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Making Workers Happy Helps Business Thrive
Certes Financial Pros
By: Dick Youngblood
Karen Oman built up her financial and accounting temp service by using a simple formula for success: She treats her employees well -- including generous benefits, above-average wages and three vacation homes available to workers free of charge.
Scott Eckes' wife is a teacher, his son a 12- year old with a crowded schedule of baseball and golf in the months ahead. So Eckes is taking the summer off from his job as a financial officer to share the time with them.
His employer will welcome him back in the fall with no loss of his benefits and no impact on his above-average pay scale.
Sue Lipschultz's daughters are 11 and 13, too old for day care and too young to be on their own. So, instead of laboring as a financial analyst, she'll be spending the summer leading the kids through what she regards as "a critical stage in the development of their values."
Her job and benefits also will be waiting for her when the youngsters return to school.
Eckes and Lipschultz have the same unusually flexible employer: Certes Financial Pros, a Golden Valley firm that Karen Oman started in 1994 to supply financial professionals to area companies on a project basis. In short, it's an accounting and financial temp service -- although Oman would prefer the term "professional outsourcing firm."
Whatever you call it, Certes is a comparatively small entry in an exceedingly crowded field dominated by the likes of Robert Half International's management resources division.
Nevertheless, Oman's company is worth our attention because of an uncommon blend of generous pay and benefits that recently earned it the "Best Employer" award in Working Woman magazine's 2000 Entrepreneurial Excellence competition.
Oman's formula for success is "shockingly simple" the magazine said in its May issue: She goes out of her way to "make workers happy."
What a concept! It's a strategy that helped Oman, 46, build a business that has burgeoned in five years to 1999 revenues of $5.3 million -- up 35% from $3.9 million in '98 and nearly double the $2.9 million booked in '97.
Generous benefits
Unusual flexibility regarding when -- and how much -- a Certes employee will work is only part of the formula. It also includes wages that range from $30 to $50 an hour and up, plus a 401(k) plan for which Certes matches 25 percent of employee contributions up to one percent of annual salary.
Then there are pre-tax health-care and
Karen Oman started Certes Financial Pros in 1994 with the financial assistance of her husband, Jim. The company has grown from one associate to 80 employees.
child-care accounts, not to mention Certes' 50 percent contribution to health-insurance premiums. Plus the ability to take up to six months off without losing any of these benefits.
Oman also buys four season tickets for employee use at both the Orpheum and the Ordway theaters. And she pays a $500 referral fee for successful tips on landing new clients and employees.
Oh yes, let us not forget the vacation homes that Oman makes available to employees: the $400,000 condo on Sanibel Island near Fort Meyers, Fla.; the three-bedroom home with swimming pool in a Fort Meyers country club community; the two-bedroom town home on Gull Lake in northern Minnesota.
How can she provide these benefits and perks and remain competitive? Oman credits comparatively low turnover, which not only reduces her recruiting costs, but also provides the kind of stability that keeps clients coming back.
"According to the Labor Department, turnover of temp workers is close to 400 percent," Oman said. "Ours is 25 percent." Or less, if you consider that about one-third of the employees who leave Certes are hired away by clients -- which is OK with her , since she collects a substantial placement fee when that happens.
The result is a client list that includes the bulky likes of General Mills, Honeywell, Imation and SuperValu.
Benefits aren't the only attraction. Equally important to some Certes employees is Oman's commitment to negotiating with her clients to meet the individual needs of her workers. This includes not only the number of hours to be worked each week, the type and length of assignment or the compensation level, but also some unusual needs.
For example, Oman got a client to give one of her employees an extended lunch hour so the worker could go home and tend to her diabetic dog. She also won a four-day work week so a worker could rest up on Fridays for her weekend gigs with a rock band.
Flexibility valued
"Karen Oman created a company based on the premise that you can treat people well and be successful," said Working Woman editor Bernadette Grey. "It's a message that resonates with workers, and (one) that employers should pay attention to, especially in a tight labor market.
" For workers like Eckes and Lipschultz, the flexibility in terms of work schedules might be more important than the benefits. Thanks to Oman, Eckes said, "I'm still using my skills in a challenging environment, but ...without giving up the rest of my life. (Her) awareness that people have equally important lives outside of work is something I've never seen in any executive before."
Lipschultz agreed, noting that the ability to spend the summer with her daughters at this important time in their lives -- without risking her career ---is "a wonderful opportunity."
The frustrations of blending family life with a full-time work schedule led Oman to start her company. "I had two young daughters (now 15 and 20) and a job that took up 50 to 60 hours a week," she recalled. "I'd come home, cook dinner and try to find a little time for my family, then open my briefcase about 10 and work until 11 or 12." "Bottom line, there was just too little time for my family."
When her job as a senior financial analyst at Cowles Media (former Star Tribune owner) was eliminated in 1990, she decided to labor as a consultant handling short- term projects.
She loved it at first: "I was in complete control of my schedule," which allowed her to keep up with the transportation needs of two youngsters with a whirl of extracurricular activities. But within four years, her consulting business had grown into a familiar rat race of too much work and too little time.
With the financial assistance of her husband, Jim, Oman hired an associate and started Certes Financial Pros. Today, the company has 80 employees -- including her husband, now Certes' treasurer and manager of its vacation properties.
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