I think it goes both ways.

Fabulous companies treat good employees like gold. They empower them, do everything possible to make sure they have a great work environment, support them, offer flexibility in work schedules, time off, etc.

In turn, the employer (hopefully) gets a fabulous employee who works hard, is loyal and committed to the success of the company, looks beyond their own job to figure out ways the company can be more successful.

I suspect in this business, there are few fabulous employers and perhaps even fewer fabulous employees. One of the things that I find really disheartening is how many times we call a company for something at 4pm only to find that everyone has gone home. Or we call at 10:30 AM and nobody's in yet. It seems like there is a lot of laziness and "it'll do" attitude among many (if not the majority) of employees in this industry. Of course there are also the webmasters that work their asses off 80 hours a week, but they are generally owners, not workers.

That's one of the reasons we haven't really advertised or hired from within the industry. Not to say there aren't some amazing people we have met that we would hire in a heartbeat, but if we were to hire from the industry, we would most likely contact the individuals we are interested in rather than place a posting on one of the industry boards.