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If anyone knows anything about the numbers game, it’s Intuit, the developers of e-finance solutions such as Quicken, QuickTax and QuickBooks. But ask anyone who works for Intuit if they feel like a number, the answer would be a quick ‘no!’
At Intuit, you’re more than what you do at work.
 “I think what makes us different as an employer is that we’re more excited about life experiences and diversity of thought,” says Cheryll Watson, Intuit’s manager of communications and culture. “We’re not just expecting you to bring your HTML skills with you. We want the whole package.”
And this, as you might expect, is not often the case in the software industry. But then Intuit, unlike others in this field, is people-driven.
“Our employees determine what’s important to us. And maybe that’s the difference,”
Watson says. “So maybe it stems from the fact that the people is one of our operating values. And maybe in those others—and I’m just speculating here—maybe they’re more focused on technical skills and we’re not. We know it’s important, it’s gotta be there, but we also look for the rest of the package.”
| Operating Value #3: It’s the People. People are the foundation of Intuit’s success. In fact people are so important that the primary job of each manager here is to help people be more effective in their jobs and to help them grow and develop at Intuit. |
Headquartered in Edmonton with offices in Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, Intuit operates from 10 core values that are based on what’s most important to its employees and that are reviewed annually to help managers see how they’re measuring
up to these employee expectations.
“We encourage employees to tell us what they’re passionate about,” says Watson. “So employees know that if you want to form a network and you find people with like thinking or like experiences and you want to get together, then we encourage you to do that.”
The result has been two employee groups: The Women’s Network and The Pride Network. Watson is executive sponsor of the GLBT-based Pride Network. As such she helps the group access funding, develop its charter, gain visibility and achieve its goals.
All its hard work has not gone unnoticed. Intuit has raked in awards as one of Canada’s Best Workplaces, one of the 50 Best Employers in Canada, and most recently as one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers. And for a company in the software business, that’s quite the hardware. |
