PROVIDENCE – The multi-agency When Work Works project has honored seven Rhode Island employers with 2008 Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility.
The local winners were Embolden Design Inc.; KPMG LLP; Lefkowitz, Garfinkel, Champi & De Rienzo PC Inc.; Narragansett Bay Commission, the sewage-treatment utility; Quality Partners of Rhode Island; and Rhode Island Legal Services; and Sansiveri, Kimball & McNamee LLP.
The Greater Providence metropolitan region is one of 30 nationwide selected to host and participate in the When Work Works initiative. The local contest was open to any organization in the Rhode Island metro area had more than 10 employees and had been in business for at least one year.
“Flexible workplace practices enable Quality Partners of Rhode Island associates to more easily balance their professional and personal lives,” H. John Keimig, the statewide quality-improvement group’s president and CEO, said in a statement today. “This balance allows us to maximize our effectiveness in accomplishing the organization’s goals and objectives.”
Nationwide, the 2008 Workplace Flexibility program honored 319 employers – of all sizes, and many industries – with Sloan Awards or honorable mentions. “Each of the honorees represents the best flexible and effective work practices and policies in the nation, and their employer data has been corroborated by their employees,” the When Work Works alliance said in a statement. “These businesses truly understand that workplace effectiveness and flexibility are part of being an employer of choice today.”
Each winner will also receive national recognition – including a full-page congratulatory ad in USA Today – and will be featured in the 2009 issue of the Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work, published by Families and Work Institute, the alliance said.
“Sloan Award winners have put into practice their bold ideas about how to make work work in the 21st century, and they have shown how they can support the needs of their employees while also making their organizations more effective and successful,” Ellen Gallinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, said in a statement today.
“Employers must develop new recruitment and retention policies,” added Greg Roth, senior manager of work force education for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce. “Unprecedented conditions – a multigenerational work force, a shrinking labor pool and an increasing demand for skilled workers – dictate that they do so.”
The Alfred P. Sloan Awards for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility are part of the When Work Works project, a joint initiative of the Families and Work Institute, the Twiga Foundation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for a Competitive Workforce. To learn more, visit www.WhenWorkWorks.org.