Get feedback from your employees . . . and get positive recognition for being a great place to work.

By Jacquelyn Kung

Denise Boudreau-Scott and Steve Moran have written extensively about creating great workplaces, and they have two amazing initiatives underway. One is a forum with some forward-thinking CEOs.

The second is a forthcoming Senior Housing Forum list of the companies that are changing the world. Since we are all seeking to make our industry better, we wanted to highlight an additional cross-industry opportunity to get feedback from your employees — and get positive recognition for being a great place to work.

As recently published in McKnight’s, in 2018, Fortune Magazine will be publishing a “Best Places to Work in Aging Services” list. Fortune will be working with the Great Places to Work Institute, using the same methodology that is currently used to determine that Google is the U.S.’s #1 Best Company to Work for in 2017 — with Disney, Wegman’s, Marriott, Cheesecake Factory, and Scripps Healthcare also on the Fortune Best Employers lists.  

Why and How Do We Get Certified?

There is 30 years of research and data on the benefits of being a great workplace. The benefits include:

  1. Recruiting — Getting publicly designated a Great Place to Work helps recruit talent to your community and organization.

  2. Retention — Organizations that are Great Place to Work certified have better employee engagement and retention. Going through certification shows you what, if any, actionable gaps exist to improve and to be a Great Place to Work.

  3. Workforce development — Once you are certified, you are eligible for one of over twenty Fortune Magazine Best Workplaces awards, including Best Workplaces in Aging Services. This attracts candidates and talent to our sector.

To get certified, follow these three steps:

  1. Go to activatedinsights.com and register. It costs $995 for the certification process. Activated Insights is the senior care company of Great Place to Work Institute.

  2. You will get a Program Manager, who will show you how to complete your culture brief, which is a questionnaire of your HR programs and benefits.

  3. You will also conduct a Trust Index™ survey of your employees, and the data goes to Great Place to Work (you will get a high level report of your findings).

A year from now, hopefully we will be celebrating some winners among this readership!