The Hippest City in the USA (Des Moines)

Sara Jane Bowe, an attorney for Principal who has spent her 20-year career at the company, says benefits like these have changed her life. "I deliberately chose corporate practice, not a courtroom career, because of the possibility for balance. I knew I wanted to have kids," she says. Bowe is a regular at Principal's body-sculpting and tai chi classes, and both her children attend the Downtown School. "I have my tai chi sword in my office; I take the class during my lunch hour," she says. Her favorite benefit? "Free parking. My spot is right upstairs from the Downtown School. Makes my life very easy when I drop the kids off in the morning."

The Downtown School is a key part of the Des Moines business community's effort to bridge the gap between employees' work and home lives. A cooperative venture between the Des Moines Public School System and a group that calls itself the Business/ Education Alliance, it began when 19 local companies banded together in 1990 to donate office space, used furniture, carpets, and office supplies. The Des Moines school board agreed to administer the new school and provide teachers. The result is a K-through-5 elementary school, which opened in 1993 with three teachers and 45 students, located in the heart of the downtown business district. Now, 10 years later, the Downtown School boasts two locations, with a third to open soon, and is home to 19 teachers and 270 students. All of its facilities are connected by elevated skywalks to the area's office buildings, so working parents can easily drop off and pick up their children, or pay a visit during their workday.

Jan Drees has been principal of the Downtown School since it opened. "We recognize that time is limited when parents are working, so we want to do whatever we can to maximize that time," Drees says. "We ask, When are they free? Lunch? Okay, then let's schedule activities for them to participate in with their kids during the lunch hour."

Leslie Silverstein, who works for insurer Allied Group, has a 6-year-old daughter, Molly, at the Downtown School. "Instead of my work and her school, it's all just blended together," she says. "We don't need Take the Kids to Work Day here, because she already understands what I do, and she loves coming to work with me."

Des Moines enjoys some advantages that have nothing to do with corporate policies. Tracy Lewis, an HR manager at Kemin Industries, recruits heavily from out of state to fill scientific positions at the company, which makes specialty food additives and ingredients. When he entices new employees to join Kemin, he emphasizes the city's old-fashioned midwestern values of neighborliness, community involvement, and family support. "It's a do-or-die issue for us," he says. "We're recruiting from Maryland, Florida, Georgia, even internationally, and we have to make a strong case. I always ask, 'What do you think you'll miss out on here in Des Moines?' " If it's sports, he'll dig up information about community leagues for employees to participate in. If it's the arts, he'll point out the world-class Des Moines Metro Opera -- and that it's much easier and cheaper to get season tickets here, in a greater metropolitan area of around 684,000, than it would be to attend the Met in New York.

Across town, Townsend Engineering is engaged in a pretty prosaic -- and maybe even traditionally midwestern -- business: It designs and manufactures meat-processing equipment. But the way it goes about motivating its employees seems more New Age economy than sausage economy. Last year, owner Ted Townsend took 610 employees and spouses (half from Des Moines and half from Townsend's European operations) for a long weekend celebration just outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Such excursions, which began in 1946 with a fishing trip to Minnesota, have included vacations in Hawaii, Florida, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and the Bahamas, taken whenever company funds permitted (usually every two to three years).

To business owners for whom such extravagances are out of reach, Townsend has this to say: "Look, the logistics of a big trip are enormous, so that may not be the answer. But there are other things that any company can do. When people ask how other firms could afford to do this, I say start with the little things."

Things like giving every employee a parking space. "Do you know how excited people get about a parking space?" Townsend asks. Once a year, employees are also allowed to send flowers to someone special, on the house. "It's just a nice touch," he says. The company pays for anonymous pastoral counseling and for late-night cab rides so that employees never drive home drunk after an evening out on the town.

And with every sale of a piece of equipment, a portion of the proceeds is placed in the company's Attitude Bonus Bag, whose totals are broadcast on a loudspeaker over the factory floor once a week. It's a way for employees to know how the company is performing. Twice a year, the pot is shared equally among every employee. Since it began in 1977, the bonus bag has paid out $3 million to employees, including $160,000 last year.