WorldCity Business Magazine

Recruitment: Feeling Perky

by WC

Companies are turning to dog-walking, babysitting and holidaymaking solutions to lure and retain staff.

The common declaration of workers, “Thank God its Friday” takes on a whole different meaning at the Miami offices of Fortune International Realty.

Aside from signaling the arrival of the weekend, it means “lunch is on the boss today” because Edgardo DeFortuna, president and CEO of the multinational the developer also has offices in Argentina and Mexico makes certain to feed his staff at the end of every week.

It’s just one of the ways he tries to show his appreciation.

“The concept started with just four or five guys from finance ordering in pizza,” says DeFortuna, “and grew to incorporate the whole company about three or four years ago. We have workers from our Sunny Isles Beach construction sites come and join us and we order in from local restaurants. Once a month, we do something more elaborate.”

Once a year, the company does something more elaborate yet it takes the whole sales force (and spouses) on an expenses paid vacation, a tradition for the past six years.

In 2005, the Fortune International contingent went to New York City and the majority of the party stayed at Le Parker Meridien. Last year, it was Las Vegas; the hotels of choice: the Bellagio and the Wynn.

“Edgardo gives his staff an allowance in advance to put toward flights and accommodation,” says Andrea Greenberg, vice president of marketing. “It covers most of the hotel and airfare. Then the company does events to keep the guests entertained. It generally entails a couple of dinners and a farewell brunch. We put together an itinerary for the groups free time. We went to the Grand Canyon last year, for example.”

The decision on where to go is always taken with the employees in mind.

“We take everybody from the vice presidents to the valets,” says DeFortuna. “We have thought of going to Europe in the past but that can be tricky depending upon an individuals visa status and, here, employees come first.”

This year, Fortune International is taking about 80 people to Cancun, Mexico, though the trip will be a little later than expected.

“We’ve had to put it back,” explains Greenberg, who is just choosing the accommodation, “because Edgardo’s wife, Ana Cristina, is pregnant.”

Working with children and animals

Children are a priority for other employers too, particularly in South America, according to one executive search specialist.

Sao Paulo-based Jean Callahan, managing director of Edward W. Kelley & Partners’ operations in Brazil, says that, with a talent drought in Latin America more acute than that in South Florida, employers are clamoring to offer the best benefits.

“Child care is becoming a priority in Latin America, particularly in Brazil,” Callahan says. “I’ve heard of companies that give employees time off for their children’s birthdays. That is a different kind of perk that is developing. One Brazilian company a bank flies employees and their families to Disney World once a year.”

In another effort to keep family members happy, at least one company is encouraging workers to take a spouse on business trips that entail a flight of at least five hours duration.

“We’re always trying to think up new incentives,” says Callahan. “It’s imperative in banking and pharmaceuticals, two competitive sectors.”

The perks, she says, are becoming more family- or work/life balance-oriented.

“If you look at the history of the dot-com companies, there were some really crazy retention offers being made,” says Callahan. “People were requesting the right kind of chair a $3,000 Herman Miller number, say things of that nature.”

Unprecedented growth across the region is forcing employers to think more creatively.

“The market’s on fire as far as competition is concerned,” says Callahan. “I’d say that that has been the case for the past year and a half. Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are heating up; even Venezuela, with all its problems, has seen opportunities increase 50 percent. Talented people are even scarcer than they are in the United States where there are more executives with higher levels of education.”

Latin American companies are working their employees hard but they are trying to take care of matters that busy schedules don’t allow for.

“If you think that Miami is competitive, just imagine Latin America where it’s even more so,” says Callahan. “One client provides concierge service in a business in which its sales force travels 90 percent of the time. The service caters to everything from dropping off to picking up dry-cleaning to buying birthday presents.”

Pension funds, stock options and health club memberships remain fairly standard, says Callahan, before waxing nostalgic about a benefit she enjoyed last year.

When the company traded as A. T. Kearney it became E. W. Kelley last year employees had access to a masseuse.

“It was very nice,” she recalls.

For most companies, time is money, though some are less rigid about days off by offering, say, a vacation on ones birthday The Biltmore Hotel based in Coral Gables is one example or by offering more flexibility.

“Technically, here at?The?Biltmore,?we get a vacation day on our birthday,” says Jennifer Vandekreeke, the hotels director of marketing, “so if someone works they get vacation or double pay.”

“We operate a family first policy,” says Ricardo Tao Feijo, vice president of marketing for Miami-based Holly Real Estate. “We don’t count the amount of sick days people take.”

Holly Real Estate is another company that advocates team-building exercises, though theirs come with a twist.

“We have a number of outings throughout the year,” says Tao Feijo, “comprising an official retreat in February and three others to Boca Chita where we take a boat out. We’re not constricted by office parameters: the girls are in bikinis and the boys in shorts. If you have to curse at someone, you curse at them.”

The company also offers a selection of unconventional awards to its staff and the next presentation is this month.

“It will be our third awards ceremony this April,” says Tao Feijo. “Among the awards, we present an honor to the person that has sold the most, to the best rookie and then there is the goofy Mr. or Mrs. Holly Real Estate presented to the person regarded as a walking billboard for the company.”

Tao Feijo is the title-holder of that dubious honor. “I won the award, two years in a row,” he says, “but now I am looking for someone to take it away from me.”

An awards initiative at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and Miami Heart Institute in Miami Beach has met with mixed reactions.

Employees of the hospital’s information technology division enter a monthly draw for employee of the month and are recognized by presentation of an ace of hearts from a deck of cards as a nod to the centers reputation for cardiology.

A former employee, who didn’t wish to be named, said that the presentation, while well intentioned, had been the source of dissension on at least one occasion.

“One month last year, we were sitting in our meeting and it was announced that the department’s best employee was a young man who was always ready with a cup of coffee or cafecito for his colleagues,” she says. “Quick as a flash, another colleague mumbled that it was only because this individual did no work that he had the time to make coffee for his colleagues. The supposed morale booster kind of imploded.”

Each year, Fortune magazine compiles a list of the 100 best companies to work for in the United States and two of those featured last year are based in South Florida.

Deerfield Beach-based JM Family Enterprises, a chain of auto dealerships, was ranked 41st in the last poll, published in June and, true to its transportation ties, flies its employees to the Bahamas for cruises on the company’s private yacht.

Meanwhile, true to its mission, 59th placed Baptist Health Systems, based in Coral Gables, offers its staff access to a fitness center and free health screenings which may account for a modest 7 percent voluntary turnover rate.

It may not have featured in the poll but, when it opened in 2005, Miami-based SOL Sothebys International Realty offered a more new-age style of healing by providing staff the services of in-house life coach, Roberto Suarez, there to help them sell and reach goals, both professional and personal.

The company’s officials also talked about providing a caterer to make meals for employees who work in a two-story house on Brickell Avenue.

If personal development is an incentive in Miami, in Argentina it is care for loved ones though the interests of pets prevail over those of children.

“One company offers dog-walking in Argentina,” says Callahan. “In Brazil, that wouldn’t be offered as an incentive because we have maids. Here, I pay my doorman to walk the dog.”

Though she applauds the effort, in the style of a human resource specialist, Callahan is mindful of equality.

“When I heard about the dog-walking service,” she says, “I thought: ‘What about the cats?’” WC