Fast Company Article Julie Knobloch January, 1999, "Sanity Inc."

What is it that is family friendly, provides food, pays you, provides live music, washes clothes, gives massages, and yet still kicks you out by 6:00 p.m.? It is a businesswhat else? SAS Institute Inc. in Cary, NC, has a 36,000 square foot gym, basketball courts, yoga room, soccer and softball fields, offers classes in golf, dance, & tennis and still washes dirty work out clothes. This company writes software, not trains athletes! Still seem like a dream? To most of us it does, but not to the 5400 happy, productive and well-rounded people that SAS employs.

The employee turnover rate for SAS has never been over 5% and has recently been 3.7%. A typical software company of this size loses 1000 employees per year and SAS loses 130 - which translates to 900 employees per year whom SAS does not have to replace. The cost of replacing an employee runs between 1 and 2.5 times the salary of the open position. With an average salary of $50,000, the company saves $67.5 million a year. This comes to an astounding $12,500 per year per employee that SAS can spend on benefits. What's more is a group at the company meets monthly to discuss proposed new benefits. Coming soon: advice and referrals on financial planning for college and retirement.

How is it that a company can cater to its employees like this and retain these dedicated and talented people who help make sales of $750 million. Human Resources director, David Russo explains that the company makes it impossible for people not to do their work. "If you hire adults and treat them like adults, then they'll behave like adults." If someone is worried about finding assisted living for their elderly parents, they can call the elder-care coordinator, who will make the calls for them. If they need an allergy shot, that is what the on-site health clinic is good for.

The company's benefits continue to emerge now with 51% of their managers being women. SAS believes in retaining their female employees, who in years past would quit to raise children. Their on-site day-care that used to house 4 or 5 kids now houses 528.

In a way, the lavish benefits offered by SAS set a performance standard on which everything else is based: This is the level at which SAS respects its employees, and this is the level of respect that SAS expects in return. The sense of accountability at SAS is so ingrained, and the lines of reporting there are so simple, that the company needs no formal organization chart. As it grows, SAS tends to get wider - spawning new divisions - rather than taller. Indeed the company is so brutally flat that on the Cary campus, many of the several thousand front-line employees who work there - from housekeeping to coders with PhDs - are just two or three steps in the corporate hierarchy from Jim Goodnight, the founder. Managers spend their time not watching their employees but by working in the trenches along with the others and doing what they are doing.

Okay, so their benefits are sweet, but what about their salaries? Some employees have had to take a pay cut to come to SAS but the friendly, relaxed and playful atmosphere far outweighs the salaries! Oh, and did I mention the hundreds of pounds of M&Ms (plain and peanut) that are distributed every Wednesday to every floor of every building? How do I apply?

Of course there are criticisms from outside of the company, but for the most part SAS treats its employees the way they want to be treated. I think this is a true case in which it is better to be happy than to have a little more money. And M&Ms always help!

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000