By: Richard Florida and Jim Goodnight August 2005 Joe Kelley and Kyle Livingston.

By: Richard Florida and Jim Goodnight August 2005

Joe Kelley and Kyle Livingston

SAS institute is the largest privately held software company in the world

SAS provides software to 96 of the top 100 companies on the Fortune Global 500, and to 90% of all 500

SAS has been around for 29 years and in 2005 had its 28th straight year of revenue growth

SAS is most famously known for its unique style of management and the way it treats its employees

On campus, it has medical facilities for employees and dependents. Additionally, there's a day care center, and children are welcome in the company cafeteria, so families can eat lunch together

Basketball courts, a swimming pool, and an exercise room on-site, all of which make it easier for employees to fit a workout into their day.

The company's Work-Life Department provides educational, networking, and referral services to help employees choose the right colleges for their teenagers or find the best home health aides for their parents. Massages, dry cleaning, haircuts, and auto detailing are offered on-site and at reduced costs

SAS saves about $85 million a year in such costs because of these facilities and employees don’t have to worry about other things or be gone as much

Everyone working on the SAS campus is an employee; the company doesn't outsource any job functions. Whether you're a chef or a programmer, a groundskeeper or a director, you are a full member of the SAS community, and you receive the same benefits package.

Top IT people all over the World want to work at SAS, however it is hard to get in the company because employees want to stay

Employee turnover rate is between 3% and 5% compared with the industry average of nearly 20%

Workers are allowed to come and go as they please, there is not a set time in which they have to come in because innovative insight can strike at any time

At the same time working over 8 hours a day is discouraged, "After eight hours, you're probably just adding bugs“ is a company proverb

They only have to work 35 hour work weeks, but many employees put in extra time on there own

SAS does not just let there employees play all day, they want there employees to want to come to work and still be top performers

The hiring process may take months and applicants are looked over very closely

Managers and the CEO have an open door policy

Managers are there to help the employee’s, managers trust there employee’s

If an employee needs something a manager does not ask them a lot of questions

An Information Week survey of tens of thousands of IT workers confirms the theory: On-the-job challenge ranks well above salary and other financial incentives as the key source of motivation.

SAS has an annual users conference where all of its customers meet with SAS employees and discuss problems and wants

Employees gain long term and strong relationships with customers because employees stay at SAS for so long

A company's most important assets aren’t raw materials, transportation systems, or political influence. It's creative capital – simply put, an arsenal of creative thinkers whose ideas can be turned into valuable products and services.

SAS is a leader because of its management style and its relationships with its employees and customers

In today’s changing technology world companies must also shift there management style to allow employees to be more creative and have more freedoms