Mission Statement
Whether fun-based mission statements, foosball tables, video games, inflatable furniture, beanbag chairs, annual retreats and cultural czars can actually help a company build profits is debatable.
Some, like Jim Collins, co-author of Built to Last, a book examining corporate success, said it doesn't help. He finds very little evidence that a laid-back environment filled with employee perks has anything to do with becoming a great company.
In fact, mandatory fun can become a liability if it is mistaken as the company's primary focus, he said.
"People like to be part of something that wins and succeeds,'' Collins said.
Companies that create a culture of discipline win, he said, pointing to Cisco Systems and Intel.
"I can't think of a single traditional dot-com company that has cultivated a serious culture of discipline. Eventually there will be one, but it hasn't happened yet," Collins said.
The very best people never work just for the money or the perks; they want to be in a place where they can have an impact and in a work force populated by hard-working people who get things done, Collins said. They also hate hypocrisy and thrive in an environment that has a high degree of consistency, he said.
Whether a company has foosball tables or swimming pools doesn't matter in the end, Collins said. It's whether the people are motivated, happy and hard working.
Executives at Excite@Home think their people fit that mold. The 6-year-old Internet company fights to keep a fun start-up culture at the workplace, even though it plans to add 1,800 employees to its work force of 2,700 in the next six months, Rudnick said.
Six months ago, the top executives at the Redwood City, company instituted the corporate happy hour to answer questions from employees and to have a little fun.
Employees banter over beer, wine and chicken wings every Friday at 4 p.m. "The competition in this market for good people is really fierce,'' Rudnick said. "So we're not going to stop doing cool things for the employees."
But even at Excite@Home, the perks are changing as workers grow out of their 20s and into their 30s and 40s. Along with its two spiral slides, climbing wall, roller hockey court and gym, it is adding breastfeeding rooms and looking into on-site child care.
"The people who started these companies are all growing up now and getting married and having kids," Rudnick said, right before running off to her on-site kickboxing class. "But they still want to have fun."
