AMC ENTERTAINMENT

At AMC Entertainment, employees’ work is part of the movie industry, so big-screen fantasy is their reality, every day. AMC has nearly 800 full-time employees company-wide—338 in the Kansas City area—and nearly 17,000 more part-timers. It rewards them with a wide range of attractive benefits, including an eye-popping $15,000 in adoption assistance, per child. It offers wellness programs, flex scheduling, everyday casual dress and—here’s a competitive advantage almost no one else can match—as many as 10 advance screenings per year for associates and their families. With “fun” listed as a core value of the company, you know we’re not talking about clock-punching, 9-to-5 jobs. One definition of fun: Senior leaders are required to dress as the movie character selected by their teams in the annual Halloween Costume Contest. At any other company, photos from an event like that could be career-killers. And, at a time when a lot of corporate belt-tightening starts with short-sighted trimming of staff training budgets, AMC has doubled down on the need to expose its managers to on-line, classroom and on-the-job training. That includes the Leadership Academy held in Kansas City, and its biennial Leadership Conference, a four-day all-inclusive program to develop managers’ skills. What’s all that add up to? In 2009, a year when consumers slammed shut their wallets, AMC surpassed its financial targets to enjoy its most successful year ever.

ASSOCIATED WHOLESALE GROCERS

One hallmark of a truly successful company is an understanding that loyalty is a two-way street. For the 945 employees at Associated Wholesale Grocers in the Kansas City region, there’s a certain sense of career-advancement security, a knowledge that their hard work will get them, as well as the company, where both need to go. Since 1980, AWG has had six CEOs, and every one of them was elevated to that role from the staff, a measure of the company’s commitment to promoting from within. And you don’t have to make the corner office to secure your future, either: AWG offers both a fully funded defined-benefit pension program—remember when American companies used to brag about those?—as well as a voluntary 401(k) program, where it has matched employee contributions up to 4 percent of annual salary in 14 of the past 15 years. At a time when other companies are biting nickels and passing along more of the increases in costs of health-care premiums to their employees, AWG still covers roughly 80 percent of premium costs, and offers not one plan, but three, as well as dental and vision programs, and more.

FARMERS INSURANCE

When times are good, a lot of companies talk about being a “family.” When things get tougher, the pretenders out themselves by passing along ever-increasing shares of health insurance costs to their employees, cutting retirement-plan contributions, or restricting vacation and leave polices. How many parents do you know tell the kids that their financial futures must suffer so Mom and Dad can maintain their lifestyles? At Farmers Insurance, where nearly 400 people working in Kansas City are part of a 25,000-member family, employee needs are met with a 6 percent 401(k) match, on top of a pension plan funded 100 percent by the company, opportunities for bonuses of more than 10 percent of annual income, and nearly four weeks of paid time off after just a year on the job. That, and an emphasis on giving employees the tools they need with training, training and training, helps keep the staff focused on finding ways to do things better, faster and cheaper. Recognizing that life often gets in the way of career, Farmers offers such rare on-site conveniences as oil changes and windshield repair, dry cleaning and chair massages. The company store offers plenty of discounted goods, and through Farmers’ buying power, employees can even get price breaks on cell phone plans and car purchases.