The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) selected Emory Healthcare Inc. (EHC) as one of the best places to work in the region on March 19.
With 12,270 regional employees, EHC made spot 21 on the list of large companies. EHC, the largest health care system in the state of Georgia, has received the AJC Top Workplace title four times according to Melanie De Gennaro, Emory Healthcare corporate director of Communications.
This year, EHC fell just below the Northeast Georgia Health System and Waste Management Inc. and before Atlanta Women’s Health Group PC and Quest Diagnostics Inc.
“Being a top workplace is important, because our employees are critical to our success as an organization, and we want to create an environment in which they are supported and can thrive,” De Gennaro said.
In a statement congratulating all of Emory Healthcare after the AJC released its 2015 list, the EHC executive team wrote, “We are all in this together and all create the environment in which we work. These are successes that can come only from a true commitment to each other.”
The executive team highlighted accomplishments in daily patient care, high UHC quality rankings and global acknowledgement for the care provided to Ebola patients.
Founded in 1905, EHC includes the Emory University Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Emory University Orthopedics & Spine Hospital, Emory Rehabilitation Hospital, The Wesley Woods Center, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Emory Johns Creek Hospital.
Every spring since 2011, the AJC has compiled a list of the top places to work in Atlanta, divided into three categories: 75 small companies (with fewer than 150 employees), 50 midsize companies (with anywhere from 150-500 employees) and 25 large companies (with 500 or more employees).
More than 1,400 companies were invited to participate, and the AJC’s surveying partner Workplace Dynamics asked employees from the 244 that followed through to rate their workplaces, according to AJC Senior Editor Robert Howard, who helps compile the annual list.
[quote_regular name="" icon_quote="no"]“This list depends completely on cooperation. Those employees who volunteered began taking the survey as early as September,” Howard said.[/quote_regular]
Workplace Dynamics requests that all participants evaluate their workplace on a scale of zero to 99, according to Howard. Then, Workplace Dynamics does the “number crunching,” Howard said.
A record-breaking number of metro Atlanta employees — nearly 50,000 — took part in the 2015 survey, according to Howard.
“We normally rank the top 100 workplaces but were able to increase that to 150, thanks to the number who contributed,” Howard said.
Cancer Treatment Centers of America, with 835 employees, sits at the top of the list of best large company workplaces. Other healthcare and hospital companies to make the list include WellStar Health System and A.G Rhodes Health & Rehab. In February, Emory and WellStar announced that they were exploring the possibility of a merger.
Some other notable companies on the list of top company workplaces include CareerBuilder, InterContinental Hotels Group, Waste Management Inc., Sprint and the American Junior Golf Association.
Workplace Dynamics discovered commonalities between the workplaces that received exceedingly high rankings from their employees, according to Howard.
“The companies that have earned the loyalty and affection of their employees ... have invested as much in their employees’ well-being as they have in tangible perks,” Howard wrote in a March 21 AJC article.
—By Samantha Goodman
