From Marriott to Ernst & Young to General Mills, why some companies excel

For the 11th year in a row, Fortune magazine has rated Ernst & Young among its 100 best places to work, noting the high number of managers who come back to work for the company and get credit for their previous tenure in calculating retirement benefits. Marriott, General Mills, and Accenture also made Fortune’s list (see chart).

Of course, no company has an unblemished name. In early 2007, Marriott and plaintiffs negotiated a $1.35 million settlement, including upping affected workers’ wages, in a class action lawsuit involving some workers at three Marriott hotels in San Francisco. Marriott had been accused of failing to abide by San Francisco’s minimum-wage law and not posting notices of the legal minimum wage.

In addition, companies sometimes have to make hard decisions, especially in a weak global economy. In April, Ernst & Young urged its 8,500 workers in Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China to take 40 days of low-paid leave by June 2010. Participants get 20 percent of their pay but keep all their benefits. The same month, General Mills announced it was closing its pasta and bread factory in Contagem, Brazil, and making other restructuring moves, affecting some 500 employees.

“Being a great company doesn’t completely insulate you from the unfortunate realities of the world,” says Jeff Wittenberg, chief leadership officer at Kaye/Bassman International Corp., an executive search firm in Plano, Texas.

Some companies also expect staffers to put in long hours and travel extensively. The best employers try to mitigate those effects, says Ms. Lyman of Great Place to Work Institute. “Organizations first need to have a commitment to work-life balance. But by using technology, companies find it easier to provide such offerings as job-sharing and telecommuting.”

Such programs can also be a lifeline in a personal crisis, as Accenture senior manager Jeremy Began found out.

Two years ago, his family’s printing business was ailing, due to the economy and the illness of the company’s general manager. Even though he didn’t want to quit Accenture, a global management consulting firm, “there was no other family member available to help address the company’s problems,” he recalls.
Then he heard of Accenture’s new offering, called “future leave.” It allows employees to put some of their salary into a direct deposit account to fund a future unpaid sabbatical lasting up to three months – four, if combined with other leave. Mr. Began seized the opportunity and took a four-month sabbatical to help the printing company (although he opted for an unpaid sabbatical because he lacked the time to fund a future leave account).

Today, the family business is financially “back on track,” says Began, who’s back at Accenture, where he’s worked since graduating from college. Now, he says, he’s “even more committed to Accenture and to our clients.”

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