As you may have heard, we have some exciting news! WHR Group has been named a Top Workplace by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the fifth consecutive year.
We are humbled and proud to have received the Top Workplaces Award for the fifth year in a row, but for us, it isn’t about winning; it’s about our employees. “The reason why we go through this is so that we’re giving our employees an anonymous way to give us feedback,” said Janessa Penneau, WHR Group’s Human Resources Manager. Our priority has always been giving our employees an opportunity to voice their opinions about the company they work for and using that feedback to make WHR Group even better.
What is a Top Workplaces List?
The Top Workplaces lists are based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey administered by Energage, LLC (formerly Workplace Dynamics), a leading research firm that specializes in organizational health and workplace improvement. Any company can be nominated and it’s free to participate.
We use the survey to give all our employee’s a voice, and while the survey is not mandatory, we had an unheard of 100% participation.
Here are just some of the great things our employees had to say about WHR Group in the Top Workplaces 2018 Survey:
“I enjoy the people I work with and find meaning in assisting our clients/transferees through a stressful period.”
“I feel I am always challenged. There is always something new to learn.”
“I like problem solving and helping people.”
“It’s a great place to work. My projects keep me busy all day and I get to do a lot of multitasking which keeps things interesting all the time.”
“I like it here and I think the job is fun and rewarding.”
“[I] believe that my manager takes an active interest in my personal and professional growth.”
The importance of a great workplace culture
Did you know the average person spends roughly 90,000 hours working over their lifetime? When you spend that much time working you want to be happy doing it. But, according to the Gallup World Poll, less than 20% of workers feel actively engaged at their place of employment.
These statistics are the reason why it is so important to focus on culture in the workplace. As a relocation management company, WHR Group helps other organizations find and retain the best talent, which we couldn’t do without finding and retaining the best talent for ourselves. Our goal is for our employees to enjoy coming into the office, to be engaged, and to be proud of the work they do, because, honestly, WHR Group wouldn’t be where we are today without them.
What does this mean for our employees?
You can’t have great culture without great people.
Being placed on a Top Workplaces list for five consecutive years is truly amazing and, really, it’s because WHR Group takes the feedback it receives from its employees and acts on it. “There’s been many things that we’ve done over the years, but I think one of the biggest things that continually gets developed is our communication with our staff,” according to Penneau.
WHR Group’s passion has always been Advancing Lives Forward. We embody this not only for our client’s transferees, but for our employees. We look to challenge, engage, and drive our employees to be successful, to grow in their careers, and provide opportunities for them to do so.
What does this mean for you?
We’re all about putting the right people in the right positions and when we hire someone we are looking to see if they’re hardworking, proactive, trustworthy, and most importantly, empathetic. At WHR Group, we believe relocation can be taught, but to be an empathetic person, that is inherent by nature.
“What WHR Group does, is pretty simple, we Advance Lives Forward. That’s what we’re about. Whether it’s our clients, whether it’s our transferee, whether it’s our own employees, whether it’s the vendor partners that we work with, we want to make things better than they were when we got them, and that’s what we feel that we do,” said Paul De Boer, President at WHR Group. “We help people through a very significant, emotional life event – that’s changing the location where they live, where they have roots, where they’re grounded in a community. To be able to take them from that point to a new point, get them settled, get them established, in a very good manner and in a very customer service and customer centric way – that’s what we do and that’s what we deliver on.”
WHR Group emphasizes relationship building, both within our organization and outside of it. Our employees truly are behind our success and our growth year over year. The Top Workplaces award is special to us, but not as special as the employees who made it happen. So, here’s to WHR Group’s employees: Thank you for being fantastic.