How Our Business Became One of the Best Places to Work in PA.
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Being Named one of the Best Places to Work in PA is an honor for any business. We contacted Amy Eidemiller of RGS Associates, Inc. which was named to the list of best places to work in Pennsylvania. We asked Ms. Eidemiller to comment on her experience by answering the following questions:
What motivated your organization to pursue the award?
Amy: RGS has a corporate philosophy of continuous improvement. We utilize annual employee satisfaction surveys to help gauge our employee’s attitudes on the things that are important to them, including work experience, benefits satisfaction, and the overall health of the company. We identified “Best Places to Work” as an opportunity to integrate two strategic goals: (1) receiving feedback from staff, (2) being recognized as a great place to work. Our goal was to go through the application process the first year and gain valuable feedback to use as part of our strategic plan going forward. I must confess it was a bit frightening to take the employee survey process to a more public forum like the Best Places to Work, but we made a decision to go forward.
We were beyond excited to be chosen as #20 Best Places to Work in PA in the medium size company category the first year. Upon notification that we had won, we celebrated with a companywide announcement at the end of the day. The recognition and reward of being a “Best Place to Work” in PA has been fantastic for all of us!
What makes RGS one of the top places to work?
Amy: Organizations who want to be a company of choice for employees and clients, must find ways to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. We believe that great organizations pay close attention to their culture.
Company culture has internal and external aspects. From an internal perspective, RGS has an amazing group of 39 professionals committed to exceeding client expectation in our project delivery and results. The company was built on a continuous improvement philosophy and a strong company culture. Cultural values including trust, teamwork, and communication were part of our culture from day one. When employees have a strong level of trust in company leadership, amazing results take place. At RGS, we’ve created a partnership between leadership and staff members; we truly are in this together. Key performance and strategic information is shared with the team at monthly staff meetings. Client relationships are solid and staff satisfaction is high because our employees know their work performance is the key contributor to company success.
RGS's culture also has an external impact. It motivates us to give back to the community by our staff volunteering time to activities. RGS sponsors an annual golf tournament to raise funds for the American Cancer Society and all staff members participate by either helping or playing golf. This is just one example of a company opportunity to serve the community, build on teamwork among the staff, and gain recognition of being a business that cares for others.
What collateral benefits are there for receiving such an award?
Amy: This award is symbolic of the pride our staff takes from being a part of this organization, which has positively impacted our staff retention and recruiting efforts! The engineering and land planning industry is experiencing an extreme shortage of professionals nationwide. This serves as an opportunity for us to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace for the best talent. We also used the survey results to benchmark ourselves against the other “Best Places to Work” companies to see where we could make additional improvements, showing our staff we are continually looking for ways to raise the bar. The resources required to participate in the “Best Places to Work” award process, continues to provide a significant return on the investment for RGS Associates.
