HKP recently won the inaugural Scaling Up Culture of the Year Award given by Scaling Up and Emplify!!!  The purpose of the award is to recognize those companies who have found a way to scale growing businesses while prioritizing their people and culture.

All applicants took Emplify’s proprietary 55-question engagement survey to set the data-driven baseline for each company. In order to move on as a finalist, each company had to have at least 50% participation. Finalists were chosen based on the top engagement scores, which represented a diverse group of industries. The finalists were then asked to submit an essay, highlighting how they tie their employee engagement initiatives to their greater business strategy. A panel of judges from both Scaling Up and Emplify reviewed the applications and ranked each applicant on the quality of their submission. Of the 20 applications, only four companies received the award!

When completing our application, we were asked to describe the actions we’ve taken to support an employee-focused culture. Our response included the following details:

• Implementing a Paid FMLA Leave Program to increase employee morale and offer economic security to families during significant life events and give employees dealing with such events the peace of mind they are not in jeopardy of losing their jobs.
• Encouraging managers to share team highlights in the President’s weekly email. This allows for quick recognition/feedback that will be seen by those at the highest levels.
• We have also added a “Week in HKP Pictures” section to the President’s weekly email. We are hoping this will do a few things- put faces to names, show the fun we have at work, and encourage others to get creative with their work.
• Our President makes every effort to visit each of our 150 locations (across 18 states) at least once a year. This allows him to meet our team members and speak with each of them, regardless of how far they are from Indianapolis.
• We have invested in learning and development in different ways and at different levels. We have made great strides in communicating training opportunities, in increasing our offerings and in making sure we are offering the development that our team members need to do their work.

Anyone working on employee engagement will tell you that the work is always evolving and never complete- that’s makes the work both challenging and rewarding! We have accomplished a lot this year and it’s wonderful to have those efforts recognized by Emplify and Scaling Up!