At Norex Inc., workplace has been more than just fair

No matter where you look, the company Ron Haberkorn founded in 1980 can only be described as unconventional.

There's the business model: Haberkorn's Norex Inc. is a Prior Lake company that manages the exchange of IT information among some 1,200 subscribers who have purchased memberships in a Norex-sponsored networking consortium.

Then there's the corporate pledge of integrity -- "More than fair in everything we do" -- exemplified by Haberkorn's effort to return a client's premature fee payment even though his cash flow was nonexistent at the time.

And the "knock their socks off" employee perks he has dreamed up, including giving workers $300 and busing them to the Mall of America to spend a couple of hours shopping.

The product of all this uncommon hustling and bustling is a business that grossed nearly $7 million last year from subscriptions paid by more than 1,200 corporations, government agencies, medical organizations and universities across the United States and Canada.

Clients include the bulky likes of Monsanto, U.S. Steel, Cargill and John Deere, plus nonbusiness entries such as the American Bible Society, San Francisco city and county, the Canadian Medical Protection Association and the University of Oklahoma.

What's the attraction? It's the Norex round tables, teleconferences and data resources that allow clients to help each other solve IT problems and capture opportunities as technology changes more and more rapidly.

And because the Norex network bans brokers, dealers or IT equipment manufacturers, it offers "an independent view that has enormous value," said Nigel Wingate, IT director at M.A. Mortenson, the Golden Valley contractor.

The information is exchanged in weekly "teleforums" and face-to-face at 35 one-day regional round tables and a three-day international gathering each year. On a daily basis, Norex staffers answer client questions, either by accessing more than 2,000 member documents gathered at the round tables or by e-mailed queries to the membership.

The company also helps match members wanting to buy or sell IT equipment without broker fees, which was Haberkorn's initial business. But that activity has waned as so-called "big-iron" central processing units gave way to smaller, commodity types of equipment and the demand grew for a system of information exchanges.

All of which does not mean that Norex has been unaffected by the recession, which is expected to slash 2009 revenue by 20 percent.

But when a pay cut was deemed necessary, executives and managers took the first hit, a 30 percent reduction. Later, as economic pressures intensified, staff pay was trimmed, but by 25 percent. Finally, in July, 11 people were let go in the company's first layoffs.

'Gotta be a better way'

"There's gotta be a better way," he told Haberkorn, who promptly took out second and third mortgages on his Prior Lake home to fund the start-up and offer a better way.

In the beginning, Haberkorn promised that no fees would be collected until he had recruited 25 consortium members. Nonetheless, the Mayo Clinic -- his eighth client -- immediately sent him a check for its first-year dues. He offered to return the payment, but Mayo declined.

Such "squeaky clean" principles are not "nerdy or square," Haberkorn wrote in a book entitled "The Unconventional Manager," calling them "the least stressful and most rewarding path to success."

Pumpkins and car washes

There's the 100% Club, which whisks top sales performers and longtime support staff to such vacation spots as Hawaii and Cancun for "incentive meetings." And because families are deemed important to employee productivity, spouses are expected to be included at company expense.

The family orientation even extends to business travel: The company pays for daily calls home for those on the road.

But perhaps the most inventive approach involves the random, unexpected perks that come periodically during the year to thank employees for their performance. They can range from a bag of candy left on workers' desks to an hour or two of extra time off to be taken at the employee's discretion.

In one case, a truck delivered pumpkins for workers to take home to their children. Another time, Norex managers washed employee autos.

Arguably, the best surprise was that trip workers took to the Mall of America with the company's cash in their pockets. There was only one stipulation, Haberkorn said: