Some firms that have adopted family-friendly practices struggle to define their cost-savings through the use of these initiatives. Guerra DeBerry Coody (GDC), a Texas-based full-service advertising agency and a 2007 Top Small Workplace, is not one of these.
At the drop of a hat, Partner Tess Coody can think of a number of ways their family-centered values and programs impact the bottom line. These include higher productivity (both in quality and quantity of work), higher retention, lower turnover, more satisfied clients and especially improved recruiting capability.
"We have almost no recruitment costs," Coody says, adding, "We don't have those intangible costs that come from losing folks and constantly having to retrain people. There's a real dollar cost to that, and we don't have that the way others in our industry do."
One of the benchmarks that tells GDC's leadership that their culture is paying off is the origins of their talent pool. The agency is based in San Antonio, Texas, and yet they routinely are able to hold onto talent that would otherwise migrate to the Los Angeles or Chicago markets. What's more, Coody says, they also see a good number of candidates who've worked in those markets and, desiring a more stable work/life balance, knock on the agency's door.
Why all the fuss about this little Texas-based shop? Work/life balance is the key. Only two years ago, the State of Texas did not allow businesses of GDC's nature to have an on-site daycare program, a child care facility that falls outside the state's normal purview for such entities. But after working at the grassroots level with various stakeholders and collaborating with State Representative Michael Villarreal, they literally wrote the book (state legislation) on how businesses like theirs could do this.
GDC employees did their homework; they even co-opted groups they thought might oppose the legislation and worked to vet their support. The result was that House Bill 1385 passed into law in September 2007 and went into effect in March 2008.
Michele Autenrieth Brown, the agency's director of promotions and loyalty marketing and a 12-year veteran, helped draft the legislation. Like many of GDC's employees, she had a personal interest in seeing it become law: She has an eight-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter and believes that both she and her children have benefited from their being onsite. It has given her the ability to check in with them throughout the day and be within short walking distance if a problem comes up.
Art Director Jimmy Nichols is another employee who has benefited from GDC's on-site daycare. With a son who's five and twin 10-month-old daughters, who have been in the program for eight months, he says the ability to see his kids at any time and be on-site for emergencies is a huge stress reliever.
"If my daughters are sick, I can just take off and there aren't any questions asked," Nichols says. "I've worked at other places and, when my son was sick and I had to leave to take him home, there was talking behind my back – you know, [statements like] 'His kid isn't really sick. He just wanted to get out for the day.'"
"The thing with GDC is, you really don't want to leave work," he adds. "It's not like other places where people are looking for a reason to call in sick. Here you find a reason to get to work."
Besides the on-site daycare, another reason employees find to keep coming back is GDC's wellness program, which encompasses "mind, body and soul." The "body" part is strengthened by a "boot camp"-style program that involves group workouts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning with a personal trainer from Spectrum Athletic Club.
Nichols loves how this helps build camaraderie. "You're not just in the workplace. You're out having fun with each other," he says. "And we realize the company is giving up three hours a week for us to do this, but it gives us time to release some stress and get healthy instead of just worrying about deadlines."
Jessica Card, an account coordinator who has been with GDC for less than a year, is another fan of the "body" element of their wellness program. "The time off for this is so amazing and unheard of," she says. "Whenever I tell my friends that we get an extra hour to work out, they're just shocked by it."
Another element that made GDC stand out as a Top Small Workplace was its approach to employee training and development, which focuses on the informal as much as the formal. Employees learn how their roles mesh with those of their supervisors. There are also biannual assessments with directors to review the achievement of goals and chart a path for the coming year.
With such a family-oriented workplace, what is it like for those who don't have any kids, or who might view them as a distraction or think the parents are getting all the perks?
Card, who does not have children, says that although she doesn't walk into the daycare to see the kids, as some other employees without kids do, she used to work right next to it and, even with the occasional screaming, it was never a distraction.
"It was nice to hear and it took a little away from the stress of the environment," she says.
Company: GDC
Web site: www.gdc-co.com
Industry: Full-service advertising agency
Location: San Antonio, TX
Number of Employees: 75
Sales: $7.2 million
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