Cultural Practices of the Best Companies

The companies whose practices are presented here have inspired us in our work at the Institute, and we hope that they will do the same for you. Every two weeks a new set of practices will appear in this space.

Each practice will be linked to its dimension and sub-dimension within the Great Place to Work® Model©.

We hope that you will be inspired by these examples to discover the best practices currently in use in your own workplace, and be lead to develop new practices that will help your workplace to become great.

  • CREDIBILITY - Competence

    Health Care / Hospital
    Baptist Health Care

    4011 employees - USA
    HQ: Pensacola FL, USA

    At Baptist Health Care, the housekeeping technician, registered nurse, and chief financial officer are all privy to the same information about the company. At quarterly employee forums, all employees receive updates on subjects relating to the pillars of operational excellence: People, Service, Quality, Financial and Growth. From the number of pressure sores to staffing adjustments to expansion plans, BHC employees are kept informed.

    To keep it all visible, departmental communication boards are set up to post company news and results. As a consequence, every employee is able to gauge the performance of everyone else in the company. And every employee is empowered to make his/her own decisions. Developing competencies throughout the organization while avoiding "passing the buck," Baptist Health Care's leaders have empowered the staff to solve problems without bureaucracy through a program known as "Service ACTion." In fact, when front-line staff identify customer concerns or complaints, they are not only trained to respond within 15 minutes of notification, but they also have the authority to spend $250 to solve the problem.

    This program makes full use of employee resources by encouraging everyone to listen for signs of customer dissatisfaction. After apologizing to the customer and addressing the problem, the staffers report the incident to a database center. Then, finally, the top-level managers step back in, using the compiled data to reveal valuable "macro" trends that help leaders resolve problems once and for all.

  • RESPECT - Collaboration

    Retail / Food/Grocery
    Superquinn

    5500 employees - Ireland
    HQ: Ireland

    In response to a new countrywide tax on grocery bags being implemented by the Irish government to discourage their use, employees and management at SuperQuinn collaborated with customers to create a re-useable Green Bag that is easier to pack, more convenient for customers and is a profitable product for the company to sell.

    This collaborative effort was lead by front-line employees whose suggestions for the size and sturdiness of the bag were critical to its final design. Employees were involved in every aspect of the project and were shown tremendous respect by managers who recognized that their knowledge of the bagging process was critical to the success of the project, that their design suggestions would be invaluable as they would be a key user of the product, and that their comfort with the decision making process would smooth the way to implementation as they would be the people explaining to customers why the Green Bag is such a great product for them to buy and use.