Posted on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 @ 02:05 PM
Is it super geeky to admit that one of my goals in life was to win the NorthCoast99 Award?
Well, it's true. From the moment I first heard about the award in 1999, I knew MCPc could win it. I mean, we're the kind of company that treats employees with respect, has great benefits and keeps employees around a long time as a result. Our people are second to none, and I have always been so proud to work here that I wanted to shout it from the rooftops and let everyone know we're definitely one of North Coast Ohio's best-kept secrets.
So, I planned and schemed, sweated and cursed and submitted the application year after year until we finally won this incredible distinction last year. I literally cried when I found out we won.
But here's the thing: Each year we didn't win, we received a terrific outline of how we ranked in comparison to the companies that did. Then we, as an organization, took NorthCoast99's recommendations to heart and slowly evolved our workplace to be even better, and in a position to actually win the award. Seeing our executive team make a true commitment to improving - in aspects from compensation and benefits to communications and culture - made me so happy to be a part of this amazing team.
At the awards ceremony, we heard from Chris Gardner, author of The Pursuit of Happyness. We were all inspired by his true story, depicted quite accurately in the movie made famous by Will Smith.
One of my takeaways from his presentation was that you must always have the courage to do what you know is right, no matter how challenging or impossible it seems. We also learned at the awards ceremony that we were up against 34 past award recipients to win our award, which simply illustrates the need to continually improve each year if we expect to win it again.
And really, don't we want to continue doing all these good things that make us a great workplace, just for the sake of being a great workplace? MCPc is a terrific company of which I am proud to be a part. Speaking for myself and hundreds of others who work here, I know we will continue to have the courage to get better just because we know it is the right thing to do. Our associates truly make MCPc one of the best places to work ever.
What has your company done to make your place to work great? We're always looking for new ideas!
Beth Stec is the Director of Corporate Communications and Human Resources at MCPc, and is responsible for the development and management of personnel programs and policies. Connect with Beth on LinkedIn.
Image Credits
http://www.northcoast99.com/
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/images/dec2006/vallen_pursuit_of_happyness.jpg