You Call This Work?

You Call This Work?

Coaxing creativity with ping-pong, personal trainers, and litters of office puppies.

Picture this: A man emerges from a kayak and wipes sweat from his brow, dries his feet, and steps inside for a bagel and a mug of freshly brewed Peet’s coffee. Is this a scene from a bed and breakfast in Sonoma? Think again, partner. It’s just another morning at the office—boat and breakfast provided gratis—for the average Mountain Hardwear employee in Richmond. Like many local employers, the extreme sports-gear company has found that investing in happy, healthy employees pays off in low turnover and high productivity.

What—a job where your employer actually cares about your well-being on and off the clock? The Mountain Hardwear staff seem to have hit the mother lode of all gigs. But consider this: Despite ongoing rosy predictions, the U.S. economy is still on life support. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the nation shed 85,000 jobs last December. Translation: Even if Simon Legree is your boss, count your blessings—these days, having any sort of gainful employment is one of them.

I’m lucky in my own way: Like many hired guns—I’m a lone wolf freelance writer and producer—I work out of a home office (mine also doubles as a man cave). One of the key tenets of the home-office shift experience is that you can do it wearing a threadbare bathrobe. When your contact with the outside world is mostly online, no one really cares if you don’t exactly live up to that 1980s manifesto, Dress for Success. It’s all about the emails, baby.

My memories of my few office gigs over the years are somewhat painful—overbearing bosses and a less-than-stimulating work environment can do that. But what did I expect? Work isn’t supposed to be fun.

Or is it? There’s a new wind blowing in the employee happiness game (hint: a well-stocked snack machine in the break room isn’t the centerpiece) and a few East Bay companies—among them Mountain Hardwear, Clif Bar, and Pixar—are at the forefront. But, cautions Bill Capodagli, co-author with his management consulting firm partner Lynn Jackson of Innovate the Pixar Way—Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground (McGraw-Hill, 2009), the key to a truly Edenic workplace is not massages or chiropractic therapy on demand, but a corporate culture that makes employees feel like a vital part of the process.

Corporate climbing: Mountain Hardwear in Richmond provides kayaking, rock-climbing practice, and ping-pong—all on company time—for employees like Derek Mitchell (left) and his action-loving colleagues Charlie Williams (center) and Adam Wald (right). Photo by David Wilson.

“It takes more than just allowing people to bring their dogs in and put things on walls. You need to have a culture where people are enabled to unleash their ideas and creativity,” says Capodagli.

A “butt-kicking, name-taking” boss who tries to emulate Pixar by introducing scooter races, a swimming pool, and a breakfast bar, but still acts like Mr. Hard Ass, he adds, is not going to change a lot of attitudes.

Conversely, Capodagli continues, “If you trust them [employees] to be innovative and creative, they’re going to surprise not only you but themselves as well.” Too often, though, he hears clients downplay their personnel. “They say . . . ‘We just have a bunch of high-school graduates. They’re good people, but they’re not going to make the next iPod or whatever.’ That may be true but they do have ideas on how they do their jobs, on how they’d be more creative.”

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As it turns out, Emeryville’s Pixar isn’t the only local employer dedicated to boosting employee morale in a meaningful way. At Berkeley-based Clif Bar, purveyor of the popular energy snack, on-the-job fun has always been a strong subplot.

Rolling up to the plain-Jane corporate warehouse bunker of Clif Bar, a dreary gray contemporary facade lined with industrial greenery (where’s the twirling neon sign screaming “Home of the Clif Bar, Homie”?), there’s nothing to indicate that within these unremarkable walls, Clif Bar is on the leading edge of employee relations.

However, once inside the company’s current quarters just north of Berkeley’s trendy Fourth Street shopping paradise, it’s apparent that Clif Bar isn’t your average conglomeration of cubicles—or craniums. The first sign of outside-the-box thinking is that the place is practically a kennel. Employees are allowed to bring their best friends, and it’s so doggone dog-friendly at Clif Bar that recently, when one staffer shopped some Doberman/Labrador mutts around the office, four of her colleagues snapped up the pups. Now the quartet of “siblings” regularly shows up for work.

Power players: Clif Bar employees Erik Herman (left), Jonathan Prestino (center), and Pat Bush (right) get happy—and productive—in the company gym. (Fortunately, there’s an on-site shower room, too.) Photo by David Wilson.

Inside the open offices, the casual atmosphere reminds me of my volunteer days at KALX (Cal’s radio station) where—at least in the mid-’80s—the inmates were definitely in charge of the asylum. Each Clif Bar employee’s half-walled cubette reflects the occupant’s hopes, dreams, and desires—however, the guy who put up his Raider season ticket stubs must have an exceptionally vivid fantasy life. Either that or a persecution complex.

Unlike me and my ragtag college buddies, however, each and every Clifee—as of this writing, 233 in all—enjoys an astonishing host of health-and-happiness enhancing perks. Exhibit A: free access to the full-fledged on-site gym, complete with running machines and weights and staffed with two full-time trainers, including someone known as “Stephanie the Terminator.” On a recent visit to the offices, I noticed that the gym isn’t just for show either—employees get a half-hour workout per day on company time—as evidenced by the sweaty executive taking full advantage of the opportunity to pump some iron who asked me if I was next. Thankfully, there’s even a place to shower afterwards.

Clif Bar employees can also avail themselves of complimentary nutritional counseling, confidential life coaching, regular health screenings for high blood pressure and blood sugar, and the Clif Lounge, a rest area complete with comfy couches and well-stocked bookshelves, where they can get away from it all. Services for Clifees—some of which are subsidized—include haircuts, massages, car detailing, laundry, house and dry cleaning, and when they move to new, bigger digs in Emeryville later this year, daycare facilities. And those who agree to work 80 hours in nine days instead of 10 can take every other Friday off.

Workers are also encouraged to volunteer their time—on the company dime—for various causes such as Meals on Wheels. And speaking of wheels, Clif Bar nudges employees (not to mention the environment) toward better health by kicking in $500 toward the purchase of a commuter bike. In addition, staffers can earn up to $960 a year in reward coupons good for various retail and service goodies if they commute to work on foot, bike, public transportation, or carpool. In theory, any company can implement such federally subsidized programs, but Clif Bar is among the pioneers in making the possibility a reality.

But just how blissed out, really, is your average Clifee? Is the scene just a giant PR smoke screen designed to make the workers seem like a bunch of do-gooder hippies when all they really want to do is sell some energy bars?

It’s the real deal, says Bobby Fay, who provides customer care at a desk partially covered by a giant lotus leaf canopy and a backdrop of photos depicting customer experiences with Clif Bars (“Look Ma, I’m eating a Clif Bar with no hands!”). When he’s not fielding calls from Clif Bar’s many energetic fans or interacting with his numerous “fun, passionate, creative” colleagues, Fay acts as the sound tech for the company’s in-house band, the Dung Beatles. The group regularly performs with founder Gary Erickson—a skilled trumpeter who can play two horns at one time—in the company theater right next to the gym. Rumor has it Al Gore, our almost-president, once spoke in the very same venue.

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Baking the first-ever batch of his nutrition-laden snacks in his mom’s kitchen, Erickson had no idea that he would someday preside over a small but highly profitable empire, or that his enterprise would act as a magnet not only to hip young employees, but also a well-heeled corporate suitor offering a gleaming golden parachute. At the time—the early 1990s—Erickson was just interested in creating an energy bar more palatable than what he had been forced to power down on his regular 175-mile bike treks.

But as Clif Bar—named after Erickson’s father, Clifford (who passed away last year but whose voice is still featured on the company’s voicemail system)—grew, the company received an attractive sales bid. (While Clif Bar maintains a discreet silence on the subject, sources including the San Francisco Business Times name candy giant Mars Corporation as the pursuing party.)

As he details in his book about the company, the aptly named Raising the Bar, Erickson and his then-business partner and co-CEO, Lisa Thomas, were very close to signing the company away for $120 million. But the morning of the impending 2002 sale after which he’d never have to contemplate the potential market share of a Mojo Dipped Chocolate Peanut bar again, Erickson was struck with what he calls his first anxiety attack.

Shaking and gasping for air, Erickson told Thomas he needed to go for a walk. Once alone, he began weeping, overwhelmed at the prospect of selling his baby. Then it hit him. His journey making the best-tasting energy bars wasn’t over.

“I felt in my gut, ‘I’m not done,’” writes Erickson. He promptly turned around and marched back into his office. “Send them home. I can’t sell the company,” he told Thomas. This bold move cost Erickson dearly—$60 million, to be precise—as he had to buy out Thomas, who didn’t believe that Clif Bar could compete as an independent.

Thomas had good reason for her doubts. At the time, the Nestlé Corporation had just purchased Power Bar—another Berkeley-based energy snack manufacturer that was Clif Bar’s chief rival—for $375 million. Going up against that kind of competition, it defied logic that Clif Bar could survive. Yet hindsight reveals that Erickson’s heart-wrenching decision not to sell was, in fact, right on the money. In fact, by 2007, the independent company remained a solid number two, just behind Power Bar in the energy bar market.

Not going corporate also allowed Erickson to keep a groovy situation going for his employees. Today, support for the upbeat environment comes from the top down, says Jennifer Freitas, the company’s human resources manager. “I’m regularly asked by management, ‘What are you doing to make sure Clif Bar stays fun?’” says Freitas. She reports that the company has a very low turnover rate—only four percent each year—and that workers usually leave only to attend grad school or move out of the area.

Now the proud master of one of the recent Clif Bar litter—a lovable rascal named “Crash”—Freitas says the company’s employee policies center around maintaining a healthy work/life balance—something she feels wouldn’t be a priority had the company been sold to a major corporation with its eye focused on the bottom line.

“[We’re] definitely anti-bean counter,” says Freitas. When asked what the ROI [corporate-speak for “Return On Investment”] for Clif Bar’s employee-friendly environment is, Freitas is blunt: “I don’t have a clue.”

Quantifying the benefits of qualify-of-life issues in the workplace is not easily done, she adds. “‘I had 6.7 hours with my kids this week as opposed to 8.3 last week so I know I had a bad week’? That’s not how people are looking at their lives,” says Freitas. “The proof is how great we’re doing as a company and how happy the employees are. They want you as happy at work as you are in your life.”

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Derek Mitchell, who works just up I-80 at extreme outdoor goods–maker Mountain Hardwear, enjoys many of the same perks as Clif Bar employees—but with, natch, a more outdoorsy twist.

A 30-year outdoor industry vet, Mitchell started his career at the long-closed Harbert Brothers Sporting Goods in downtown Berkeley as a Berkeley High student in the 1970s. Since then he’s worked for Sierra Designs, North Face, and his current employer, Mountain Hardwear, where he sells the company’s high-end outdoor gear to ski resorts, the military, and other clients.

Housed in what used to be a Ford (later a World War II tank) plant, the facility has an old-school, open-air quality about it. Mitchell’s office is decorated with Tibetan prayer flags running across the ceiling, but the buff direct sales manager—dressed for work in an untucked short-sleeve shirt, stone-washed denim, and hybrid hiking/running shoes—looks like a guy who’s more active than contemplative.

At Mountain Hardwear, Mitchell can choose to kayak or sailboard on the Bay, and is also encouraged to ride a provided bike on the nearby Bay Trail, and to work out in an on-site gym. As at Clif Bar, dogs are welcome on-site, too, although this company’s canines haven’t started their own breed just yet.

For Mitchell, though, the most cherished form of company generosity is the trips he regularly organizes for clients and staff to test gear under extreme conditions—like a three-day backpacking adventure down the Tenaya Canyon, a steep granite river bed in Yosemite. “We had to rappel three times,” says Mitchell happily, referring to the dangerous art of holding onto a rope as you climb down the side of a mountain with just your feet.

Then there was the extra-extreme company-sponsored excursion to Valdez, Alaska. On that free (for employees, anyway) outing, Mitchell and his sales crew helicoptered to the peaks of the remote Chugach Mountains, and then skied down—a total of 20,000 feet over four trips. Try getting that one past accounting at Xerox. But the feat produced tangible results for Mountain Hardwear, whose advertising materials now feature photos and videos of the sales team in serious outdoor action.

Mitchell has also led cross-country ski overnight trips with employees to a rustic ski hut at Yosemite’s Glacier Point, and climbed Mt. Rainier and Shasta—all during normal business hours.

“If you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk,” says Mitchell, reached by phone from the snow powder skiers’ mecca of Alta, Utah, where he’s taking a well-deserved break between outdoor industry trade shows.

“When it’s all said and done, it’s all about having fun and being comfortable. It’s no fun if you’re cold and wet and your jacket’s leaking. That sucks,” says Mitchell.

Closer to home, Mountain Hardwear earthlings enjoy deep discounts on gear at the on-site company store as well as an atmosphere that is as collegial as it is professional. Meandering and chatting his way through the cavernous building, Mitchell is on a first-name basis with the guys on the loading dock as well as the executives.

Despite its remote location on the Richmond marina, far from typical workplace distractions like a nearby chain restaurant (“Hey Bob, it’s two-for-one margaritas and karaoke tonight at Applebee’s—you in?”), the staff appears fit and serene. They don’t need to be at the center of it all. They’ve got each other—and easy access to state-of-the-art insulated ski jackets—to keep their spirits up.

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The case could be made that turning the work environment from a place of drudgery and despair into a good-times oasis began with the dot.com boom of the late 1990s. Remember the shots of all those web designers at start-ups feverishly playing foosball? It looked like fun, and apparently it was, but when reality set in (something about bandwidth) a lot of those exotic employers went belly-up.

The survivors, though, have only become stronger; some, like Google, appear to be on the verge of taking over the world. There is almost nothing more important in the business sector today than where you come out in a Google search.

To keep the mighty Google army energized at the Mountain View headquarters, according to spokesperson Jordan Newman, 16 cafes offer an assortment of free gourmet breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, with strategically placed mini-kitchens stocked with munchies and drinks also strewn across the campus. Café 150 is so named because all the ingredients used in its food are farmed within a 150-mile radius of the Google campus. Talk about a sustainable business model.

And if the great eats result in a bit of an upset tummy, the on-site medical staff can front you some Zantac from their over-the-counter stash. There are also on-site oil changes and car washes, dry cleaning services, massage therapy, a gym, a hair stylist, fitness classes, and bike repair. For just plain kicks, there’s pool, volleyball, ping-pong, and two infinity lap pools. After all the exertion, there’s also a smoothie bar and even nap pods for those in need of some quick shuteye. Even commuting to Google is a blast, says Newman: Posh wi-fi equipped buses shuttle workers to and from San Francisco and the East Bay.

Google’s employee-friendly style began way back, says Yvonne Agyei, the company’s benefits director. “In our early start-up days, we found that great things happen more frequently within the right culture and environment,” she explains. “. . . We offer Googlers a generous host of perks and benefits to keep Google a motivating, healthy, and productive place.”

Gratifying goodies aside, one of Google’s most directly business-enhancing perks is a policy allowing staff to spend up to 20 percent of their work time on a project of their own invention. The only catch: The project must benefit the company. As a result, employees have dreamed up game-changing ideas like Gmail, Google News, and the new ocean layer on Google Earth. And whether it’s the result of superb nutrition, supreme satisfaction, or something in the coffee, such big brainstorms are often hatched in the casual cafe environment.

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No doubt, devoting one’s life to the manufacture of energy bars, sub-zero sleeping bags, and search-engine optimization can be rewarding, but clearly—even in the East Bay—there’s no business like show business.

Illustrating this premise with aplomb is Emeryville’s Pixar Animation Studios. Creators of a long line of blockbusters starting with Toy Story, Pixar’s signature computer animation look is unrivaled.

But what’s it like to work there? Bill Capodagli, the Pixar biographer, claims the atmosphere at Pixar is a festering hotbed of unbridled creativity. All employees—even the janitors—are encouraged to enroll in classes at Pixar University where they can sharpen their animation and writing skills, for free, on company time, up to four hours a week.

They also get to go on creative juice–inducing road trips, splash around in an Olympic-size pool, and chow down at a cereal bar. Apparently, access to unlimited quantities of Cap’n Crunch can conjure up blissful childhood memories that inspire great art.

As for cubicle culture, forget it. The Pixies work in sheds—some that look like Tiki huts. “It’s almost like you’re on the set of the Munchkins,” says the West Olive, Mich.–based Capodagli, who, like me, was not allowed an inside peek at Pixar. “I’ve seen pictures,” he says.

So, it turns out that a happy worker is also a busy, sometimes brilliant bee—one who won’t leave in a snit and sting their former employer with a lawsuit because the potato chip selection in the on-site vending machine wasn’t up to snuff. From the boss’s point of view, that makes sense. And ditto—make that double ditto—for us average working stiffs.

“If you ever want to be depressed, figure out the percentage of waking hours you have at work as compared to what you’re spending with your family or in free time. It’s frightening,” says Capodagli. “If you’re not enjoying it and having fun—boy. Life’s too short.”

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San Francisco–based writer/producer Paul Kilduff works at home on a computer desk from Ikea that he managed to put together all by himself. He dreams of someday bossing a staff around from the confines of a corner office with a view of a bridge or something equally spectacular.

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