Staff Stories - June 30, 2022

Goodwin Living Team Members Make Us a Top Workplace

By Kathie Miller

We recently celebrated the exciting news that Goodwin Living is the #5 Washington Post Top Workplace for 2022. What excited us most about this news is this: We receive this ranking from our team members.

You see, the Top Workplaces are determined solely based on employee feedback. The Washington Post partners with Energage, a company that specializes in employee surveys. Energage administers the survey and generates the results, and then The Washington Post publishes the final list and ranking every June.

According to a press release from Energage, “Nominated companies are evaluated based on results from Energage’s anonymous, research-based employee engagement survey that is powered by findings from 15 years of research and data from more than 23 million employees across 70,000 organizations.”

Goodwin Living has made the list every year since 2019.

Why We Celebrate

We take our mission seriously. We support, honor and uplift the lives of older adults and the people who care for them. Our team members have always been at the heart of what we do. We strive to create a culture of welcome and belonging for everyone, and that is reflected in our team members. More than 60 countries are represented throughout our nearly 1,000 employees. As you walk around our campuses or meet members of our healthcare services teams, it can nearly feel as though you are on a world tour.

Of course, every company will claim that it puts employees first. Like others, we promote our workplace culture, our benefits and how we support career growth. Not every company puts itself through an organization-wide staff survey every year to see how successful it is in these types of endeavors.

“The companies recognized as Top Workplaces have high performance, people-first cultures,” said Greg Barnett, Ph.D., Chief People Scientist at Energage. “These companies are successful because they put their people at the center of all they do.”

Our Gratitude for Team Members

While we won’t deny that being recognized by The Washington Post as a Top Workplace makes us feel pretty special, it pales in comparison to the feeling we get from knowing that our team members are the ones who give us that ranking. And they reward us in other ways, too!

Since the pandemic, everyone often talks about the Great Resignation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 47.4 million people voluntarily quit their jobs in 2021. Departures can happen for a range of reasons, though some employees increasingly seek out work with purpose and meaning.

Some organizations have seen tenure rates drop as low as 1.8 years, yet at Goodwin Living employees stay with us on average for more than six years. We recently celebrated 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years of service with nearly 80 team members. Among our 974 team members, 368 of them have been with us for five or more years. That’s nearly 40% of our workforce! Our most tenured team member, Ms. Audrey Keith, will celebrate 52 years with us this August!

It genuinely moves us to know that Goodwin Living team members not only choose us, but they choose to stay with us for all these many years. It’s just icing on the cake that they have made us a Top Workplace for a fourth year in a row, and that they helped us reach the #5 position on the list of large companies. And we hope that we can continue to make them feel rewarded for the work they do, the passion they give to their jobs and the dedication we all feel toward one another.

As our President & CEO Rob Liebreich says “Congratulations to all and here’s to making it an even better year ahead!”

As Corporate Director of Marketing & Communications, Kathie Miller provides strategic guidance and tactical support for all areas of Goodwin Living. She writes, edits and manages The Good Life blog and newsletter. Kathie joined GHI in 2014 after nearly 15 years at NPR, where she honed her skills in brand and reputation management, content marketing and internal communications. Originally from Pennsylvania, Kathie has slowly come to realize she’s lived in Arlington for more than half her life and should call herself a Virginian. She enjoys the outdoors and brings her rescue dog, Remi, to work every day.