Sapien Technologies, a Napa software development company, has been chosen by the Napa Child Care Planning Council to receive the Napa Family Friendly Workplace Award for 2008. The award acknowledges businesses in the Napa Valley which support the needs of their employees with policies and practices which promote a work-life balance.

Being Family Friendly is reflective of a philosophy, a way of looking at an employee as a whole person, rather than simply someone who works for the company.

The award to Sapien, a company with nine employees and growing, is based on many factors, all of them contributing to the overall family-friendly ambiance within the company.

The company provides 100 percent health care for employees and their families.

Flexible work schedules allow parents to leave work to pick up children from school, then return to work. Children are welcome in the workplace and school fund-raisers are supported by the owners, Ferdinand Rios and Alex Riedel, who also sponsor a local baseball team.

The children who sometimes find themselves at Sapien after school feel it’s a really great place to be.

Zenia Rios, 15, occasionally comes to work with her dad. At times she even helps out with odd jobs like packaging. “It’s fun going to work with him,” she said, referring to dad Ferdinand Rios.

Davis Pratt, 13, thinks it’s wonderful that the workers are always “definitely happy to see us, and his brother, 9-year-old Emerson, likes to talk to the workers and “find out what they’re doing.”

“We have kids ourselves, so we understand, Ferdinand Rios said.

“After working in lots of places we recognize that money is not the only compensation in a workplace.”

Some of their policies were gleaned from the way in which the dot com businesses operated in their prime, when coming to work was easy, with so many businesses catering to a 24/7 workday mentality.

“We extracted the good aspects from that time, and experimented with what would work.

“The whole philosophy has been an evolutionary process.”

What has evolved is a company which allowing employees to choose a work schedule which will take advantage of their “peak performance” hours.

This wise leadership pays off in more productivity.

Both Rios and Riedel operate on the premise that everybody works differently, and their peak productivity times differ; they want people to work when they are able to be most productive.

Employees at Sapien do not get specific vacations. Instead, they are given 15 paid days a year when they can take off for any reason

This means a sick child can be cared for without the usual stress of  missing work.

Riedel articulates the benefits of this policy to the company as well as the employee.

Rios and Riedel place their trust in their employees, and the result is a happy workplace with employees who like to come to work.

Office manager Margaret Pratt, said, “This is a fabulous work environment. They really care and they are so humble.”