These 5 companies epitomize high-trust workplace culture
After months of painstaking employee surveys, culture audit assessments, analysis,
reporting and deliberations, interrupted by a global pandemic that upended all workplace values and cultures, Great Place to Work® Philippines finally reveals its
inaugural Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 list.
The five best workplaces represent various industries—from business process
outsourcing, to logistics, to marketing and social media graphic design.
Despite the diversity of the business models, all have one thing in common: High-
trust workplace culture is placed on a pedestal.
The Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 reports an average Trust Index© score of
87%, while other organizations that did not make it on the list have an averagescore of 73%. Great Place to Work® Philippines presents a clear picture of a high-trust workplace culture through its Trust Index© model where employees’ threekey workplace relationships are recognized: management, job and employees.
These key relationships are more deeply examined and measured through the yardstick of five dimensions of a high-trust workplace culture: Credibility (the extent to which employees see management as credible); Respect (the extent to which employees feel respected by management); Fairness (the extent to which
employees perceive that management practices and policies are fair); Pride (employees’ sense of pride in their work), and; Camaraderie (employees’ sense of camaraderie in the workplace).
More of Great Place to Work® Philippines’ key findings from its extensive
workplace culture study of Philippine companies are fleshed out in its Insights
Report, get a copy here.
Leading the list is business process outsourcing company Synchrony Global Services Philippines, a subsidiary of premier consumer financial services company Synchrony that has also been named a great workplace in many locations around the world.
Synchrony Global Services Philippines earns the top spot for what has been called
its “genuine relentless care” for the people, to the extent that Synchrony has been
unanimously described by its employees as “a family” to them.
Global logistics leader DHL Express is second on the list for its total commitment
to deliver its employee promise of having a “culture of motivated people”, and
mastering the art of inspiring its workforce, making it natural for all to have the
customers at the heart of everything they do.
With its inclusion in the list, DHL Express Philippines joins the other DHL Express companies around the world that have been certified great workplaces, highlighted by DHL being named number 1 in Great Place to Work® Asia’s Best Workplaces 2020 list that was recently published on April 7.
Web-based graphic design firm Canva Manila makes it to the top 3 for its team members’ firm belief and practice of the core value of “Empowering Others”, achieved through good communication, mentoring and knowledge sharing— essential ingredients in a workplace culture where everyone thinks and acts like an owner.
Global hospitality icon Hilton lands at number 4 on the list, primarily because of the “Hilton Effect”—a strong, positive impact to team members who liken working
at Hilton to having another family, a place to call home. This workplace culture
has led Hilton to define the hospitality industry and change the world with its
mission of creating heartfelt experiences for guests, meaningful opportunities for
team members and positive impact for the communities.
Completing the Top 5 is the world’s largest wholesale technology and supply chain
distributor Ingram Micro, represented in the country by Ingram Micro Manila
Global Business Services Center. Anchored in an overarching theme, “IM Engaged Human Capital Strategy”, its people practices translate into an everyday experience that is orchestrated throughout the employee’s life cycle, making their employees realize that they have truly “Stepped into Greatness”.
Livestreaming inaugural awards
The Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 is Great Place to Work® Philippines’ inaugural awards, and has been livestreamed on May 1 with the event theme“Tiwala’t Tagumpay: High-Trust Culture Drives Business Success”.
Great Place to Work® Philippines Managing Partner Antoniette Mendoza-Talosig,
who is also the Lead Consultant of Great Place to Work® Singapore, said of the
awards, “Publishing our inaugural Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 list on May 1
is a key milestone for Great Place to Work® Philippines and for the companies
who for many years have waited and worked hard to achieve this gold standard of
recognition. We are also proud of the Philippines Great Place to Work Certified companies who have embarked in their own journey of culture-building. The leaders and employees of these companies are our nation’s trailblazers in building great places to work for all.”
In her message livestreamed to online audiences, Mendoza-Talosig added, “For the
past three decades, Great Place to Work has published hundreds of Best Workplaces lists all over the world. From conference rooms to grand hotel ballrooms, year on year, we have celebrated with thousands of business leaders and their employees who have created great workplaces. Today, we celebrate our inaugural Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 list in an unprecedented way. We are virtually joined by business leaders and employees who are at the confines of their homes.”
Mendoza-Talosig’s message references the unprecedented conditions forced upon societies across the world since this January, conditions brought about by the global Coronavirus Disease-2019 (CoViD-19) pandemic that have resulted in the countries’ leaders needing to enforce lockdowns, community quarantines, and social distancing measures in order to mitigate the further spread of the novel Coronavirus.
Such measures have required practically all companies in non-essential and non-
healthcare industries to halt operations in their workplaces for employees to comply with governments’ stay- or work-at-home orders.
DHL Express Philippines Country Manager Nurhayati Abdullah stated that, despite the circumstances, people in workplaces must bond together even stronger. “We may continue to have our own anxieties in the middle of uncertainties, but now is a great opportunity for us to reinforce our camaraderie and let the spirit of bayanihan shine as we hold on together as one big DHL Pilipinas Family.”
Singing ‘there’s no place like Manila’
Their inclusion in the Philippines Best Workplaces 2020 has given the winning companies the much-needed morale booster, given the present difficulties.
Synchrony Global Services Philippines Business Leader Michael Zolin thanked the
people behind Great Place to Work® Philippines for recognizing not only the level
of trust among his company’s people, but also the uniqueness of the workplace
culture.
“I loved the fact that we got high scores in the Great Place to Work® survey.
When I first came to the country back in July 2011, and I walked into the site for
the first time, there was a group of about 30 employees that were singing a song to
me about ‘Manila, Manila, there’s no place like Manila’, and I realized at that point
that this was a whole lot different than the United States. It has just felt that caring
and open and wonderful ever since I got here, and I realized I walked into something very special, and that has been the main focus of my 9 years here: Keeping that caring culture, grow it, and enhance it,” Zolin explained.
Ingram Micro Executive Director Vigor Amador, Jr. said, “I think the first thing that I felt, other than exhilaration, was that all the things that we have been doing paid off. I know the effort that’s being exerted by our HR Team is just phenomenal. I cannot even quantify the effort that has been extended by the leadership to make sure that we are all in sync when it comes to providing the right level of communication, the right level of engagement, the right level of support to our employees.”
Ingram Micro’s Director of Human Resources Grady Samuel White said, “It just
validates all that I think the organization has been doing in the last three years,
trying to reestablish the culture and put pride back in the organization.”
Canva Manila’s Country Manager Yani Donato said that the announcement was a
shot in the arm for her team.
“The award was really good news. Can you imagine winning a Great Place to
Work® badge at the height of a pandemic? It means a lot for us. I always go back to the team. It’s the people. I think the opportunity has unlocked itself where it will help us hire more people. It will help us get our name out there without trying so hard with the employer branding. I guess the badge just speaks for itself. It is an honor.”
Joining 98 other countries
Great Place to Work® Philippines’ inaugural Philippines Best Workplaces 2020
award follows the renowned tradition of Great Place to Work® worldwide, of
which Great Place to Work® Philippines is one of over 60 affiliates. While Great
Place to Work® Philippines was just incorporated in mid-2019, Great Place to
Work® has had a global presence for over 30 years.
In his message during the awards program, Michael Bush, Global CEO of Great
Place to Work®, welcomed the initiative to recognize the best places to work in
the Philippines.
“You are joining 98 other countries who celebrate companies that create great
environments for all employees who work in great companies. The theme of the
event is ‘Trust and Success’ (Tiwala’t Tagumpay), because, at the bottom of creating a great workplace is a feeling where everybody feels trusted by the people they work with, and a high level of trust from the people that they work for. This is what fuels success: Our individual and our collective success in our companies,” Bush said.
Since 1992, Great Place to Work® has surveyed more than 100 million employees around the world and used those deep insights to define what makes a great workplace: Trust. It helps organizations quantify their culture and produce better business results by creating a high-trust work experience for all employees.
These decades of data are now being used to create a new global standard for what
people can expect from their work experience. Great Place to Work® thrives on
sharing these insights from across industries and organization sizes, to help more
organizations around the world build, sustain and scale their great workplace
cultures.
Great Place to Work® uses its unparalleled benchmark data to recognize Great
Place to Work® Certified companies, the Best Workplaces in the Philippines and
in more than 60 countries, including the 100 Best Companies to Work For list
published annually in Fortune.
