SAS Institute: In a recession, employee satisfaction is especially important

“Still participating after four years, is a way to ensure that we’re staying on the right path,” says Liselotte Jansson, Managing Director at SAS Institute Sweden. She points out that it’s especially important to thrive in your working environment during a recession. In an uncertain market, customer commitment is crucial. Job security and satisfaction therefore become a fundamental precondition in order to meet customer demands.

 “We’ve succeeded in building an excellent team. In this recent recession, we early stated that there wouldn’t be any terminations. This has contributed to our employees being able to focus on doing their job, instead of worrying of losing it,” says Liselotte Jansson.

Each year, Great Place to Work Institute appoints the country’s best workplaces based on the employees’ relations to the management, the organization and each other, as well as job satisfaction. March 25, SAS Institute was awarded winner of Sweden’s Best Workplaces 2010 during a ceremony at Nalen, in Stockholm. On top of that they also, for the second consecutive year, received an award for best Internal Communication.

Even though SAS Institute has received the award for four consecutive years, Jansson plans to continue participating in GPtW in the future.

“This isn’t something that you do just once. It’s a great way to follow up and ensure that we’re on the right path. It’s important to always keep one ear to the ground and constantly work on your weaknesses,” she says.

And SAS Institute certainly seems to be on the right path. A path which, according to Jansson, implies that everyone in the company has a great deal of respect for one another, as well as the encouragement to be creative and freedom in the course of their duties.

"We constantly improve by having the right people in the right places, making sure everyone can reach their goals. This creates a positive cycle; a good atmosphere contributes to good results; good results make work more enjoyable, which leads to a good atmosphere and satisfaction, and so on,” says Jansson.

Employee satisfaction is a part of SAS Institute’s business perspective. Since its founding in the US, 1976, SAS Institute’s philosophy has been that if you treat your employees as if they make a difference, they will. The concept is simple; happy employees create happy customers, which in the end will have a positive impact on the result.

“It’s important that all our efforts in creating the best possible conditions to succeed for our employees also has a positive effect on the bottom line. Despite the recession, we made a good result last year. When the company is doing well, the employees increases their performances in order to achieve the company goals,” says Jansson.

For more information please visit: www.sas.com/sweden