Getting Resumes?

• Author: MCKIMMIE, KATHY
• Position: Interactive Intelligence Inc - Brief Article

Is your company a great place to work?

When Henry Kissinger was asked, "If you could know only one thing about a country, what would it be?" he replied: "Are the people trying to get in or trying to get out?"

The same could be said for companies.

And people are trying to get in to Interactive Intelligence. "We get 300 resumes a week," says John Gibbs, executive vice president and co-founder of the Indianapolis-based software company.

"We have no corporate mission statement on a plaque," he says. "But our internal mission statement is: 'To do great things and have a lot of fun."'

Started in 1994, Interactive Intelligence made its name in computer telephony integration and went public in 1999. "We have a successful product and we're changing the world," says Gibbs. It's that growing reputation and potential for individual opportunities that makes it a popular place to be. The company has 400 employees, about half in Indianapolis, and plans to reach 550 worldwide by year-end.

"We have a great corporate culture which includes competitive salaries, stock options for everyone, no dress code, flextime, empowerment to manage yourself and a great physical environment," says Gibbs.

Until recently, that physical environment included a private office for everyone. But the company ran out of space in its 90,000-square-foot home at the Pyramids in College Park, and a year from now it will move to a new 180,000-square-foot headquarters in Woodland Corporate Park, a Duke-Weeks development to be renamed Interactive Park.

With an average age of 27 it's easy to see why the Foosball table on nearly every one of its seven floors is popular. But any age can appreciate the free winter lunch program, and getting paid to stay home on your birthday.

Cutting-edge companies tend to be the first to try cutting-edge products, and Indianapolis market-research firm Walker Information will be the first to try new human-resources software from Veregon, a 5-month-old company, also in Indianapolis. A key part of the system is the employee-relationship-management (ERM) module, aimed at helping managers collect and use human-resources data to reduce turnover.

Walker opted in primarily because its existing HR software was outdated and its payroll function was separate, increasing the chance for errors, says Ray Becker, senior vice president of organizational effectiveness. But with ERM an employee also will be able to sit at a manager's desk to discuss a person's training and...