 |
|
 |
|
Web Firm Coddles Staff
Reprinted from Contra Costa Times, December 2, 1999
EMERYVILLE, CA -- In the summer months, Busse Design USA Inc. throws open its warehouse doors to let in the fresh air and sunshine -- but with a catch. Instead of leaving its Web site design firm exposed to the prying eyes of strangers, staffers roll a one-way mirror wall in front of the open doors. Then it's Busse Design's 15 staffers who do the people watching -- and you wouldn't believe the things they've seen passersby do.
"People stop and talk to themselves, others smooth their hair, some even pick their noses," said product manager Susannah Dempsey. The movable one-way mirror is just one of the unusual, whimsical touches that sets this boutique company apart from its larger competitors.
It's also the kind of thing Busse Design executives sell, sell, sell to recruit staffers. And the kind of thing they nurture to keep staffers -- with good reason.
Employees get phone calls from recruiters five times a week on average but say they have no intention of leaving. "The reason we are successful is really because of our work style," said company co-founder Jennifer Bulka.
'Instant chemistry'
That's what convinced Sarah Bellrichard, 27, a Web master and academic librarian from Southern California looking to move to the Bay Area and work for a design firm. Bellrichard described her attraction to three-year-old Busse Design as "instant chemistry."
"I just knew it would be a challenging and fun work environment that would allow me to make a lot of decisions for myself about where I want to go professionally," Bellrichard said. "What really stood out -- and what still stands out -- is the degree of openness and communication between everyone. These people not only work together but they all really like each other and respect each others' skills. People have room here to make decisions and to pursue new directions even if they are not found in their job description. Busse really gives you the latitude to explore so that you can continue to learn and expand."
Busse Design's headquarters exhibits its openness. Housed in a hip artist studio, a converted historic steam engine factory, the firm has no cubicles or offices; just offbeat touches such as shower curtains for drapes, a German industrial style favored by company co-founder Joy Busse, a native of Germany.
Posted to the refrigerator is an employee Webvan shopping list sent out once a week. And not only is Busse Design, people-friendly and dog-friendly (Busse's dog Schroeder is as much an employee as Busse herself), it's frog-friendly, too (Busse's young daughter has to be supervised when she pulls the frogs out of the aquarium).
Language barrier legends
Busse sets the tone for the casual, droll atmosphere. English is a second language for Busse and the language barrier is the stuff Busse Design's legends are made of. "We were in a client meeting early on in the company together and the client asked 'How do you do marketing for your business,' and Joy said 'mouth to mouth.' Of course, she meant to say 'word of mouth,'" Bulka recalls.
Sometimes it's the activities outside of work that create the fun work environment. From rocking out at a Neil Young charity concert to absconding with the company credit card to have dinner out on the town, staffers say a vast array of soft benefits keeps them happy when they are working the long hours their business demands. But employees' lifestyle is also important to the Busse Design founders.
The firm closes up shop between Christmas and New Year's. "We are not a conveyor belt design machine," Bulka said. "We think people have had it with the big burn-out start-up thing."
Everyone gets a say in how the company is run. At a recent company off-site in Carmel, all staffers contributed their ideas. "The management philosophy we subscribe to is the learning organization model," Bulka said. "Employees are the vision; they don't just share the vision."
Each week, an employee runs a training session, keeping the others up to date on everything from customer relationship management to broadband.
Busse Design also feels strongly that it belongs to the greater Internet community. It's in the midst of developing a public Web site called designpark.com to share design resources and tools with the rest of the Web site design profession.
Top credentials
A feel-good culture isn't the main draw, however. Busse Design's founders' credentials are top of the line. Busse Design staffers are trained portal experts. Busse herself helped create the portal design for Excite.com. Busse Design also has done work for Oakland-based Cybergold and some Fortune 500 companies.
Busse Design knows it's not enough to dangle a collaborative, fun work environment or top salaries in front of job candidates, especially when competing against companies that can pump up salaries with potentially lucrative stock options. So it offers a profit-sharing program paid out on an annual basis as well as performance-based and sign-on bonuses.
Clearly, Busse Design has a lot to offer, but how to get the word out to job candidates, especially at a time when the company expects to double its staff in the next six months to meet escalating customer demand? In the past year alone, thousands of niche Internet companies have been founded. Because of limited hiring budgets, these small companies have to come up with unique ways to compete against larger companies to recruit qualified technical workers.
So Busse Design only relies on word-of-mouth and niche hiring services such as CareerCentral.com, a Palo Alto-based online company that delivers to hiring managers resumes of candidates in five business days for $3,495, less than the fees traditionally charged by headhunters.
"We have pretty much found all the job boards useless," Bulka said. "We got a flood of resumes but nobody screened them. I got really unqualified candidates. This project with Career Central was so successful for us. They prequalified all of my matches. I only got eight but I wanted to hire six of them."
Bellrichard was the one who made the cut and she's thrilled: "It's just a collaborative atmosphere here that you don't find in big companies."
|
|
|
|
|
