WE'VE HAD some credibility issues here in the media factory lately, so I hesitated to write this column.
I mean, who would believe it?
A corporation that values its workers? A CEO who thinks happy, well-compensated employees are good for the bottom line? Great salaries? Good health insurance? Profit-sharing? Employees who love their jobs? And their company?
Come on, Jay, you'll say. Sensational lies didn't work for USA Today's Jack Kelley, and they won't work for you. Stop titillating the readers with tall tales.
But it's true. I've found perhaps the last company in America that acts like it means it when it says, "Employees are our most important resource."
Believe it or not.
"Yeah, we could make more money" by cutting worker pay and benefits, says Jeff Briggs, chief executive officer of Hunt Valley-based Firaxis Games and its nearly 60 employees. "But my philosophy has always been, if you have the right environment and the right people in that environment, they will make great products.
"And if they make great products, there's going to be money."
The right environment at Firaxis, which makes Civilization and other computer games, includes five weeks of vacation even for new employees. Plus three personal days. And two weeks of sick time. And three hours of monthly community-service time.There's a medical plan with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield of Maryland. For workers -- and their families. The company pays all premiums.
Only 8 percent of U.S. companies paid all health insurance premiums for workers and families last year, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute's Paul Fronstin.
There's company-paid disability and life insurance at Firaxis. Dollar-for-dollar match on the 401(k) plan up to 3 percent of salary. Fully-paid health club membership. The Cokes are 25 cents out of the office machines. Company happy hours. Free lunch every other Monday; free breakfast every other Wednesday.
"It's almost like being in Sweden!" says Sid Meier, the legendary computer-game developer who, with Briggs, is a Firaxis owner.
Average base salaries are $60,000 a year. And -- this is the best part -- Firaxis shares a big chunk of its corporate earnings with all workers on top of that. In a good year even lower-level employees get tens of thousands of dollars in profit-sharing bonuses. (It takes three years' tenure to fully participate.)
