CRA Inc

11 Aug 04 @ 11:33 pm

“IT company gives workers free beer; wins award”

A recent Register article describes what sounds like a truly great place to work:

A US software company that gives its workers free beer on Friday afternoons has been named the “Best Small Company to Work for in America”.

Analytical Graphics, Inc (AGI) also gives workers access to a free laundry service, free meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner - all week and access to free snacks, confectionary and drinks. And if there are concerns that all this free nosh might pile on the pounds, there’s also a gym. Which is free.

In fact, AGI spends around $1m a year on freebies and perks for staff, according to the Detroit Free Press. As a result, workers are more productive, motivated and enjoy coming to work - while the company saves buckets loads of dosh in recruitment and training.

Is there a downside? Perhaps. Employees tend to be more sensitive to, and conscious of, what you take away from them (versus what you give them). Since it does not appear that AGI explicitly ties the provision of these perks to organizational performance (if they do, the article doesn’t mention it), the company probably cannot ever scale back the beer and other freebies, even modestly, without jeopardizing productivity and morale.

posted in category(s): Points of Interest