By Staff
From Staff Reports
According to Fortune magazine, one of the top 10 companies in the nation to work for has a home right here in Atmore.
Baptist Health Care, which includes Atmore Community Hospital is the number 10 company in Fortune's America's 100 Best Companies to Work For list, alongside of national giants such as Edward Jones and Qualcomm.
"This is proof of our commitment to quality care for patients," said Bob Gowing, director of ACH.
Baptist Health outranked such national giants as Microsoft (28), Starbucks (58), Harley-Davidson (74) and Procter &Gamble (97). Three other hospitals or health care systems made the list as well.
The largest non-governmental employer in northwest Florida, Baptist Health has nearly 5,500 full-time, part-time and on-call employees.
Two-thirds of Fortune's scoring was based on how randomly selected employees responded to the Great Place to Work Trust Index, an anonymous survey measuring the quality of workplace culture. Designed to gauge how workers feel about their employers, the survey asked the degree to which the workers agreed with a variety of statements, including "I can ask management any reasonable question and get a straight answer," "My work has special meaning: this is not just a job," and "Management shows a sincere interest in me as a person."
Also taken into account were employee-written letters of nomination, a detailed audit of each organization's culture, and each company's response to nine open-ended questions about programs and services for employees. In the wake of Sept. 11, additional questions were asked about how the companies were affected and how they responded.
The 100 Best Companies to Work For were chosen from 279 candidates, up from 234 last year. Of the 100 companies on the list, 20 were not on the list last year, while 28 have been on the list since its inception five years ago. This is the first time Baptist Health Care applied for the honor.
Baptist Health Care is a network of hospitals, which include Atmore Community, D.W. McMillan Memorial, Jay, Baptist and Gulf Breeze, in addition to nursing homes, mental health facilities and outpatient centers.
It also operates a life-care retirement community and the Baptist LifeFlight helicopter ambulance. Serving Escambia and Santa Rosa counties as well the Brewton and Atmore, Ala., area, Baptist Health Care is the largest health care system in northwest Florida.
The vision of Baptist Health Care is to be the best health system in America.