AT THESE SIX COMPANIES, THE PAY AND BENEFITS ARE GOOD. EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, PEOPLE CARE AND ARE CHALLENGED.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680009-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 27, 2012
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: February 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680009-3
February 1986
Working
Washington's Best En
At These Six Companies, the Pay and B is Are Good.
Even More Important, People Care and Are C-zallenged.
Walking up the ramp to the back en-
trance of Giant Food's Landover head-
quarters one rainy day, Lisa Hall slipped
and fell. She wasn't hurt, but she was
upset. When she got to her desk in the
accounting department, she picked up
the phone and dialed the office of com-
pany chairman Israel Cohen. As usual,
Izzy Cohen answered the phone himself.
The next day the ramp was carpeted.
Everyone answers his or her phone at
Giant Food, and no one hesitates to take
problems or suggestions to the top. This
"open door" between employees and
management is cited more often than
i salary and benefits by Giant personnel in
describing why the company is one of
the best places to work in Washington.
Not that salary and benefits aren't
important. All six of the companies we
selected as the best to work for in this
area pay competitive salaries and offer
superior benefits. But management's re-
sponsiveness to the needs, ideas, and
goals of its employees most often made
the difference in job satisfaction. Not
surprisingly, the companies we found
with the most enthusiastic employees are
among the most successful in the area.
Much the same was true of the corpo-
rations profiled in the 1984 book The
100 Best Companies to Work for in
America. Not a single Washington-
based company made that list. But our
research shows that some local compa-
nies are every bit as good as those select-
ed by the book's authors.
When we began work on this article,
we asked hundreds of people to recom-
mend good employers. We concentrated
on larger, locally based companies on
the theory that big employers are better
able to offer good benefits packages and
provide more employment opportuni-
ties. This focus excluded many well-run
small firms, professional offices, trade
associations, and major companies such
as IBM and Time Inc. (both of which
made the national list) that employ many
Washingtonians but are headquartered
elsewhere.
We contacted 51 of the companies
most highly recommended in our initial
survey. Several of those then eliminated
themselves. Some, such as PEPCO, did
MCI promotes job satisfaction by encouraging communication from the top
down and the bottom up. Here, employees discuss an in-house publication.
From left: Ken Cox, corporate news-bureau manager; Shirley Robinson,
senior manager of corporate affairs; Wade Allen, furniture coordinator;
senior vice president Ken Cox; and staff assistant Cindy Palmer.
not want to be involved. Others, such as
USAir, wouldn't arrange employee
groups for us to talk with. And still oth-
ers, such as Vitro Corporation, refused
to disclose employee benefits.
Among the remaining candidates, we
interviewed dozens of employee groups.
A few, such as the group from Dynalec-
tron, were so unenthusiastic about their
companies that we struck them from
consideration. Most employees we
talked to had both good and bad things to
say about their places of work. Finally,
we selected the six companies that
seemed to have the strongest combina-
tion of employee benefits, enthusiasm,
and job satisfaction.
As we talked to one employee group
after another, it became clear that suc-
cessful organizations share certain em-
ployee-oriented practices.
First, people like to work for compa-
nies that have strong, charismatic, even-
handed leaders. Bill McGowan at MCI,
Izzy Cohen at Giant, Bill Marriott at the
Marriott Corporation-all the CEOs of
the best companies to work for are re-
garded by their employees as hard-
working, caring, and fair. They have
fostered organizations that care both
about company performance and the
people behind it. They have motivated
their employees by example; their pas-
sion for quality is evident throughout
their companies.
The happiest employees we talked
with had a clear sense of where their
organizations were going and how they
fit into that plan. That means communi-
cation-from top to bottom and bottom
to top. Employees need to be able to pass
ideas, suggestions, and complaints to
someone who can act on them-whether
that person is the company president or
the next supervisor up the ladder. At
Giant, because everyone answers his
own phone, passing an idea to the top
means dialing four digits.
Employees also need to know what
management is thinking. MCI's senior-
management notes are available to ev-
eryone, including the company's furni-
ture movers, and any employee can call
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504680009-3