SAS named one of the 2017 Best Workplaces for Diversity by Great Place to Work® and Fortune

Fortune has announced that SAS is one of this year’s Best Workplaces for Diversity. SAS firmly believes that a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial for companies that want to attract and retain top talent. 

“The Best Workplaces for Diversity have achieved something beyond basic fairness,” said Michael Bush, CEO of Great Place to Work. “They find ways to connect with each and every employee, listening to their challenges and building on their talents.”

While more organizations are beginning to see the value in taking care of their employees, what sets SAS apart goes beyond surface-level benefit to providing opportunities for everyone, such as:

• Support for domestic partners. For more than 20 years, SAS has provided health care benefits to domestic partners of SAS employees.
• On-site childcare. SAS was one of the first companies to provide on-site childcare for working parents. Commitment to employees – and to their families – is part of the reason that women now make up nearly half the SAS workforce (and more than 40 percent of SAS leadership).
• Military and veteran support. SAS works closely with numerous organizations and military installations to ensure veteran employment representatives know the skills SAS seeks from candidates. The company also partners with Enable America to offer mentoring and career development for wounded warriors and disabled veterans. And SAS’ Veteran Employment, Training and Support (VETS) internship program, started in 2016, provides valuable corporate work experience for military personnel who are interested in a career in technology.
• Diverse recruitment. A focus on inclusivity prompted SAS more than 10 years ago to create one of the company’s greatest diversity outreach tools – the R3 student program – focused on recognizing, recruiting and retaining women and minorities in technology.
• Accessibility. SAS has a robust accommodation process for employees with disabilities, and also has employed the diverse talents of its employees to create free accessibility software for visually impaired analytics users.
• Employee investment. SAS recognizes that employees are critical to the company’s innovation, so the company invests in them wholly – from career development to health and well-being. That’s why the company provides an on-site health care facility, a fully functioning recreation and fitness center, and an entire work/life department equipped to assist employees with life-changing events.

“At SAS, it’s not about fitting into the culture, it’s about adding to it. We value the employee’s whole self and the uniqueness of their experience, perspectives and ideas,” said Danielle Pavliv, SAS Diversity and Inclusion Program Manager. “As innovators, we rely on our creativity and differences to create great software.” 

Yet SAS leaders recognize that it’s not enough to just recruit and nurture diverse talent. The skills gap, specifically in STEM-related areas, is real. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for companies to find qualified candidates for technical roles, and even harder to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates. That’s why the company is focused on helping to create a pipeline of diverse talent for the future. SAS strongly advocates for education and leveling the playing field for all children to be afforded the same opportunities to learn. The company is working to eliminate unintended inequities in education that start as early as preschool, and SAS CEO Jim Goodnight has joined forces with other CEOs to lobby for better access to pre-K education and improved literacy by third grade.

About the Best Workplaces for Diversity

The Best Workplaces for Diversity is one of a series of rankings by Great Place to Work and Fortune based on employee feedback from Great Place to Work-Certified™ organizations. So far this year, SAS has been ranked as a Best Workplace for parents, millennials and women by Great Place to Work and Fortune

Great Place to Work based its ranking on a data-driven methodology applied to anonymous Trust Index™ survey responses from 442,624 employees at Great Place to Work-Certified organizations. To learn more about Great Place to Work Certification and recognition on Best Workplaces lists published with Fortune, visit Greatplacetowork.com.

About Great Place to Work

Great Place to Work is the global authority on high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures. Through its certification programs, Great Place to Work recognizes outstanding workplace cultures and produces the annual Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For^® and Great Place to Work Best Workplaces lists for millennials, women, diversity, small and medium companies, industries and, internationally, countries and regions. Through its culture consulting services, Great Place to Work helps clients create great workplaces that outpace peers on key business metrics like revenue growth, profitability, retention and stock performance.