Want to Join the Best? 6 Companies Share How They Put Employees First
A Roundup of Employee-Focused Practices and Business Models
Certified B Corporations are redefining success in business to be those companies that consider their impact on all stakeholders — workers, the environment, the communities in which they operate. The businesses most successful at building in supports and protections for employees have made B Lab’s Best For The World: Workers honorees list.
To make the list, honorees must score in the top 10 percent of all Certified B Corporations on the Workers section of the B Impact Assessment, which examines the company’s relationship with its workforce and measures how the company treats its workers through compensation, benefits, training and ownership opportunities provided to workers.
We asked several Best For The World: Workers honorees to share their insights and practices that have improved their positive employee impact.
Atomic Object
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Atomic Object creates applications for web, mobile, desktop, and devices.
“As a company that prides itself on experimentation as a strategy and openness to new ideas, Atomic Object has adopted or built several practices that support the workplace and employment experience. Atomic Object is 100 percent employee-owned and practices open-book financial management.
“Atomic’s leaders have developed an annual compensation adjustment process to ensure competitive and fair pay across the company. In the software field, what should ideally be 40-hour workweeks often consume more, uncompensated time at work. To combat this trend, all Atoms are paid hourly, based on their individually tracked time.”
Kinesis
Portland, Oregon
Kinesis is a marketing and consultancy firm that helps small to midsize business owners.
“Marketing agencies have a reputation for being extremely fast-paced, with a high rate of burnout. Industry-wide, annual employee turnover is estimated to be upwards of 30 percent — almost twice the national average — and growing by double digits every year. We decided to combat this by creating a happy and engaged company culture.
“We do this in a few ways: paying fair salaries substantially above the living wage and market comparisons, creating structured career paths to enable us to promote from within, and working tirelessly to build a team that is made up of people who are smart, engaged, and care as much about each other as they do about the work. Our next major milestone will be developing an equity sharing program for employees.”
CauseLabs
Denver, Colorado
CauseLabs is a socially conscious innovation firm that leverages web and mobile technologies to build custom digital tools that positively impact people.
“Despite being a completely distributed team (or perhaps because of it) we have built a culture of trust, respect and transparency alongside a playful energy. We tackle some of the world’s most challenging problems, so it’s important to be mindful, and to encourage and support each other both in work and in life. We have great benefits, but team loyalty and tenure is most likely linked to the meaningful work we get to do each day and how it impacts the world around us.
“Aside from their daily work tasks, employees are also involved in community volunteering and CauseLabs offers a flexible schedule to accommodate these community commitments.”
Schoolzilla
Oakland, California
Schoolzilla is an education data-management platform designed to improve education for students, especially those from underserved communities.
“We at Schoolzilla take our organizational values seriously and embed them in all that we do. We honor our teammates weekly by sharing anonymous feedback, setting up a compensation structure that reduces bias, and doing performance reviews every six months.
“Every two weeks at Schoolzilla, we gather as a company and report where we are on our two primary metrics — one financial, one impact — and the aligned subgoals. Each team shares what’s working well, what they’re doing next, and asks for ideas and input from the rest of the company.”
Myplanet
Toronto, Ontario
Myplanet is re-energizing how people connect in the workplace. The company is dedicated to building a workforce that reflects the diversity of its community.
“For us, the single biggest area of success has been how we work to be best for our workers. We believe that being a force for good starts from within, and our staff team is essential to that. Every single full-time team member at Myplanet is an owner or option holder, because we’re committed to keeping the company employee-owned. It’s part of what influences our culture and instills that sense of pride and commitment to ongoing collective improvement.
“Listen to your employees. They’re the heart of your business and hearing what matters to them means not only you are paying attention to their needs and concerns, but the whole organization will be aligned on the values driving your mission forward. To come into the office (or onto the factory floor or out into showroom — wherever your business is) and know everyone is on the same page, that everyone feels heard, and that everyone is excited about the ways they can continue to help drive progress is a powerful thing. And that can only be achieved by recognizing what motivates your team and empowering them to make changes that matter.”
Artisan Dental LLC
Madison, Wisconsin
Artisan Dental aims to optimize the health and happiness of its patients, team members, suppliers, community, and the planet through quality care and sustainable business practices.
“In the case of compensation design, we think about enhancing the nine capitals — psychological, human, health, spiritual, knowledge, social, cultural, natural, financial — at the level of the individual team member and how they reverberate into the team members’ family and community.
“Broadly speaking, offer opportunities for people to grow and develop interior-oriented qualities and capacities. In the business world, measurement of outcomes is oftentimes focused on exterior dimensions because they are more tangible to the five senses. However, much of what supports and enable exceptional leaders, cultures, and companies arises from inner qualities.”
These Best For the World: Workers honorees are part of the community of Certified B Corporations. Read more stories of people using business as a force for good in B the Change, or sign up to receive the B the Change Weekly newsletter for more stories like the one above, delivered straight to your inbox.
