The Socially Responsible EOY winner and runners-up for 1994.
Fran Rodgers has grown a business -- and pioneered an entire industry -- by selling new ways for corporations to help their employees manage their lives
Socially Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year
An individual who uses his or her entrepreneurial skills to help solve societal problems
The Winner
Fran Sussner Rodgers
Work/Family Directions, Boston
Provider of referral services for work-and-family issues
Founded in 1983
$44.2 million in 1993 revenues
$7 million in 1993 profits
247 employees
The Runners-up
Yvon Chouinard
Patagonia, Ventura, Calif.
Outdoor-clothing company
Founded in 1972
$125 million in 1993 revenues
1993 profits not available
450 employees
Laura Scher and Peter Barnes
Working Assets, San Francisco
Telecommunications company
Founded in 1985
$35.8 million in 1993 revenues
$2.7 million in 1993 profits
47 employees
Judith Wicks
White Dog Enterprises, Philadelphia
Restaurant
Founded in 1983
$3.6 million in 1993 revenues
$0.3 million in 1993 profits
96 employees
In the door to Fran Rodgers's office is a sign in a child's magic-marker scrawl: "President Fran's Office -- Otherwise Known as Mom." The sign is fitting for a woman who easily wears a fuchsia silk power suit one day and khakis and a wool sweater the next. It's appropriate for 48-year-old Rodgers, whose business, Work/Family Directions, unites the two worlds of work and family as adeptly as she unites them personally.
Rodgers is rarely called an entrepreneur. She is known as America's foremost expert on work-and-family issues because her Boston-based business so ably addresses a subject previously relegated to social-services agencies. Yet by identifying and capitalizing on a profound shift in the way big corporations handle human-resources (HR) issues such as elder care and family dysfunction, Rodgers has grown a profitable $50-million company in a decade.
The irony is that if Rodgers sold, say, lug nuts, she'd probably be on the cover of a business magazine like Inc. for her company-building exploits alone. Here is a woman who has shaped a company that employs hundreds without committing the sins so often characteristic of high-growth companies: neglecting product quality, losing customer focus, losing sight of the company's original vision. Recently, Work/Family made Working Woman's list of the best companies for women to work for -- for the third straight year. Last year IBM recognized Work/Family for being one of its top-quality vendors, partly because of Rodgers's innovative technique for tracking the performance of each of her employees by polling Work/Family customers.
But the human side of Rodgers's work puts the focus more squarely on her pioneering of an entire industry -- a $500- million-a-year-plus industry whose many companies now provide work-and-family referral services to large companies. Rodgers's clients pay $15 to $25 for each employee; any employee who then needs to find child care or help for an elderly parent who's broken a hip, or who wants to know whether a child might qualify for financial aid for college, just calls Work/Family.
All of which makes Rodgers insightful and outspoken on the contradictions of being socially responsible -- and on the business of growing a business in such a business. Here's what she has to say:
* * *
On Social Responsibility
The work my company does is socially responsible in that it contributes not only to business results but also to society. But that's not why our clients choose us. They buy our services primarily to enhance their profitability and performance. The danger of being seen as socially responsible is that people believe it's inconsistent to be both socially responsible and also very much alive to bottom-line results.
Our work is about showing people that work-life issues are not marginal. Work-life issues are relevant when you restructure. They are relevant when you go global, when you're downsizing, when you're reengineering, and when you're redesigning benefits. To the extent that socially responsible concepts are seen as the nice thing to do, as opposed to the relevant thing to do, it's not so good for me to be seen in that light. In fact, if clients see my work as irrelevant to getting business results, their employees will not be well served in the long run because the companies won't be examining the basic business rationale for those socially responsible decisions.
You cannot make business decisions about competing in today's world without considering the people who have to "buy" the change and deliver results. I see this as an ecological problem. If you can figure out how to compete and figure out how your people will help you do it, you'll be way ahead of the game. Companies that are reengineering and then realize they're having a motivation problem are only halfway there.
Most companies make one of two mistakes when they think about their employees. Some look only at demographics. They say, "Here's how the population is changing, here's what people say they want, so I'll make changes regardless of whether it'll get me business or not." That is addressing work-family as an HR strategy unrelated to the business. The other mistake is to have every consultant in the world tell you what you have to do to compete -- but ignore the needs of the people who will get you there. That's the way it is very often in large companies because they tend to draw lines between HR and strategy.
* * *
On Managing People Today
Smart companies acknowledge that with dual-income families, women in the workforce, and other changes, people have more family issues. Those companies know that to attract and keep employees, they need to provide different kinds of benefits. You don't have to look too far to know that people can take only so much change before they crack. Employees get sick, they give a marginal performance, they snap at the next customer.
