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May/June 2017 – BizVoice/Indiana Chamber

103

people and any sort of thank you – no matter the monetary value.

Giving the recognition piece.”

Additional examples include backyard barbecues, taking teams

out to lunch and wellness offerings such as weekly fresh fruit delivery

Jackson Systems hosts an annual employee appreciation weekend.

The getaway takes employees and a guest to a casino where they can

dine, play and celebrate at an awards celebration.

“We have this thing throughout the course of the year where

people can get poker chips for doing great things,” Jackson comments.

“People nominate people, so they get all of these poker chips and they

can trade them in for real money. We have a lot of fun. That’s always

a great time and everybody looks forward to that.”

Human resources specialist Amanda Roeder adds, “It allows them

to have visibility in front of the entire staff. At the end of the quarter,

they can bid on prizes. We give away everything from a box of Andes

mints to Xbox 360s.”

VNA also spotlights staff at a yearly celebration, often with

comical or poignant awards.

“They’re not for the ‘best nurse’ or anything,” CEO Trudy

Rupska confides. “This year, my award was, ‘Here’s a red pen. Let me

correct that for you.’ They told a story that my second life is going to

be as an editor someplace.

“One time, we had a home health aide who was driving down the

street and found a child wandering. She stayed with that child until the

cops came. We gave her a ‘Lifesaver’ award.”

Sense of togetherness

Community – both within and beyond the walls of American

Structurepoint – is woven into its fabric.

“We do dollar for dollar matches,” Wilson explains. “If employees

choose to do any payroll deductions, the company also matches those

donations. We do a lot of community outreach.”

Promoting diversity plays into that mission.

“We have an advancing women’s group, formed within the past

three years or so,” Wilson notes. “It’s an internal group. They’ll do

lunch and learns and invite all staff. In the engineering field, it’s very

challenging. It’s a very male-dominated field, so the ones (women) we

can get, we want to hold on to if they’re valuable staff members.”

Professional development also fosters an environment of

collaboration. Elements, for instance, recently transformed a core

department.

“In the past, the category of training (on Best Places surveys) was

always one of our lowest scores. We’ve spent a lot of time and energy

researching and engaging our employees in different programs

throughout the year. It’s the reason we changed the name of our

department,” Weber passionately relates. “We were just known as

human resources and we made a very conscious decision to say, ‘This

is human resources and talent management.’ ”

One of us

Building a rapport begins prior to an employee’s first day of work

at Jackson Systems.

“With the onboarding process, we do a lot of things to get our

employees excited before they even start,” Roeder divulges. “We’ll

send them an onboarding package. It’s usually related to their position.

Our sales team (for instance) will break up their time on the phone by

having Nerf gun wars, so we usually send new sales team members a

Nerf gun and a gift card to their favorite restaurant.

“We try to connect with people in any way possible, which is

why when they come in, they already feel pretty rooted with the

leadership team.”

Roeder’s own first day wasn’t so long ago. She joined Jackson

Systems last year.

“Immediately when I walked in and even throughout the interview

process, I felt connected,” she reflects. “It was very genuine. A lot of

times on the first day, you get nerves or think, ‘I hope this is

everything I want it to be.’ And it definitely was.”

RESOURCE:

American Structurepoint at

www.structurepoint.com

| Elements Financial Federal Credit Union at

www.elements.org

| Jackson Systems at

www.jacksonsystems.com

| Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of the Wabash Valley at

myhospicevna.org

Listen and Learn

Continued from page 91

Staff at the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of the Wabash Valley put their best feet forward on National Nurses Day.