Colorado Best Places to Work for 2012

As I write this I am attending the awards ceremony recognizing this year's Best Companies to Work in Colorado. All of the nominees and winners certainly make Colorado a better place to live and work so congratulations to all. You can see profiles of all the winners in the August issue of CoBiz magazine which has hosted the Best Companies awards for six years now.

I also attended the workshop this morning discussing how companies become a best place to work. All of the nominees have something in common and that is an emphasis on attracting and keeping the best employees they can find. Not surprisingly, these are people-centric organizations and Pinnacol is honored to have been recognized as a winner of this award in years past. It's nice to share the limelight with our fellow Best Place nominees and winners.

So for 2012 here are the official winners:
2012 Best Small Company to Work For: Infinity Systems Engineering
2012 Best Medium Company to Work For: ReadyTalk
2012 Best Large Company to Work For: Edward Jones

Some of these companies offer some very unique perks and benefits (such as pet sitting for example) but I was happy to see that Pinnacol offers many of these 'Best Company' benefits from strong community-focused volunteer programs, to generous paid time off with an emphasis on work-life balance and wellness programs. While we may never offer free beer to our employees (yes, there really is a company in Colorado who does this), the clear message from this year's session is that companies need to tailor a work environment, culture, and benefits package that resonates with their employees.

There is no one type of employee that would be the right fit for all of these companies, but clearly the employees at all of these organizations enjoy their work, the people they work with, and believe in and are committed to the mission and vision of their organizations. Congratulations to all of these great Colorado companies!

An interesting trip...

We'll be celebrating our 10 year anniversary at our Lowry location in September. I still remember the excitement of our first day in our new offices. Our old location in the Galleria Towers on South Colorado Blvd. was nice but to be able to move into a brand new facility was a once in a lifetime experience for most of us. One of the design features in our building is that all of our conference and meeting rooms are named after Colorado mountain passes. Many of them you would recognize - Loveland, Vail, Berthoud, and Boreas for example. Others are lesser known and with the advent of super highways such as I-70 are drifting into only vague memories of old-timers since most of us will likely never actually cross most of these passes ourselves.

Through the years I've often driven over well-known Monarch Pass on my way from the Arkansas River Valley to places farther west like Gunnison, Crested Butte, Telluride, and Durango. Near the western end of Monarch Pass there is a small town called Sargents that if you blink you'll likely miss at 65 mph as you fly by on smooth asphalt. If you bother to glance to your left at Sargents you'll see a dirt road heading southeast with a sign saying Marshall Pass. For years I had wondered what was up that road, and this weekend I finally had the chance to find out. I had always been intrigued with this particular pass because one of the meeting/interview rooms in the Human Resources area is named after this particular pass. So my wife and I loaded up the bikes and the camping gear and off we went.

Like most places in Colorado, Marshall Pass had a rich and vibrant history long before I set foot on this planet but little did I suspect when I pulled off Highway 50 and went from 65 to 20 mph on what turned out to be a dirt road suitable for most passenger cars. The pass is named after Lt. William Marshall who was part of the 1873 Wheeler Survey. In the Fall of that year finding himself struggling with a painful toothache he looked for a quicker route back to Denver than the normal, but longer route over Cochetopa Pass (another one of Human Resource's conference rooms). Struggling through deep snow he finally reached the pass and realized that he had discovered a route over which a road or rail line could easly be built.

Upon reaching Denver Lt. Marshall and a group of citizens promptly formed the Marshall Pass Toll Road Co. and the following year a wagon road was completed. Just a couple of years later, in 1881, a rail line was built as part of the Denver & Rio Grande's narrow guage route from Denver to Salt Lake City. At the top of the pass a small settlement, railroad station, and Post Office were established and by 1948 the 'town' boasted a population of 11 souls. Time magazine recognized the Post Office as America's smallest while the postmark bragged that it was the highest Railroad Post Office in the world. Interestingly, the elevation claimed on the postmark is 10,845 ft. while today's Forest Service sign at the top of the pass shows a slightly lesser 10,842 ft. Marshall Pass even has a ghostly legend associated with it regarding a phantom train that was seen chasing the real train ahead of it.

On this trip I didn't see any phantom trains but in the wind and the sporadic rain I experienced as we mountain biked up the manageable 3-4% grades I could easily imagine that I could hear the distant whistle of a train pulling itself higher and higher through the thin air. Evidence of the railroad, save for the rail right-of-way on which much of the current road sits, is scant. The rails were removed when the line closed in 1955. However, if you get out of your car, or off your mountain bike, and look closely in the fine cinders of the roadbed you will still find old railroad spikes left behind. If you interview with us, and your session happens to be in Marshall Pass, you'll now see one of these spikes on the side table, a silent testament to our conference room's namesake.

Partnering with Goodwill Industries to make a difference...

On Monday I had the opportunity to volunteer with Goodwill Industries. I was part of a four member Human Resources panel speaking to Goodwill career counselors who work with High School students  preparing them to find jobs in what remains a very tough job market. In the past I've sat on similar panels speaking directly with the students as well as participated in mock interviews. Goodwill is one of the partner organizations we regularly support through our company's volunteer program called Pinnacol In Action. Every Pinnacol employee is given 16 hours of paid time off to volunteer in the community. During the first quarter of 2012 our employees volunteered more than 3,000 hours with local charitable organizations.

The Goodwill counselors wanted to know what separates a good candidate from the rest. Most of the students they are working with are being exposed to resume and cover letter writing and applying and interviewing for jobs for the first time. As you might imagine, the message we tried to share from an HR perspective is much the same as we would give any potential applicant: have a concise, easy to read resume and cover letter free from typographical and grammatical errors, fill out applications completely (avoiding the "See resume" phrase when asked for details on the application), dress professionally and appropriately for the position they are applying for, and practice speaking articulately about what they have accomplished in school and in current and prior positions.

Many High School students face the additional challenge of not having much, if any, job history to speak to. For those students the panel recommended detailing volunteer experience, participation in school events, teams, clubs, etc. That recommendation was a not so subtle hint to the counselors to encourage their students to start participating in these activities as soon as possible. Many schools now make getting involved in volunteering an integral part of the educational experience. Not only will participating in such activities look good on their resume but it will also help students develop other skills that will serve them well as they go after their first real jobs.

The Goodwill counselors asked great questions and I hope the answers we shared as a panel are helpful. Eventually the job market will rebound but the competition for good entry level jobs is always fierce. From an employer's perspective the more prepared today's students are to enter the job market the better and I applaud Goodwill's many efforts in this area!

Business Intelligence Programmer Opening...

We have a critical team in our I.T. group that focuses on Business Intelligence and Decision Support. One of our folks in this group had the opportunity to move into our application development side to focus on mobile technology applications. That move has opened an opportunity for a Business Intelligence Programmer who will develop, maintain, and assist in the design of our business intelligence systems including, but not limited to, ETL scripts, html and java interfaces in Microstrategy and our mobile device applications. This position codes, maintains and assists in the design of data mart/warehouse tables, queries and metadata, tunes data mart/warehouse queries and other programs as required, and works with our Application Services and Data & Network Services teams to create and maintain interfaces between data marts/warehouse, information tools and production systems.

Candidates must be able to establish and maintain strong relations with Decision Support Services staff and internal customers throughout the organization.  The BI Programmer position plays a support role in DSS-related portions of IS Application Development projects, company-wide strategic initiatives, and business-focused initiatives.

Candidates should possess expertise in, and the ability to mentor, SQL and PL/SQL, as well as have expertise in ETL practices, html and Java. Also required is a high proficiency in advanced SQL tuning, table creation, indexing and links along with proficiency in data warehouse theory and applications, and star schema (Kimball Model).

A Bachelor's Degree in computer science/MIS, business/economics or statistics preferred or equivalent work experience. Experience with Oracle and/or other relational database management systems, the use of database query tools using SQL, working with data warehouse design, 3+ years related experience in Programming is also required.

This position works out of our Denver, CO headquarters. If interested in being considered for this new opportunity please apply via our company website!