A Great Place to Work: What Makes Some Employers So Good . - And Most So Bad - book reviews

Nation's Business, Oct, 1988

Entrepreneurs' Bookshelf Most business owners say their employees are their companies' most valuable assets. For those owners, a key to success must lie in creating a work environment where employees are happy, creative and productive.

Two current books can help an entrepreneur do just that.

A Great Place To Work (Random House, $18.95), by Robert Levering, is subtitled What Makes Some Employers So Good (And Most So Bad). In order to take a deeper look at what makes a workplace a great place to work, Levering revisits employees at 20 of the companies he profiled in an earlier book, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, which he wrote with Milton Moskowitz and Michael Katz.

One finding is that despite their reputations as exciting, caring companies where the norm is hard work and the atmosphere is like that of a big happy family, entrepreneurial workplaces have a darker side.

Managers of such companies avoid tying their own hands by shunning clearly established rules, Levering says. "They benefit from the employees' long hours of work. After a period of time, employees can burn out, and those who aren't willing to maintain the grueling pace can find themselves subjected to ostracism from the happy family."

In contrast, he says, a good place to work "provides room" for people who just want to work 8 hours a day and to have other commitments besides work.

"It's simply not fair for an entrepreneurial-style workplace to demand that work be the only thing in people's lives," Levering contends. "It gives people no room to grow or become more fully human," he adds.

From an employee's viewpoint, Levering says, "a great workplace is one in which you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do and enjoy the people you are working with."