WL Gore & Associates - No.1 spot on Britain’s Best Places to Work for U.K.

WL Gore & Associates - No.1 spot on Britain’s Best Places to Work for U.K.

Most people have heard of Gore-Tex materials in one context or another – mostly in reference to windbreakers and rain suits. Doing a search for “corporate culture” and “employees,” WL Gore showed up at the top of the list.

Gore employs around 6,000 people in 45 locations around the world. It started humbly, as a husband and wife team experimenting with PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) fibers and their potential applications for fabrics. Just over a decade later, Gore’s website (http://www.gore.com/en_xx/aboutus/index.html) explains, the small company had wire cables on the moon of all places.

It has been a family operation from the outset, and Bill’s son Bob continued operations following his father’s death in 1986. WL Gore has come a long way since its inception in 1958. They still sell a line of weatherproof PTFE materials for sportsmen, but they have continued their expansion into the high-tech and environmental sectors.

For instance, Gore has created a laminate (http://www.gore.com/en_xx/products/fabrics/swt/index.html) that covers compost heaps, holding in odors and speeding the decomposition process. They also manufacture everything from coaxial cable to cutting edge insect screen technology, featured here (http://www.gore.com/en_xx/products/fabrics/screens/index.html).

So Gore is all about innovation, and the buck doesn’t stop with the products. Late founder Bill Gore created a special culture within his company. Workers are referred to as “associates” rather than employees, and their supervisors are “sponsors” rather than bosses. It might sound like pure semantics, but it does give a different air to the idea of a chain of command.

Bill Gore’s idea was of a “flat lattice” structure, in which associates at all levels communicate openly and honestly. This harbors trust and respect, and creates leeway for ideas that might otherwise go unvoiced. Within this system, leaders can emerge organically rather than by appointment, and according to the website are often rewarded for “followership” more than the Napoleonic characteristics that define so many leaders today.

Gore also has an above-average set of benefits, including tuition and child care reimbursements, adoption assistance and domestic partner coverage. The company has also held a place on Fortune 100’s best workplaces list for nine consecutive years, earning its most recent accolades in January 2006. It also has held the No.1 spot on Britain’s Best Places to Work for U.K. for three years running.

Fastcompany.com has a great article touting Gore’s unique culture and flat organizational structure here (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/89/open_gore.html). If my opinion is a litmus test, I’d take a job there. Too bad I’m not a chemical engineer…

Monday, September 25, 2006