For the third consecutive year, St. Mary’s Hospital gets a seal of approval from the Alliance for Workplace Excellence (AWE) with the 2011 Workplace Excellence, the Health & Wellness Trailblazer and the EcoLeadership awards. AWE is a non-profit organization that focuses on making companies in the greater Washington, D.C., area excellent places to work.
Given to companies based on programs in communication, diversity, employee growth and more; the first award, the Workplace Excellence Award, recognizes the hospital for, among other things, holding quarterly meetings so employees can ask questions of hospital President Christine R. Wray. Wray also leads department huddles to discuss time-sensitive information with the hospital’s leadership. St. Mary’s Hospital was one of 57 businesses that received the Workplace Excellence Award in the region.
The second award, the Health & Wellness Trailblazer Award, salutes employers who offer programs for employee health and wellness. St. Mary’s Hospital offers Employee Health services with a nurse practitioner or registered nurse available to see associates; free smoking/tobacco cessation medication for employees and family members; and a “We CARE About Your Health” wellness program for associates, among a list of other benefits. The hospital was one of 38 companies that received the Health & Wellness Trailblazer Award.
The final AWE award, the EcoLeadership Award, acknowledges the hospital’s commitment to an environmentally sustainable workplace. Under the direction of its Green Team, the hospital worked closely with its waste management vendor to divert over 20,000 pounds of plastics from waste stream by using a recycling program for sharps containers; experienced a 6% reduction in red bag wastes by educating employees about recyclable and non-recyclable items; and entered into an energy conservation program that guarantees an energy cost savings of $128,000 each year for the next. The hospital was one of 22 companies that received the EcoLeadership Award.
Hospital representatives officially received the awards at the Alliance for Workplace Excellence’s Annual Awards Luncheon in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 13, 2011.
