Overview: 100 Best Places to Work in IT

Imaginative perks sweeten the pot. But hard-to-achieve basics like leading technologies, personal investment and a sense of fulfillment are what will make IT employees stay put in a changing economy. This year's top 100 companies have figured out how to give workers the substance along with the frills.

By Mary Brandel

June 14, 2004 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Get ready to drool. If you worked at General Mills Inc. in Minneapolis, right now you'd be enjoying the many amenities of the company's newly built three-story employee services building, dubbed the Champions Center.

The 138,000-square-foot building houses a hair salon, fitness center, credit union, medical and travel services and company store. Employees can take advantage of the concierge service, retail specialty shops, and a cafeteria and deli that offer take-home meals. By 2005, the campus will also include two more lactation rooms, bringing the total number to seven, and the on-site infant care center will double in size.

But is that what Phil Semmer, CIO at the $11.5 billion food giant, talks about when discussing what makes his company No. 19 in this year's Best Places to Work in IT rankings? No, he would prefer to discuss its job-rotation strategy, in which new IT employees are cycled through three different job functions within their first five years at General Mills. Semmer is also proud of the company's standardization on a handful of vendors to simplify IT and minimize costs, its limited use of IT contractors and its per-capita training budget.

"Our focus is on end results rather than process, and on developing talented staff," Semmer says. "Because they work in an organization that is consistent yet innovative, IS employees are able to be more successful."

The fact is, having a mall on campus -- while nice -- won't retain unhappy workers if the current economic climate leads to opportunities elsewhere. Once job growth returns, career options like those offered at General Mills will distinguish the companies that serve as refuges in a down economy from those that are great places to work.


General Mills' HR director for IS Mary Kaul-Hottinger, CIO Phil Semmer and IS marketing department manager Marilee Giron. Image Credit: Steve Wewerka

The working conditions that IT employees desire haven't really changed much over time. This year's Best Places to Work in IT program - which included a survey of nearly 17,000 IT employees at the top 100 companies - found that the top desired benefits after basics like paid vacation and health care coverage focus on the classic three: technology, training and flexible schedules (for a detailed look at how the final 100 Best Places were chosen, see page 34).

What has changed in the past couple of years, with the still-uncertain economy, is companies' ability to offer these benefits. Layoffs among the Best Places are up: Forty-six percent of companies on the 2004 list let workers go last year, compared with 28% of companies on the 2003 list. Offshore outsourcing stayed steady, with an average of 33 contractors employed at companies on the 2003 and 2004 Best Places lists. Conditions do look more favorable in the year ahead -- 100% of companies on this year's list have budgeted for salary increases for IT employees in 2004, and 49% say training budgets will go up. Still, it's no wonder that 37% of employees say their workplace is "very stressful" or "stressful."

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

Xerox

Win a color printer!

By using solid ink technology only from Xerox, you could save up to 65% by printing color for the cost of black and white. Enter for a chance to WIN a PhaserTM 8860 network color printer!

Microsoft

Upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 today.

Save time and mitigate security risk. Deploy it now.

Sybase

NEXT-GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORMS

In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

White Papers & Webcasts

Natural User Interface for Enterprise Applications
Learn how a revolutionary user interface can make a complex enterprise application so intuitive even casual users can jump right in....

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

A Truly Global HCM System
Learn about a system built with advanced object-oriented technology that support multi-national requirements and costs less to implement, maintain and upgrade....

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

Craft a Strategy to Lower Your Total Cost of Ownership
Get the tools to build a business case to assess the total cost of ownership of your HR technology footprint....

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....

Navigating the Economic Morass
Need help making your way through today's volatile job market? In this Learn-Fast Guide, you'll learn how and where to look for your...

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

Accelerate SSL Encrypted Applications
The amount of SSL traffic is growing in the enterprise. Because it is encrypted, it cannot be properly controlled and accelerated. Blue Coat...

Agile Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for Rapid ROI
Find out how combining ECM and BPM will help adress issues about content rich business processes....

All White Papers | All Webcasts