A Great Place to Work: What Makes Some Employers So Good--And Most So Bad - Softcover

Levering, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380711036 ISBN 13: 9780380711031

Publisher: Avon Books, 1990

Synopsis

Explains what makes a company a good place to work and offers specific strategies for fostering a positive work environment

About this title

About the Author

Robert Levering is the co-author of the Fortune annual list of the "100 Best Companies to Work for in America," and the annual list of the best workplaces in Brazil for Exame, Brazil's premier business magazine. He is also author or co-author (with Milton Moskowitz) of several books, including: A Great Place to Work: What makes some employers so good—and most so bad (newly edited in 2000), The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, Everybody's Business: A Field Guide to the 400 Leading Companies in America, and The Computer Entrepreneurs.

With Amy Lyman, Robert is co-founder of the Great Place to Work® Institute, Inc. He is a sought-after speaker and lecturer on topics related to workplace trends and management strategies aimed at improving workplace productivity at numerous corporations and associations throughout the United States and internationally. Robert has been the subject of feature interviews in Newsweek, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, The New York Times, Industry Week, Exame, Han-kyung Business Weekly and numerous regional publications, as well as a guest on dozens of TV and radio shows, including "Oprah," "CNN," and "CBS Morning News." In 1992, he hosted and wrote his own nationally syndicated television series, "The New Workplace." He has also produced a management training video, "A Great Place to Work" (MTI/Coronet, 1990).

Robert received his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College and has a Master's degree from Martin Luther King Jr. School of Social Change. He is an active member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

From the Inside Flap

Workers of the world and their bosses are guaranteed to find food for thought and a challenging framework for action in Robert Levering s groundbreaking A Great Place to Work. Although most of us spend an ever larger majority of our waking hours on the job, no one (as Levering realized when he and his co-authors had completed research for their best-selling The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America had attempted to define exactly what can make a workplace a truly wonderful place to work what can transform "just a job" into a daily affirmation of trust, pride, loyalty even fun.

To find out, Levering returned to the top twenty of those one hundred companies "the best of the best" to interview employees and managers at every level. Despite the differences in the companies they worked for and the jobs they did, technicians and truck drivers, secretaries and salesmen voiced the same enthusiasm, dedication, and sense of belonging every employer hopes for, and they attributed their attitudes to the same essential dynamics in their working environments. Most of what they had to say runs contrary to the heretofore received wisdom of management theorists, from efficiency experts to contemporary motivational cheerleaders, all of whose advice boils down to management by manipulation. The message here is radically different, and inspiring: "Good workplaces provide beacons in a fog of mediocrity and insensitivity. They offer a different vision from the dog-eat-dog, each-man-for-himself, free-the-entrepreneur philosophy that enjoys widespread currency today."

A Great Place to Work offers more than a vision of what work can be. It is the first and only guide that helps job seekers decide what questions to ask potential employers and which kinds of employers to avoid, assists employees in interpreting daily experiences at work and in determining what it is possible to expect, and informs well-meaning employers how to improve the quality of a working environment.

Reviews

"Levering revisited 20 of the best and worst companies he featured in The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America to identify essential characteristics and dynamics that motivate employees, stimulate productivity and a sense of personal fulfillment," reported PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Avon Books
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0380711036
• ISBN 13: 9780380711031
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312