Companies boost morale post-Katrina - New Orleans City Business

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4 2005 Best Places to Work Companies boost morale post-Katrina By Tommy Santora, Associate Editor WHEN THE CITYBUSINESS editorial staff returned to the drawing board post-Katrina to decide how to relaunch our special projects, the annual Best Places to Work rating needed updating. What constituted an employee-friendly, Best Place to Work before Katrina could have become a completely different workplace post-Katrina. In years past, CityBusiness ranked the Top 20 Best Places to Work on total employee satisfaction, tallying a company’s score out of 100 points, based on 10 questions asked to random employees and weighing their responses on a 1 to 10 scale. While our “morale index” has been an effective means in the past, we added a new twist to rank this year’s class: To what degree did employers step up during and after Katrina to help their employees? The final rankings compiled by the CityBusiness editorial staff analyzed applications companies sent in and combined the traditional “morale index” with the employee services companies provided during and after Katrina. We asked each company to send us Hurricane Katrina stories. We were utterly impressed by the many stories of employers reaching out to workers in a time they needed help the most. They were stories of companies sheltering employees, their families, children and pets during Katrina, followed by providing housing for their employees after Katrina through Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers, purchased and rented houses and condominiums, and paying living expenses for elongated hotel stays. All top companies continued to pay displaced employees who struggled to return to work immediately after the storm and were in great need of financial support. Hurricane disaster relief funds were also instituted and several top employers raised $1 million. Additional compensation was given in the form of cash grants days after Katrina and bonuses to employees who returned to work quickly. Some companies supplied clothing and housing, as well as free garage sales with merchandise spread out for the taking for employees in need. The common theme for all of our Top 20 companies was finding ways to rebuild businesses post-Katrina, by taking care of their most important asset — their employees. “Treat them like family” was no cliché during the most trying times this city has ever seen and the biggest hurdle this city has ever endured. Congratulations to the Top 20 Best Places to Work companies in 2005.•
1 By Jaime Guillet, Contributing Writer Ochsner Clinic Foundation After the destructiveness of Hurricane Katrina, Ochsner Clinic Foundation has emerged as a shining beacon for its employees. Within hours of the storm, Ochsner instated a host of relief programs for its employees including a call center at its Baton Rouge clinic for employees to call and report their status and home condition. Employees were matched up with various resources such as Adopt A Family, hurricane-relief funds and critical housing programs. In the Adopt A Family program, external companies adopted more than 60 displaced Ochsner employees’ families with 40 boxes of supplies delivered to the hospital through the initiative. Peggy Williams, a regular donator to local charities in Santa Rosa, Calif., contacted Ochsner and coordinated a donation drive for employees, sending truckloads of clothing, food, hygiene items, diapers, blankets and sheets to the hospital. Ochsner transformed its deli into OchMart, where employees could select any of the donated items they needed. Ochsner nurses and doctors from the ninth floor, orthopedics staff pose in a patient’s room. See OCHSNER continued on page 6 Ochsner social worker Jennifer Gullo consults with Dr. Renee Meadows. December 19, 2005 5
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Companies boost morale post-Katrina - New Orleans City Business

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