How did your company make a difference this year?
Now is an excellent time to examine your achievements and nominate your employer today
During our search for the Bay Area’s 2020 Top Workplaces, we asked companies that made the Bay Area News Group’s list to share their thoughts about how they stand out as a Top Workplace. We also asked them to explain what it has been like (as a Top Workplace) to navigate these exceedingly challenging circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted to know what they do for their employees and their customers as well as the communities they serve. We asked them to explain the decisions they had to make and how these choices made a difference on the path to becoming a Top Workplace. We also were curious about how the pandemic affected their efforts to engage with the communities they support.
To help encourage employees to nominate their companies as a 2021 Top Workplace, we thought this would be a great time to share some of the responses from a couple of the companies that were ranked on the 2020 Top Workplaces list.
What traits help turn a company into a Top Workplace?
Dudum Real Estate Group
We have received the Top Workplace honor for several years now, and every year we are so grateful for this prestigious award. It’s truly an honor to be among Bay Area News Group’s Top Workplace recipients. It reinforces our efforts within our company to continue growing a strong company culture for our staff, our agents and our clients. This incredible environment and culture stems from a family-oriented place — we celebrate people’s milestones, lift each other up in moments of hardship, and collaborate with one another to find success for all. At Dudum Real Estate Group, we are a group of individuals with the same ethics, high standards and integrity, and we share an overall desire to provide top-quality service to our clientele.
Our pride in receiving this amazing recognition is evident in how we share it with our community and celebrate it with our agents and staff. People have shared with us that they are very impressed that we have won the award year after year.
The leadership that is brought forward by our broker/owner, Julie Del Santo, not only trickles down to all of those in the company, but also to our clientele and how we service them. This simply gives us added incentive to keep aiming higher and working hard to continuously earn the award again in future years!
Overcoming challenges during the pandemic
In these challenging times, we have honored the shelter-in-place order and encouraged our clients, family and friends to do the same. We have done this both to fulfill our social responsibility and for the safety of our community. Health and safety are still our primary concerns. In our area, real estate is considered an essential business, so we are working and supporting our clients, albeit often virtually. We are using new virtual tools to safely show and view amazing homes on the market, as well as safe in-person showings with all of the social-distancing safeguards and protocols. Both our agents and our staff are all following these stringent regulations to get through this and still provide the top service our clients need.
Many of our agents and staff have also been donating food, supplies, and sewing handmade masks for our front-line workers and those in our community in need. It is a hard time for so many and our hearts go out to those affected. We are seeing a great amount of blessings that have surfaced as a result of the pandemic that we otherwise may have taken for granted. We will embrace this challenging time and keep focused on the things that we have always focused on — our clients and the opportunity they have given us to help them buy or sell their homes!
Stanford Federal Credit Union
Stanford Federal Credit Union (Stanford FCU) employees are the reason we’re a great place to work! We’re proud to be named a Top Workplace once again, and excited to show job seekers why they should work for Stanford FCU. Many candidates mention the Top Workplaces award as one of the reasons they apply to join our team.
Our CEO, Joan Opp, likes to say that Stanford FCU employees work hard and play hard. We collaborate and take initiative to improve the financial lives of our community. We have four core values that are celebrated and rewarded every day in our online portal as employees recognize each other in these areas: Members Are Priority One; Working Together Works; See It, Own It, Do It; Develop Yourself and Others.
Navigating the critical challenges of the pandemic
As a not-for-profit financial cooperative that is owned by its members, Stanford Federal Credit Union has a responsibility to meet the financial needs of our members and community. We were able to respond quickly to the pandemic by offering Emergency Loans, deferring loan payments and waiving fees for our members in financial distress.
“As an essential business, our phenomenal employees were on the front lines to help ensure the financial wellbeing of our members,” says Celia Tanaka, vice president of human resources. “We were challenged like everyone else to find essentials like hand sanitizer and masks, but we got creative by building Plexiglas barriers. We closed three branches to enable social distancing, and redeployed those employees to other areas to better serve our members. Our CEO sent regular all-staff emails to provide transparency, and she encouraged employees to ask her questions.”
How to nominate your company
Now that you’ve read about the advantages of being a Top Bay Area Workplace, here’s how you can nominate your company today: