Based on the most rigorous workplace research ever conducted, the award honors organizations whose employee engagement results demonstrate they have the most productive and engaged workforces in the world.The winners span the globe and represent all facets of business from healthcare to hospitality, retail to manufacturing, and banks to insurance.
In 2011, 29 organizations receive the 5th Gallup Great Workplace Award, they are:
- ABC Supply Co., Inc. (five-time winner)
- Adventist Health System
- Alexian Brothers Health System (three-time winner)
- ASB Bank (four-time winner)
- Atlantica Hotels International (three-time winner)
- B&Q plc (five-time winner)
- Baptist Health South Florida (two-time winner)
- Bharti Airtel Limited (four-time winner)
- Birdville Independent School District
- Bon Secours Virginia Health System (two-time winner)
- Cable & Wireless Panama (three-time winner)
- CentraCare Health System
- Central Retail Corporation Limited
- Eisenhower Medical Center (two-time winner)
- Fifth Third Bank
- HealthEast Care System (two-time winner)
- Hendrick Health System (five-time winner)
- Indian Hotels Company Limited (two-time winner)
- Intermountain Healthcare
- Mars, Incorporated (two-time winner)
- MemorialCare Health System
- Novo Nordisk Product Supply A/S (two-time winner)
- PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.
- Self Regional Healthcare (four-time winner)
- Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Limited (three-time winner)
- Standard Chartered Bank
- Transitions Optical, Inc. (two-time winner)
- Vanguard Health Systems (two-time winner)
- Winegardner & Hammons, Inc. (five-time winner)
For more information, please read Twenty-nine Organizations Receive Fifth Annual Gallup Great Workplace Award
Let’s take a look of the top winners.
ABC Supply (five-time winner)
ABC Supply is the largest wholesale distributor of roofing in the United States and one of the nation’s largest distributors of siding, windows and other select exterior building products. It operates more than 380 branches in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
Although many companies talk about their focus on customer service, ABC Supply pays more than lip service to the idea. This Beloit, Wis.-based company maintains a constant scorecard on its ongoing activities, grading itself against stiff self-imposed standards of customer service and then measuring the results.
Interestingly, the company’s approach to world-class success and world-class financial results’ begins not with putting customers first, but rather, by putting employees first.
Employees First
“[Improving customer service is] a template for success that we institutionalized by putting our people first,: explains David Luck, president and chief operating officer of ABC Supply. “When we do that, they’ll put our customer first and that will drive our financial results.”
Today, the company has 338 branches in 45 states, and 5,500 associates nationwide. Sales for 2005 were $2.59 billion. It took the company 16 years to reach $1 billion in sales, but only six more to reach $2 billion. Forecasts anticipated $3 billion in sales in 2006.
To reach those numbers, the company works to develop engaged employees, who in turn attract loyal and devoted customers.
ABC Supply supports its employees with various programs and formally measures employee engagement in all business work groups twice a year. Engagement is key here, because for this exercise, the company is not simply measuring employee happiness or job contentment.
For more content, please read Engaged Employees
Hendrick Health System (five-time winner)
Universally, people want to work for a great employer, at a job that’s rewarding and where one’s efforts are appreciated. And many health care employers strive to create a culture that supports staff members’ achievements, knowing that happy employees deliver top results and patient outcomes.
Yet what makes a health care facility a great place to work? Several organizations’ from consulting services to nonprofit organizations to magazines’ recognize top performing institutions. Modern Healthcare recently released its 2010 Best Places to Work in Healthcare list, which recognizes outstanding employers, and the research/consulting firm Gallup announced its Great Workplace Award recipient list, which recognizes companies with an extraordinary ability to create an engaged workplace culture.
Modern Healthcare collects information about company policies, benefits and demographics and asks employees to answer questions about leadership and planning, culture and communication, role satisfaction, working environment, relationship with supervisors, training and development, pay and benefits, and their overall satisfaction.
For more content, please read Great Places to Work in Health Care Recognized
Winegardner & Hammons (five-time winner)
The service-quality champions employed a variety of approaches, frequently in combination. Some of the champions, for example, worked on weaving key tenets into the fabric of the organization in an effort to disseminate service-excellence standards and ingrain employees with them. Others focused on empowering employees to provide whatever service the employee deemed necessary to create guest satisfaction. Still other champions developed comprehensive, but readily understandable methods for collecting and generating information concerning customer wants and needs. Finally, a few champions implemented customer-satisfaction guarantees. In the following sections, we provide details concerning the practices of the following service-quality champions. They are Ashley House Hotels–Keswick Hall, the Boulders Resort, Carlson Hospitality Worldwide, Cincinnati Marriott Northeast, Club Hotel by Doubletree, Dahlman Properties, Four Seasons & Regent Hotels & Resorts, the Inn at Essex, Promus Hotel Corporation, Ritz-Carlto n Hotel Company, the Waldorf=Astoria, Windsor Court Hotel, and Winegardner & Hammons Incorporated.
For more content, please read Best Practices in Service Quality
