Minimizing the hassles of timetable conflicts is a major concern addressed by bringing many services together at the SAS work site. The sprawling 300-acre North Carolina campus has two subsidized day-care centers and a summer camp for children. Near the center of the campus is a free health clinic used by 90% of SAS employees and their families. The health center costs $4.5 million but is estimated to save the company $5 million because employees don't have to kill time in waiting rooms. The campus also has hairdressers, dry cleaning, a UPS depot, and, during the season, a tax preparer. The three subsidized cafeterias provide takeout meals to bring home to the family. There are a score of kitchens around the campus that provide endless free snacks and candies.

On-campus stress-reduction programs include massage, yoga, hiking, aerobics, harmonic sound healing and scent mixology. There are weight management and quit smoking programs. "Dive in" movies are watched from a float on the pool. SAS provides seminars on divorce, adoption, and raising teenagers. Family nights off-campus include rodeo nights, circus nights and Monster Jam Trucks.

SAS requires only a 35-hour work week. No one punches a clock and there is no personnel grinch to keep tabs on workers. Employees share in the profits and the company remains private and thus sheltered from Wall Street sharks and the financial panics they generate.

Keeping employees happy has certainly paid off for SAS with a 40-fold increase in revenues since 1984 based on holding a niche in the software industry that is immune from competition. Treating employees well is a profitable strategy because they reciprocate by working hard. In fact, employees are so strongly motivated that they sometimes describe the campus as a golden cage that they never want to leave.

If you are working hard to support a company that treats you so well, you know that your efforts are going to be richly rewarded, both in cash and in kind. Like the highly skilled hunter in a band, you do not have to worry that your superior talents are being exploited by slackers. In that sort of environment, it is the slackers who are going to feel bad, guilty and ashamed that they are not working as hard and not being as productive, as their colleagues.

SAS employees are very well paid, of course, but it is not their salary that makes them happy. They care about what they are doing. More importantly, they feel that their contributions are noticed and appreciated. That is a powerful motivator. It is the reason that your dog doesn't want to stop returning the ball you throw for him to catch.

1. Kaplan, D. A. (2010). SAS: A new no. 1 best employer. Accessed at http://www.cnn.com/ on 1/21 2010.