Post-Gazette launches Top Workplaces contest

Companies with 50 or more employees can join

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Hiring has been steady in recent years at ECI, or Equipment & Controls Inc., spurred by a surge in demand from oil and gas companies along with increasing automation in businesses ranging from nuclear to food and beverage to pulp and paper production.

“Everything is automated,” said Amanda White, human resources coordinator for the 265-employee Lawrence company that traces its roots to the 1950s.

ECI has been a Top Workplace in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s annual ranking for the past five years, and Ms. White reports that the exercise has been a useful one.

More than equipment or controls, the company is selling service. “You can go out and buy a control valve probably cheaper than getting one from us,” said Ms. White. “It’s the service.”

So it’s helpful to get employee feedback on the company’s benefits, management and operations. It’s also helpful to be able to tell prospectsthat ECI is a Top Workplace.

Earning a spot on the Post-Gazette’s list isn’t automated — unlike ECI’s control valves — but it isn’t hard to participate in the program, and even companies that don’t make the final rankings end up gathering pertinent data.

The Post-Gazette has been working with Energage, formerly WorkplaceDynamics, since 2011 on the Top Workplaces program.

Any organization with 50 or more employees — public, private, nonprofit or government — in the greater Pittsburgh area can be nominated at http://www.post-gazette.com/nominate or by calling 412-428-8020.

The deadline for nominations is Feb. 16.

Workplaces will be evaluated based on responses by employees to a 24-question survey taken between January and March.

The Post-Gazette holds a special event every summer to celebrate the Top Workplaces, in addition to publishing an editorial section celebrating those who made the list.

A whole lot of Pittsburgh-area organizations go through the free exercise annually.

Last year, close to 150 organizations were surveyed, with those ranked ranging from large employers such as Pitt Ohio, SAP America and Kenny Ross Automotive to smaller ones like Don’s Appliances and Edward Marc Brands. Rice Energy, one of last year’s Top Workplaces, was acquired by another one, EQT Corp.

The companies involved in the 2017 Top Workplaces program represented more than 31,000 employees, with 21,331 of those taking the time to answer the questions.

Not every company has figured out how useful the program is yet. Several hundred Pittsburgh-area organizations that were nominated last year — maybe by employees who wanted to offer a little feedback to management — didn’t complete the process.

Energage conducts Top Workplaces surveys for more than 40 major metro newspapers and surveyed more than 2.5 million employees in 2017.

Ms. White at ECI looks forward to getting the data back annually. She particularly likes the comments section, where employees can type anonymous notes.

The company also uses the program as a way to promote still more discussion.

“Every year we get the surveys back, we have meetings with every department and go over the results,” she said. Those meetings are held with managers in the room and then continue with the supervisors kicked out.

“It gives them the opportunity to elaborate a bit more,” Ms. White said.

ECI has learned a lot from its employees, she said. They were the ones who came up with the plan for casual Fridays. And they noticed that it would help to add a scale in the warehouses to more precisely calculate shipping costs.

To get your company involved in the Top Workplaces program, either go online at http://www.postgazette.com/nominate or call 412428-8020.