreneurs themselves one day. Microsoft, Google and Amazon provide a lot of resources, infrastructure and process that many engineers take for granted, without even recognizing it. Instead of jumping straight from Microsoft to starting your own company, maybe you’d be better prepared by spending a couple of years in a startup along the way. We welcome future entrepreneurs. It’s a win-win for us and the engineer. The engineer typically has exactly the right skill set and temperament for a startup and by sharing the nitty gritty details of how a startup really works, they’re better prepared when they ultimately launch out on their own. This approach works well for other disciplines – marketing and business development – too, not just engineers.
The WSJ article reminds me to emulate what successful companies do and that a key to creating a healthy work environment is one where both the employer and the employee “win” at meeting their goals.
Looking for a great small company to work for? We hope you’ll consider blist.