CARY, N.C. - The SAS Institute is not an average high-flying software company.
Many employees at publicly traded tech firms burn the midnight oil in exchange for lucrative stock options, but the 4,000 workers at privately owned SAS's headquarters in Cary enjoy a 35-hour work week, subsidized daycare and a 58,000-sq. ft. gym complex.
"The recreation center, fitness and health care all fits in with making an environment that's easy to work in," said Lisa Buckner, a human resources manager at SAS.
SAS's perks have earned the company recognition on "60 Minutes," "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and in FORTUNE Magazine as one of the best companies to work for in America.
The corporate generosity has paid off by increasing employee retention and the number of job applicants.
Employee turnover rates at SAS hover around 5 percent per year, compared to an industry average of 20 percent, and roughly 225 applicants vie for each job opening, Buckner said.
"Year-to-date, we have received almost 34,000 applications, so by the end of the year we'll be looking at 36,000 applications for [160] positions," Buckner said.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, told "60 Minutes" in 2003 that SAS's high retention rates save the company up to $80 million annually in training and hiring costs.
SAS's corporate culture has been shaped by the company's co-founder and CEO James Goodnight, whose $4.5 billion of SAS holdings makes him the wealthiest man in North Carolina and placed him in 52nd place on this year's Forbes 400 Richest Americans list.
Goodnight and his wife are both art aficionados, and they have stocked the Cary campus with more than 3,000 works of art.
"We have two artists-in-residence [in Cary]," Buckner said. "In our regional offices, we look for regional artists in those communities."
Unlike most technology firms, SAS is privately owned, so it can't compensate its employees with stock options. Diane Lennox, a public relations representative at SAS, said the company uses a generous profit-sharing plan to make up the difference.
The company also invests 24 percent of its revenues in research and development, which Buckner said enables SAS to maintain an edge over its competitors.
SAS's business intelligence software helps companies and government organizations sift through reams of information.
The company has licensed software to customers ranging from the United States Census Bureau to Publishers Clearing House, which uses a SAS analytics program to select winners out of its millions of sweepstakes entrants, Buckner said.
Lennox added that department stores use the company's software to analyze how well products sell in different cities.
"They use our technology to decide which shirts in which colors and sizes should be stocked in which stores, and also where they should be displayed on the store floor," Lennox said.
Buckner said a few Duke alumni work at SAS, but estimated that there are more graduates from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who work at the company.
"Historically when we do our hiring we try to stay in the area," she said.
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