2004 winners

Congratulations to our 2004 Award Winners! Learn how their service excellence to their organization won them the Department of the Year Award.

Philabundance

Philabundance is a nonprofit organization fighting hunger and malnutrition in the Delaware Valley. It was established in 1984 on the belief that good food should not go to waste while good people are suffering from hunger. Today, Philabundance collects donated perishable food from the food industry and efficiently distributes it to more than 325 community-based organizations that address the problem of hunger as well as other problems among low-income residents. We respond flexibly to match donations with the needs of the recipients. Philabundance serves the core nine counties of the Delaware Valley: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, and Mercer Counties in New Jersey. In 2003 we distributed over 14 million pounds of food.

Philabundance is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in the nine county Delaware Valley area. Employing approximately 42 employees in the collection, organization and effective distribution of over 14 million pounds of food annually to more than 325 community-based organizations, Philabundance's management and employees have witnessed the creation of a professional, credible, mission-oriented HR department that meets both organizational and employee needs.

With the arrival of a full-time HR professional in July 2003, the transformation of Philabundance's HR effort from management's well intended but "seat of the pants" approach was initiated. In a time frame of less than two years, the existing HR environment is now characterized by both employees and managers as one of professionalism, responsiveness, credibility, competency and trust. Such a dramatic metamorphosis is even more significant considering the limited resources available to the organization, coupled with Philabundance's first downsizing experience during this period. Indeed, affected employees praised the department for the handling of the reduction in force.

On the other end of the employment cycle, Philabundance has seen the establishment of professional standards and process in recruiting, which has resulted in better, matching applicants to positions, reduced turnover among new hires, and a reliance of line management upon the HR function to more effectively meet the organization's staffing needs. Additionally, the performance review process has been revamped to be more effective in addressing management's requirements.

Regarding employee relations and benefit areas, good use of focus groups have been made to re-examine health care offerings with the result that a package was created that met employee expressed needs for services while significantly at the same time reducing Philabundance's benefit expense.

Communication among and between employees and management has also felt the positive impact of focus groups convened by the HR function. Quarterly full staff meetings, meetings within and among management and employees, an active open door policy and a monthly newsletter are all initiatives created by the HR department. Examples of the results of these efforts include, but are not limited to, a revised employee orientation process, modifications to vacation accruals and awards, and more responsive reactions to employee suggestions, questions, and complaints.

A Human Resource strategic plan is in development. Senior management praises this new approach to Human Resources management as contributing to the uncompromised growth of the organization and the delivery of its mission.

WHYY

WHYY, Inc. the prime public broadcasting station serving southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and South Jersey, is a nonprofit corporation chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and licensed by the Federal Communications Commission to operate TV12 and 91FM. With studios in Philadelphia and Wilmington, WHYY-TV is broadcast to more than 2.6 million households. WHYY-FM is the most listened to public radio station in the region. More than 100,000 people logon to whyy.org each month and thousands of visitors meet face-to-face at WHYY community events each year. WHYY believes that through TV, FM, Web and community services, WHYY makes our region a better place, connecting each of us to the world's richest ideas and all of us to each other.

WHYY is a non-profit corporation licensed to operate public broadcasting stations TV12 and 91FM Radio. The core of WHYY's mission is to assist in making our region the best place to live and work by connecting each of us to the world's richest ideas and all of us to each other.

Upon John Payne's arrival as Director of Human Resources of WHYY in 2000, he discovered tenured and committed employees who were both creative and mission driven. The employee population was, and continues to be, comprised of highly creative professionals including broadcast production and engineering, program development, education, community outreach, as well as the more traditional occupations such as accounting, data entry and security. It became clear that in order to grow the organization amidst the telecommunications explosion, a stronger business focus needed to be embraced within the culture.

As a strategic business partner to WHYY's new President and leadership team, the HR Department was tasked with the challenge of creating a culture capable of achieving greater productivity, while continuing to foster an environment supportive of the employees' needs for creative expression and passion for community education. The department was highly sensitive to how such a varied audience would receive new policies and initiatives.

The WHYY leadership team endorsed the recommendations of the HR department to implement some challenging, but necessary programs and policies in order to drive the business and fulfill the goal of becoming an employer of choice. Many successful and positive initiatives were also introduced to create a more progressive and productive culture. These included an enhanced internal employee communication strategy, implementation of a performance management plan, development of a wellness program, as well as new employee perks to utilize community and cultural services. Previously existing departmental silos were eliminated to provide employees with a more versatile learning experience, and a more collaborative working environment.

The WHYY HR department has led this paradigm shift of business and cultural change and emerged with a reputation among the staff as a supportive group of professionals who function as a cohesive unit, with a sense or urgency and credibility. We applaud their innovative efforts with the presentation of this HR Department of the Year Award.

GMAC Commercial Holding Corp.

GMAC Commercial Holding Corp. (GMACCH) is a leading provider of financial services to the global commercial real estate industry. GMACCH's primary focus is the financing of commercial real estate. The company has extensive operations in lending, investment advisory services for debt and equity real estate, non-performing loan and asset management, loan servicing, affordable housing finance, real estate investment banking and structuring and distribution.

GMACCH has offices throughout the United States, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. GMACCH enjoys a solid reputation and incomparable resources. Through its people, it has tremendous energy and creativity. GMACCH works as one company with a shared vision to provide its clients with creative financial solutions and exceptional service.

GMAC Commercial Mortgage: Driving business results in a way that most others can only think about, seems to describe the strategy and success story of GMAC CM's human resources department. GMAC Commercial Holding Corporation is a leading provider of financial services to the global real estate industry.

Many of the successes of the organization can be directly attributable to the "world class" performance of this group. By building a strong HR and technology infrastructure they have been able to lead their organization in completing the acquisitions of several organizations. In fact they achieved the "paperless" environment that most HR department can only dream about, having produced 6,000 fewer pieces of paper per month and completing many transactions in 24 hours versus the previous two weeks. Their ability to keep track of thousands of employees and performance indicators spread out all over the globe with no increase in HR headcount is nothing short of amazing.

They are also introducing the first HR Balanced Scorecard into the organization by facilitating meetings with employees and managers to come up eight Key Performance Indicators while utilizing standard HR metrics and data obtained from internal surveys to determine the impact of HR services and programs. Some of the key measurements focus on customer process satisfaction and streamlining internal business processes.

Because of the connection their internal customers, they have instant credibility with the executive team and are able to get approval for HR programs to addresses major issues by developing task forces to address such major issues as a global performance management and competency program.

An impressive track record of using HR programs to drive business results makes them a great role model for other HR departments and a worthy recipient of the HR Department of the Year Award.

AmerisourceBergen

AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:ABC) is one of the largest pharmaceutical services companies in the United States, providing drug distribution and related services to both pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes. Formed by the merger of AmeriSource Health and BergenBrunswig in 2001, ABC is the leading distributor of pharmaceutical products and services to hospital systems/acute care market, physicians' offices, alternate care and mail order facilities, independent community pharmacies and regional chain pharmacies.

The company's service solutions include pharmacy automation, bedside medication safety systems, pharmaceutical packaging to pharmacy services for skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, reimbursement and pharmaceutical consulting services, and physician education. With more than $47 billion in annualized operating revenue, AmerisourceBergen is headquartered in Valley Forge, PA, and employs nearly 15,000 people. AmerisourceBergen is ranked #22 on the Fortune 500 list.

AmerisourceBergen Corporation (ABC): Pursuing a successful merger between different organizations requires a certain focus that many don't seem to possess. This HR leadership team has shown what it takes to make mergers work by developing a strong HR infrastructure and striving to articulate the "new" culture. They realized from the start that a corporate culture can not be "created" but there is still a great deal they could do to define and shape a culture to guide behavior and drive results. AmerisourceBergen Corporation is one of the largest pharmaceutical services companies in the United States, providing drug distribution and related services to both pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare providers.

The company had been going through a constant stream of mergers, consolidations, and other disruptions that impacted collaboration and performance. The new HR leadership team decided to attack the real and intangible "walls" that were built up over the years through the development of an HR leadership council as well as several precisely targeted task forces that were used to address specific causes of problems. Most importantly, the HR department helped shift the conversation and focus of the organization back onto the customer by developing the Customer CARE philosophy as a core element of their culture, performance management and incentive programs.

To reduce disruption and retain valued talent during periods of consolidation, they created a Talent Retention and Internal Placement program (TRIP), an internal employment agency, to better match talent to opportunity throughout the organization. They also continue to maintain and improve the capabilities of their HR department by encouraging certification and continuing in-house training and development for their HR staff. In a cost-conscious organization they've developed some very innovative communication tools to show the impact of what every employee does and the bottom-line.

Many organizations talk about a successful merger but fail to achieve the desired results; the HR leadership team at ABC is actually getting it done and is a worthy recipient of the HR Department of the Year Award.

Special Recognition

Kling