Join the Culture Club

Today's companies are investing in programs to motivate employees and build a sense of "company culture." Sure, the idea of the annual company picnic and egg-toss with the boss is nothing new. But many firms are going further, giving employees a bigger say in company policies, installing game rooms to stimulate bonding and helping them juggle daily responsibilities.

Web integrator Etensity foots the bill to fly every staffer to its Vienna, Va., headquarters each year for its E-Cubed event, where they can mingle with the boss and talk about the company's mission. "In a private company as you go out worldwide you tend to get a disjointed culture," says Peter Noce, CEO. "So you want to bring everyone together on a regular basis.

The company also has "culture conductors" stationed in every office. Their responsibilities include coordinating dry cleaning and housekeeping services for staffers, as well as handing out incentive awards. The firm also offers sports and game leagues, free health club memberships and programs to help employees with car payments and mortgages.

Bruce Frcek, CEO of e-consultant Xcelerate, based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., runs a Leadership 2000 program in which his employees are asked to get involved in the shaping of all internal evaluation and training programs. Frcek has also hired on a "Culture Czar" as well as a number of "directors of fun" to maintain a positive atmosphere in the workplace.

"It's important to have someone responsible for going through the company and creating the programs that can foster the right type of environment," says Frcek. "You have to get the environment energized so when you bring in recruits they can immediately sense the energy, enthusiasm and commitment to developing a great organization."

Having a stimulating environment for employees is also one of the ways e-consultant Millennia Vision manages to keep its employee attrition rate down to only about 10 percent.

"Our focus as a company is really based on the content of the work we do," says Austin Erlich, CEO of the Redwood Shores firm. "First off, it has to be cool, exciting stuff. The value proposition for the employees is that we are not just doing Web sites or just CRM or supply chain; we're doing complete integrations. So if you come in here with a specific skillset, it is going to be expanding as you work here. We're looking for people who want to grow."

Culture, for some companies, has no boundaries. Chicago-based Inforte has a strong base of industrial giants, but looks to California for half its business. These opportunities aside, CEO Phil Bligh, a Londoner from Kensington with a chemical engineering background, says his company is better off from a cultural standpoint working with industrial, Midwestern companies. After the dot coms wave runs its course, the real opportunity for e-business companies like his will be in traditional bricks and mortar companies, he says. Having great familiarity with these organizations is a plus, he adds.

The company, which specializes in helping the likes of Intuit, Sony and others with their e-business solutions, aims at the high end of the market. Bligh claims Inforte has one of the lowest turn-over rates in the business. Seventy percent of the people he hires are referrals from existing employees. The trend has kept his company's culture intact.

To make sure individuals get the attention they need, his company tracks the hours they work very closely. Inforte has reduced the number of nights his consultants spend on the road so they may have some semblance of a family life. That trimmed the nights away for many workers from four nights to three. Inforte also added an in-house project option that gives certain employees a chance to work on client projects from their regular offices. Bligh himself reviews the number of overtime hours each employee works. When he gets the sense that someone is pushing themselves to the limit, he intercedes and asks the individual to cut back before the or she burns out.

To communicate with his staff, Bligh conducts what he calls "internal roadshows" and presents the company's strategies as though he were presenting to outside analysts and investors. Afterwards, he conducts internal focus groups with employees who are encouraged to air their grips or concerns.

"Our employees cannot believe the CEO and CFO take the time to do this. It's these types of things that make a difference. Money and rewards are important, but career development is equally important," Bligh says.

At many organizations, internal culture often dictates or influences external behavior. At Fort Point Partners, a San Francisco e-solutions company, that's posed a bit of a problem for co-CEO James Roche, who now wants to change one thing about his company's culture.

"In the past, we spent a lot of time saying what is right and what is wrong about the world and we didn't say 'what do people want to hear?'" says Roche. "The companies that are more mature in this space understand that at some times you have to tell people what they want to hear, and then steer them what they really need."

In the months ahead, he plans on working to change his company's blunt, aggressive demeanor. He wants to be more accommodating but concedes that will be tough simply because the company has built a roster of no-nonsense, get-the-job done professionals who pride themselves of their sales prowess and bottom-line orientation. "We've become a little more polite," he adds.