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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
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.
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...