Below is an article about the August 5 Sloan Awards Celebration that is in this month’s Business@Work newsletter. At the bottom of the article, you can click to read the descriptions of the 2010 winners and honorable mentions. You can also click to view the entire Business@Work newsletter.You can download a copy of the KyraCavanaugh’s presentation with her speaker notes here: http://www.slideshare.net/lifemeetswork/telework-how-cities-decongest. And, to download a copy of the Statement of Support for the National Workplace Flexibility Challenge that Kyra mentioned during the presentation, go to: http://www.corporatevoices.org/our-work/flexcampaign/champions.
Chicago's 2010 Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility
Over 100 honorees and guests gathered August 5th for the Chicagoland CELEBRATION OF THE 2010 ALFRED P. SLOAN AWARDS FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE IN WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY. Winners include Deloitte, Draftfcb, Ernst & Young, Falkor Group, LLC, Frost, Ruttenberg & Rothblatt, P.C., KPMG LLP, Microsoft Corporation, Ryan, Inc., Turner Construction Company and Wellbuilt Equipment Inc. Honorable Mentions are BDO, Bryan Cave, DB Aviation, Des Plaines Office Equipment, Heitman LLC, Perspectives, Ltd, SAVO Group, Shakespeare Squared, LLC and U.S. Navy Recruit Training Command. The Finalists are IBM, The Habitat Company and Workplace Solutions. See link at the end of the article for descriptions of Flexible Practices.
The Sloan Awards application process is rigorous. The process originates from When Work Works, a nationwide initiative to bring research on workplace effectiveness and flexibility into community and business practice. When Work Works is a project of Families and Work Institute in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Twiga Foundation. Funding is from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The two step process is unique for its rigorous criteria. In Phase I, the employer on-line applications are ranked in terms of their programs and practices for creating effective and flexible workplaces. Employers that rank in the top 20% of employers when compared to national norms are selected as Finalists.
In Phase II, the Families & Work Institute surveys the Finalists employees during a specific 2 week period. If business reasons prevent employees from completing Phase II, the company remains a Finalist. The selection of Winners and Honorable Mentions is based on a score that combines employer and employee responses. What is more, two thirds of the overall score is derived from the confidential employee survey.
The Chamber asks companies to apply for a Sloan Award every year even if they don't think their flex practices will put them into the top 20% and/or they don't want to have employees surveyed. Every applicant receives its own customized Benchmark Report to compare itself to others. Also, Chicago must have a minimum of 30 Chicago applications in order for Families & Work Institute to produce Chicago's annual Workplace Flexibility Benchmarking Report .
The 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility Community Benchmarking Report for Chicago provides an item-by-item comparison of responses from applicants in Chicago to the Employer Questionnaire responses of all 2009 Sloan Award applicants and 449 winners across the U.S. Generally, Chicago applicants are similar to the rest of the nation.
There are a few items where Chicago stands out above even the winners across the U.S. How many of your employees at your worksite are allowed to have control over when they take breaks? For Chicago, 74% of applicants said "all" whereas 70% of U.S. winners said "all." Within the "Culture of Flexibility," 81% of Chicago's applicants versus 78% of U.S. winners said that it is "Very True" that their supervisors are encouraged to assess employees' performance by what employees accomplish, and not just by "face-time" that is, the number of hours they spend at the workplace.
Click here to view descriptions of award winning companies.
Click Here to See the Entire Newsletter
Thank you for supporting Chicago’s Sloan Awards. We welcome your comments and suggestions for next year.
Peggy Luce, CAE, Vice President, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, AON Center, 200 E. Randolph, Suite 2200, Chicago, IL 60601, (312) 494-6745, pluce@chicagolandchamber.org. Visit the Chamber website at www.chicagolandchamber.org