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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.orgListen 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.