By KELLY GRIFFIN
Contributing Editor, Best Practices in HR

Many employers strive to make their work environments positive places for employees and feel that they have an equally important role in giving back to their communities. But employers often function independently and are not always aware of what other organizations are doing to foster good relationships with their internal and external publics.

Marci Koblenz, president of MK Consultants, Ltd., and Mary Ellen Gornick, president of CPA Group, both in Chicago, and Sandra Cunningham, Ed.D., president of Workplace Smarts! in New York City, decided to do something about that. The result of their collaborative efforts is a new nonprofit organization, based in Chicago and launched in January, called The Center for Companies That Care.

The mission. The Center’s mission statement says it was founded to encourage, celebrate, and sustain businesses that prize their employees and are committed to community service.

The statement further decrees that the Center is dedicated to recognizing and assisting businesses, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities that are creating, maintaining, or working to reshape organizational environments that allow employees and communities to thrive.

According to Koblenz, who serves as the Center’s president (a volunteer position), founding corporate sponsors included Illinois companies: Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield, Krasnow Saunders Comblath of Chicago; NeigerDesignInc of Evanston; Rauland-Borg Corporation of Skokie, and TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. of Lake Forest. The founding sponsors contributed seed money to get the organization and website up and running, as well as committing to the Center’s mission and vision.

How to get involved. There are three ways that employers can participate in the Center’s activities, says Koblenz. One is to recognize the national Companies That Care Day. The organization’s initial kickoff celebration was on March 20, the first Companies That Care Day. Suggestions regarding employer participation in future Days can be found on the website, such as holding a volunteer fair to highlight volunteer opportunities in the surrounding area, hanging banners and posters celebrating the Day and holding training courses for managers to strengthen their people skills.

Another opportunity for involvement is participating in a networking educational organization–The Companies That Care Exchange. "This is an opportunity for organizations to learn from each other and share best practices as well as to collaborate with each other in community initiatives for change and become involved with public policy," says Koblenz. Educational events, some included as part of the membership fee and others that have a small cost attached, assist companies in becoming "companies that care." Earlier this year, at the first Exchange event, Randy Cohen, who writes "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Magazine, was a featured speaker, addressing how to be a good person in life as well as in business.

Honor rolls. The third way to get involved is to apply for inclusion on the Honor Roll. The Companies That Care Day celebration includes the public announcement of the first group of employers that have achieved the Center’s Honor Roll of companies.

To be included on the Honor Rolls, employers must complete a comprehensive application with supporting documents, and go through an interview/review process by a panel of judges.

For consideration, employers must demonstrate the following 10 characteristics:

• Sustain a work environment founded on dignity and respect for all employees.
  
  
• Make employees feel their jobs are important.
  
  
• Cultivate the full potential of all employees.
  
  
• Encourage individual pursuit of work/life balance.
  
  
• Enable the well-being of individuals and their families through compensation, benefits, policies, and practices.
  
  
• Develop great bosses who excel at managing people as well as results.
  
  
• Appreciate and recognize the contributions of employees.
  
  
• Establish and communicate standards of behavior and integrity.
  
  
• Involve themselves in community endeavors and public policy.
  
  
• Consider the human toll when making business decisions.

Koblenz comments that the Exchange and the Honor Roll are set up in a way that allows organizations of all sizes to participate. "That’s what we wanted to do with the ten characteristics also–most of them are about the culture of the work environment, so they don’t require a lot of money [to implement]."

Companies recognized on the premiere Honor Roll in March were Illinois companies Baxter Healthcare Corporation of Deerfield; Rauland-Borg Corporation, and Triangle Printers of Skokie; and TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. of Lake Forest, as well as DuPont of Wilmington, Del. As the organization expands, so likely will the geographic distribution of Honor Roll awards.

Employers can apply for future Honor Roll consideration any time during the year, explains Koblenz. If an employer meets the criteria to make the Honor Roll, it will immediately be included in the list of the Center’s website and will be included in next March’s Honor Roll announcement, which is free positive exposure and publicity for any company. And who couldn’t use that?

For more information about the Center for Companies That Care, visit http://www.companies-that-care.org or call (312) 263-0883.