Ask not what you can do for the boss. Ask what your boss can do for you
An earlier study of the returns from investing in the best companies (BCs) to work for, as revealed by their employees, has been replicated with very similar results – as reported in the recent Financial Analysts Journal. An index of US companies that best satisfy their employees, would have provided market beating returns over an extended period to 2020, on average a meaningful extra 2-3% p.a. over the long run. Incidentally a similar methodology applied to selected groups of companies with very good ESG qualifications revealed slightly inferior returns. It is understandable why investors might have paid up for companies to feel better about themselves. Less obvious is why investors have so conspicuously spurned the advantages of investing in companies that are so well appreciated by their employees.
A different relationship between the causes and effects of companies that best satisfy their employees may explain the observed outcomes. It is the economic and financial performance of the best companies surveyed that perhaps explains their superior status with employees more than the other way round. The better the economic performance of a company, the better the company will be able and willing to look after their managers and workers and win their trust.
The same many hours devoted with the same energy and skills to a struggling business, are very likely to provide very inferior rewards over a lifetime of work. Promotion and training opportunities will be more limited. Initiatives to encourage self-improvement of the workforce will be unaffordable and the job itself will be much less secure. Bonuses and share option schemes that come with success and that make climbing the slippery corporate ladders so attractive will be largely absent.
It turns out that the best companies to work for are also unusually successful when measured by the other criteria for performance. To quote the study, “Overall, the main takeaway from these statistics is that BCs are rarely tiny-cap stocks, they are typically large, and a few are extremely large companies…… , we also see that, on average, BCs have relatively high market-to-book ratios of 12.44 and gross-profit-to-total-assets ratios of 38%, and that BCs spend relatively little on capital expenditures (4% of revenue) and have relatively large amounts of intangibles in their balance sheet (22% of total assets)….. BCs are large companies, with an average (median) market capitalization of $55bn. This shows that BCs tend to be large companies and the size distribution is skewed to the right….”
Most large companies were small to begin with and size is a measure of their success- able to sustain better still to improve their returns on additional capital employed. Such achievements characterize the true growth companies well worth being an early investor or employee in. The ideal business to invest in or work for would be a start-up that grows rapidly and becomes large and consistently successful on all dimensions. Perhaps what the list of BC’s – that change significantly from year to year- about 20% enter and leave the lists annually – include a biased sample of surprisingly successful companies- revealed in part by their superior employment practice. The best run companies are priced for success and therefore returns realized may not beat the share market. The surprisingly improved companies will do so. Identifying surprising strength before other investors do is the holy grail of investors and indeed also of workers with choices to make.
The key success factor in any business are the capabilities of its senior managers and directors. The employed insiders are in a very good position to evaluate them. The transfer market can serve those with competitive and marketable skills as well as it does in football should they have reason to doubt their leaders. Moreover, as they do in football, they should not resent the high rewards received by the best executors, the true and rare superstars that create and preserve so much value for workers and shareholders and as important for their valued customers.