Johnson & Johnson, a Fortune 500 health-care giant with 121,000 employees worldwide, provides on-site child care at six of its locations.
Cox Stationers & Printers, a Garwood company with 25 employees, has a conference room where children can watch DVDs, play Nintendo and do homework on days their parents need backup child care.
The two companies are worlds apart, yet equally determined to hire and retain well-qualified employees. For although corporate giants are usually the ones who talk about fighting the "war for talent," you needn't be the biggest kid on the block to play this game.
JoAnn Heffernan Heisen, chief diversity officer at New Brunswick-based J&J, is well aware business schools are telling her future executives that corporate loyalty is dead and buried, and they will swap employers and careers a few times before they retire. But she argues that J&J is an alternative to conventional wisdom.
J&J is a decentralized group of nearly 250 health-care companies whose products include baby powder, Band-Aids, birth control pills and artificial knees.
"It's not unusual for an individual to work for J&J for 30 or 40 years and have been at six or eight or 10 of our operating companies," Heisen said. "The younger generation expects to change jobs frequently. We tell them they can have that experience right here, within our family of companies."
Cox President Michael Kaufman knows he can't afford the salaries and perks of a J&J, so he searches for affordable strategies to promote loyalty. He is accessible to his employees around the clock, and gives them a detailed report on the condition of the business at quarterly staff meetings. Birthdays are celebrated, outstanding workers win awards and there's bingo on Friday afternoons.
Says Marty Rubin, president of Spectraform, a Cox affiliate company that shares the same space and work force: "The mind-set around here is wonderful. There is a willingness to do whatever is needed; there are people here who can run every machine in the plant."
"This is a very family-oriented company; you're encouraged to talk about your family," said Cindy Pumar, who handles bookkeeping, billing and customer services. "If my kids have a day off from school, I can bring them here. And everyone helps one another. Nobody says, 'Oh that's your job; I don't want to do that.' If there's a deadline, I'll jump in and stuff envelopes, collate paper, pack boxes."
Says J&J's Heisen: "In our fields -- science, technology, marketing, sales -- our competitors are very actively recruiting. We're certainly in a knowledge economy, and the war for talent is heating up. But because of our family-friendly policies, because of the benefits we provide all of our employees, we are in a very strong position when it comes to recruiting."
Full text available at the Star Ledger
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