American Fidelity Assurance Co.

Why you want to work there

While most staffers at this health and insurance company, based in Oklahoma City, work normal business hours, they can choose to adopt flexible schedules or telecommute to meet the needs of their families or customers. Other benefits include a free on-site medical clinic, an on-site fitness center that offers the services of a personal trainer, on-site Weight Watchers classes, activities such as companywide walks, and an on-site restaurant. The company's "All-Colleague" bonus program, instituted about 14 years ago, net IT workers bonuses equal to an average of 26% of their base salaries in 2008. All employees at every job level participate in the bonus program. Share the work, share the wins: From a project's beginning, users and IT employees work side by side throughout the development life cycle. When major milestones are reached, the entire group celebrates together. Outstanding performances by individual IT employees or teams are acknowledged by executive management and divisional management. The IT department allocates a pool of money equal to 1% of the division's base salaries for monetary (or other) awards to IT staffers who exhibit outstanding performance in either systems work or customer service. New this year: The company set up a technology training program for application developers that includes formal classes on-site and off-site, as well as informal classes taught in-house by staff developers. In addition, workshops on Agile development were offered for project teams.