Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research
Award Recipients
Work-Life Innovative Excellence Award Recipients 1996-2010
2010
Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) – Caring for the Community Program
Hospital Corporation of America’s Caring for the Community program engages employees by encouraging their charitable passions. An employee may take up to 24 hours of paid volunteer leave each year. When the employee adds just one more hour of personal time, HCA provides a $500 contribution to that organization in recognition of the 25 hours donated. HCA added to this, a giving campaign match of up to $750 to a charity of the employee’s choice.
Clerk &Comptroller, Palm Beach County – We're All in This Together
When forced to slash millions from its budget and reduce its workforce, the Clerk & Comptroller, Palm Beach County, created the "We're All in This Together" transition program. Its goals were to minimize the impact of such dramatic changes by maintaining transparent, ongoing communications with employees; upholding employees' sense of empowerment and inclusion; and treating separating and remaining workers fairly and respectfully.
U.S. Navy – Task Force Life/Work (TFLW) Initiative
The U.S. Navy is not only focused on attracting, developing and retaining the best talent our nation has to offer, but also recognizing the changing attitudes toward work from our Millennials. Navy has committed itself to implementing an innovative work/life integration effort throughout the organization to drive change. Since 2007, Navy’s TFLW has led that change through new policies and programs designed to promote greater flexibility and balance between life and work.
2009
KPMG LLP: Team of Choice
This initiative is a unique team-based approach to work-life effectiveness that teaches member to respect the work-life and career development priorities of each other, while offering the highest level of service to clients.
Pepsi Bottling Group: PBG’s HealthyMoney Program
This free program helps PBG’s 35,000 employees become empowered with the knowledge, tools and confidence to build life-long financial stability.
RSM McGladrey: Coach on Call
This program offers all RSM McGladrey employees free access to work-life coaching services from a professional life coach, no matter where they are located, with actions plans and how-to strategies to strengthen working relationships, manage stress, establish a flexible work arrangement, and achieve overall work-life integration.
2008
United Services Automobile Association: Personal Balance Tool A confidential resource that brings together USAA’s Employee Assistance and work-life programs, employee benefits information, and products and services to help employees and their families meet their unique needs. Employees receive a Personal Action Plan with recommendations and a checklist.
Ernst & Young: EY/Assist’s The Parents Network The Parents Network supports the needs of Ernst & Young parents of children with special needs. The Parents Network offers a virtual and face-to-face forum to share experiences, needs and concerns with one another and the firm on an ongoing basis.
Accenture: Future Leave Future Leave is a short-term career off and on ramp to address work-life balance needs. As an alternative to the traditional leave of absence, it also provides return-to-work assurances, benefit continuation and the option to budget for the time away.
2007
Capital Metro Transportation Authority: Capital Metro Wellness Program Developed an on-site wellness and 24-hour fitness center coupled with a healthy options cafeteria and on-site child care and learning center with flexible hours priced 15% lower than other comparable local centers.
United States Patent & Trademark Office: Trademark Work At Home Developed a work at home program for examining attorneys who review trademark applications. Features hoteling and necessary equipment to establish a secure connection to the agency’s network, and automated systems enable users to perform all of their examination duties electronically.
Massachusetts General Hospital: Be Fit Developed an employee wellness program incorporating healthy meals from the cafeteria, monthly nutrition seminars, meditation sessions, daily walks, and discounted membership at the MGH-owned health club for groups of MGH employees.
2006
Sun Microsystems: iWork Sun cited iWork, a flexible and mobile internal work program for employees that lowered its real estate and technology costs saving an estimated $60 million in operating expenses a year.
GlaxoSmithKline: Team Resilience GlaxoSmithKline established Team Resilience, an employee stress prevention and intervention program.
American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care: Powerful Tools for Caregivers Online A collaboration of several major corporations, ABC took a leading role to implement Powerful Tools for Caregivers Online, a Web-based education program designed to provide employees with the skills to better care for themselves while caring for a relative or friend with a chronic medical condition.
2005
U.S. Army: The Soldier and Family Readiness System
The U.S. Army established Family Readiness Groups that offered information, referral assistance and mutual support to soldiers' families.
Nation of Singapore: Building a Nation of Family-Friendly Workplaces
Through its Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, the government of Singapore coordinated a variety of strategies to encourage companies to implement family-friendly workplaces and to empower employees to better manage their work and family life.
United Technologies Corp. and Work/Life Innovations: Lifelong Learning
United Technologies Corp., working with the consulting firm Work/Life Innovations, implemented a program that funds employees' pursuit of college degrees and provides coaching on numerous educational issues.
2004
Cendant Mobility: Flexible Work Options Program This program, which was developed to design, pilot and roll out a company-wide flexibility program, enjoys participation from more than half of the company's 2,200 employees.
Verizon Wireless: Prenatal Care & Breastfeeding Program
This program helped pregnant employees get the information and assistance they needed to bring their babies to full-term and through a safe delivery. The company used WebEx seminars to deliver information about diet, exercise and causes of premature births to its 43,000 employees.
Northern Illinois Collaboration: Summer of Service Program
This collaboration between Abbott Labs, Allstate, Discover Financial, Kraft, Hewitt Associates, Baxter International, community groups, school districts and government agencies helped "tweens" secure volunteer summer jobs.
2003
Aging With Dignity: Five Wishes Program
This program created an easy to use legal document that served as a living will for employees and their families and a catalyst for important conversations about end-of-life preparations.
Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories: Passport to Health
This health and wellness program featured company-wide collaboration and input from experts on its own workforce.
Work-Life Innovations: Employee Transition Services
This program addressed the needs of companies as they relocated employees and their families by interviewing family members to identify their key relocation needs and provide assistance with dependent care, educational needs, housing, medical, spiritual and community resources.
2002
City of Maple Grove: Fit for Life Wellness Program
This program resulted in a return on investment of $2 for each $1 spent by promoting "better health" programs for employees.
Marriott Corp.: Flexibility Initiative
The Flexibility Initiative succeeded in achieving its objectives to give managers more flexibility, eliminate low-value work functions, and shift the focus from hours worked to results and achievements.
University of California, Davis: Breastfeeding Support Program
This comprehensive lactation initiative featured an education program, newsletter, support group and 24-hour pager access to a lactation consultant.
2001
IBM: Global Workforce Flexibility
IBM implemented an employee-driven project to create models and solutions for work-life conflicts that could be replicated across business units. The program encouraged the transformation of IBM's culture to one that incorporates work-life balance into business processes.
Local 2: Child/Elder-Care Program
This cooperative approach helped low-wage employees find affordable dependent care.
Childcare Network Inc.: The Western New York Family Care Consortium
This collaborative program involved coordinating the efforts of a diverse group of employers and unions in order to address the need for quality child care for employees working shifts when daycare isn't easily available.
2000
Children First for Oregon: Families in Good Company
This nonprofit organization reached out to the community and inspired employers to incorporate family-friendly practices into their culture by honoring Oregon's family-friendliest employers.
American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependant Care
A collaboration of 18 major corporations, ABC took a leading role to expand and improve the dependent care infrastructure in communities across the country by donating more than $100 million for child care and elder care in communities where the corporations' employees work.
Arthur Andersen: Domestic Violence Initiative
Arthur Andersen helped to combat domestic violence by partnering with community and civic organizations and enabling its own employees to volunteer to be part of the solution.
1999
Colorado Bright Beginnings: Parent-Friendly Workplace Initiative This public/private partnership transformed the state's workplaces, making them more supportive of families. The results, including two statewide employer summits and an unusually high number of family-friendly businesses, made this program a model for other U.S. states.
United Auto Workers/General Motors: Child Development Center
The Center, which served 265 children in 1999, improved the quality of child care by reaching out to the community, training local child-care providers and mentoring its own teachers in a partnership with the University of Michigan that paired teachers with more experienced providers.
The Working Group: (A PBS Television Series) Working Family Values
The television special, part of the series "Livelyhood," was lauded for calling attention to important work-family issues. Using the stories of ordinary people, including daycare dads, a bank CEO, school children, seniors and small business owners, it illustrated work-life conflicts and offered solutions.
1998
U.S. Coast Guard: New Parents Program The Coast Guard offered new parents a one-time leave of up to two years, access to nine onsite child-care centers, trained nonworking spouses as family daycare providers, allowed employees to donate time off to coworkers, and offered adoption aid and flexible scheduling.
AT&T Corp.: Summer of Service
As a response to employees' concerns about how their teenagers were spending their free time, AT&T, its consultant WFD Consulting, and two unions—Communication Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers—collaborated on a variety of solutions.
City of Honolulu: Child Care in the Parks
This program started 10 free or low-cost programs in city parks targeting low-income children.
1997
Sikorsky Aircraft: Flexible Workplace Program
Sikorsky Aircraft's Flexible Workplace Program demonstrated that line managers and workers could be supportive partners through collaboration between a local union and labor-management committees that resulted in a child-care fund.
Locals 1199 and 168: Employer Childcare Fund
Teamwork between New York Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199 and Local 168 labor-management committees resulted in the nation's first child-care fund.
Indiana Child Care Symposium: Child-care Programs in 17 Indiana Counties
A collaborative effort between the Child Care Action Campaign, government, companies and community groups, created child-care programs in 17 counties in Indiana.
PALCARE: Child-care Center
One of the nation's more unique child-care centers at the time, was the result of a partnership between community, parents, government and labor.
1996
Marriott Corp./The Partnership Group: Associate Resource Hotline
Marriott Corp. and The Partnership Group collaborated to create a resource hotline that provided employees with access to community groups to help them deal with child-care and elder-care issues. The program resulted in reductions in turnover and unplanned absences.
Work-Life Rising Star 2007-2009
2010
Maggie Stimming, Senior Work-Life Consultant, Indiana University — Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Maggie Stimming has worked in a variety of roles during her 14 years with HR administration, and in 2003 she became the first person to fill the work-life position at IUPUI. She has developed the hallmarks of IUPUI’s work-life program, which include inclusiveness and being a voice for the underrepresented; providing high-quality, practical information and programming; and collaboration with partners.
2009
Casey Carlson, 2009 Work-Life Rising Star
Previously serving as the Senior Manager of Talent Inclusion at Deloitte, Casey Carlson had specific responsibility for Internal Inclusion Communities, External Diversity Conferences and Research. She focused on attracting and retaining diverse talent, including the next generation. She researched demographic and workforce attitudes to create and implement innovative initiatives that foster an environment that ensures the best talent is attracted, retained and motivated toward career growth. Carlson played an integral role in the development of the organization's Decoding Generational Differences project, to become better attuned to the emerging generation of workers.
Judith Finer Freedman, Founder, The Balanced Worker Project
Judith Finer Freedman is a work-life consultant who researches and lectures on the dynamics of work-life effectiveness, generational diversity, mentoring and gender bias. She founded The Balanced Worker Project, which specializes in initiatives for senior managers on generational diversity and mentoring and for workers and graduate students on work-life effectiveness and generational and gender differences. The concept is to help workers fulfill their career dreams without giving up their life dreams.
James Moon, Senior Analyst, Work Life, United States
Automobile Association
After serving as an officer in the U.S. Army for 22 years, James Moon manages the development, implementation, improvement and administration o fall enterprise-wide work-life programs. He established a fully integrated military leave assistance program for employees in the Reserve and National Guide, and he provided assistance to spouses of military members during the period they are deployed.
2008
Reed Engel
Director, Wellness Strategies, Mather LifeWays Institute on Aging
Engel is honored for his role in introducing the health risk assessment program and implementing a 10,000 steps pedometer-based program that promotes both physical activity and proper nutrition. In addition, he began a Wellness Coaching service available to employees and their family members.
David Lock
Founder/Managing Director, Arrows with Soul
A work-life coach and thought leader, Lock has achieved tremendous milestones in work-life effectiveness and employee engagement. He developed Arrows with Soul, a holistic work-life integration program based in Singapore, promoting work-life integration and encouraging greater understanding and acceptance of work-life programs.
Nina Madoo
Director of Workplace Strategies, Marriott International
Madoo is honored for her work with WFD to pilot and implement a Teamwork Innovations process to enhance management engagement and work-life effectiveness by reducing non-essential work and increasing flexibility and work efficiencies.
Danielle Shanes
Director, Work Environment—Benefits Planning & Design, The McGraw-Hill Companies
Shanes developed and carried out McGraw-Hill’s first-ever work-life strategy, which resulted in placement on the Working Mother Top 100 list. Under her leadership, McGraw-Hill has maintained or improved its Working Mother ranking.
2007
Barbara Ashby Manager, Work-Life, Child Care & Family Services, University of California-Davis
Ashby is honored for her role in developing and implementing programs for working mothers and their children, including the launch of UC Davis’ award-winning Breastfeeding Support Program and three on-site child development centers.
Teresa Hopke Director, Work-Life Strategies, RSM McGladrey
Hopke develops and implements programs, policies and individualized plans that create a healthy and happy work environment. RSM McGladrey has been the recipient of Working Mother Media’s 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers, the Minnesota Work-Life Advocate award, and the Conference Board’s Moving Into the Future award.
John-Anthony Meza Associate Director, National Community Involvement,KPMG LLP
John-Anthony (“J-A”) Meza blends corporate objectives with the nonprofit arena. With KPMG’s national community involvement program, Involve, Meza has developed key relationships with nonprofit organizations to support the firm’s commitment to building a culture of corporate citizenship and make a positive impact through service, time and resources.
Jennifer Swanberg, Ph.D. Executive Director, Institute for Workplace Innovation, University of Kentucky
A true expert in work-life effectiveness, Jennifer Swanberg, Ph.D., is the executive director of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Workplace Innovation, an interdisciplinary organization that assists businesses in developing work environments that meet employees’ demands, on and off the job.
Cali Williams Yost President/Founder, Work+Life Fit Inc.
As a consultant, Cali Williams Yost helps busy professionals at some of the most prestigious companies create strategies for balancing work and life. In addition to running a business, Yost writes the weekly Work+Life "Fit" blog, the first blog in the work-life field.