Great Places to Work: Quicken Loans, AFLAC & Methodist Healthcare

Fortune's Best Places to Work: Award Methodology

Each year, Fortune magazine publishes its list of best companies to work for using a standard set of criteria that includes factors such as the quality of leadership and perceived credibility, based primarily on employee feedback. Three companies that have received this award over the past five years include Quicken Loans, Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare, and AFLAC. This paper examines how these three companies achieved this noteworthy status by first reviewing the relevant literature to describe the methodology used by Fortune magazine to select award recipients, followed by an analysis of their specific and unique company benefits, culture, and human resource management (HRM) practices. Finally, the paper presents a personal philosophy of HRM grounded in biblical principles, followed by a summary of the key findings concerning these three companies.

The winning organizations of each year's "Great Place to Work U.S." award offered by Fortune magazine are evaluated on a number of factors, including the level of trust, credibility, and respectful leadership, as well as measures such as employees' level of pride in their work and camaraderie (Award methodology, 2018). Besides other sources of industry information, Fortune interviews and surveys more than 300,000 employees to develop its list of annual award winners. In this regard, Fortune reports that "each company is scored on our analysis of anonymous employee responses to more than 50 survey questions on our Trust Index Survey, together with our evaluation of company programs and practices as measured through our Culture Audit assessment" (Award methodology, 2018, para. 2).

In order to be considered for the Best Places to Work award, organizations must have at least one thousand employees and receive a sufficient number of survey responses to provide a 95% confidence level with a maximum 5% margin of error (Award methodology, 2018). In sum, Fortune magazine evaluates and compares the manner in which people are actually treated on the job using primary data provided directly by employees, making the award highly prestigious, timely, and noteworthy. Three companies that have achieved this status — Quicken Loans, Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare, and AFLAC — are discussed in turn below.

Quicken Loans: Engagement as a Business Strategy

Although many consumers have struggled with Quicken software, the overwhelming majority of Quicken Loans customers report high levels of satisfaction, due primarily to the company's dedicated workforce. Founded in 1985, this Detroit-based company has approximately twelve thousand employees and competes in the banking and credit services sector, generating more than $3.6 billion in annual revenues (Phillips & Phillips, 2015). Its designation as one of the best places to work is based on Quicken Loans' unwavering commitment to engaging its employees at every opportunity. As Phillips and Phillips (2015) note, "At Quicken Loans, employee engagement is not a process, a department, or a survey. Engagement is part of the business strategy and culture of this intentionally flat organization" (p. 100).

All employees at Quicken Loans are called "team members," and everyone in the organization is tasked with identifying problems and developing appropriate solutions. This responsibility extends from the company's CEO to its newest hires and is one of the reasons for Quicken Loans' designation as one of Fortune's best places to work.

Team members at Quicken Loans are provided with an annual update of a book of so-called "Quicken Loan-isms" that represent the essential elements of the organization's corporate culture. According to Phillips and Phillips (2015), "The Quicken Loans 'ISMs' booklet is a physical embodiment of team member engagement at the company. ISMs are simple, easy-to-digest principles that form every business decision at Quicken Loans" (p. 100).

The booklet specifically describes acceptable behaviors and practices at the company, as well as the high expectations in place for all team members. The essential point made throughout this guidance is that Quicken Loans team members are expected to hit the ground running from their first day on the job and should not wait for approval or a specific process in order to do what needs to be done — including returning every email and telephone call, every time (Phillips & Phillips, 2015). Although the ISMs list is updated each year, the 2015 version featured the following principles:

In order to help all new hires become proficient as quickly as possible, the company conducts an eight-hour orientation session that includes presentations by the CEO and chairman of the board of directors on the importance of organizational culture. It is especially noteworthy that each booklet includes the personal email address and telephone number of Quicken Loans' CEO, in case new team members have questions (Phillips & Phillips, 2015).

Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare: Caring for Caregivers

Although not as widely known as Quicken Loans or AFLAC, Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare ranks as a great place to work for many of the same reasons. Operating a network of seven tertiary health care facilities that generate more than $1.1 billion in revenues each year, the company places a high priority on its HRM practices in order to attract and retain talented workers in an increasingly competitive industry characterized by critical shortages in many occupational specialties. As a result, Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare ensures that pay levels for clinical and nursing positions remain competitive with industry averages to support the best possible health care outcomes for its patients (Shorb, 2016).

This concern extends beyond patients to the company's human resources as well, with all staff members treated as respected professionals (Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, 2018). A majority — more than 80% — of this company's employees report that their leaders are honest and ethical, with a firm commitment to operating world-class health care facilities. In addition, the company's leadership has a proven track record of ensuring that all employees have the tools and resources they need to do their jobs and of empowering them to make the day-to-day decisions required for optimal clinical outcomes (Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, 2018).

Likewise, 86% of employees report feeling significant peer support from colleagues who are "consistently caring," and almost as many report feeling "comfortable truly being themselves at work" (Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, 2018, para. 5). Beyond day-to-day support, the company hosts an annual Healthcare Week during which employees receive gifts and attend company-wide picnics. The company also hosts an annual Nurses Week to specifically express appreciation for the more than 3,500 professional nurses it employs (Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, 2018). One current nurse summed up the company's HRM practices this way: "They understand that happy employees equate to great patient care" (as cited in Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, 2018, para. 7).

Conclusion

Most people not only need to work to make a living — they want to work, and work hard, because it is simply part of human nature to want to make some type of meaningful contribution. Employers that recognize this want and need are clearly better positioned to use their human resource management practices in ways that help them achieve and sustain a competitive advantage, as demonstrated by the three companies reviewed above.

Although the three companies compete in completely different industries, the research showed that they all share common features that ranked them ahead of their competition in Fortune magazine's award calculations, especially in terms of the quality of leadership and the degree of respect and trust afforded to employees. The evidence from all three cases consistently points to the same conclusion: employee-centered HRM is not merely a workplace benefit — it is a sound business strategy.

References

Fortune 500 methodology. (2018). Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/best-companies/.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare. (2018). Great Place to Work. Retrieved from http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/methodist-le-bonheur-healthcare.

Phillips, J. J., & Phillips, P. P. (2015). High-impact human capital strategy: Addressing the 12 major challenges today's organizations face. New York: AMACOM.

Shorb, G. S. (2016, Fall). The quality/cost pressures on healthcare providers. Business Perspectives, 18(1), 14–17.

Zoltners, A. A., & Prabhakant, S. (2009). Building a winning sales force: Powerful strategies for driving high performance. New York: AMACOM.