Alfred P. Sloan Award News - Effective and Flexible Workplace Awards

Effective Workplace Award

Is your workplace innovative, flexible and effective?

Apply for one of the most prestigious workplace awards in the country and get local and national recognition as a top employer.

The 2014 Awards for Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility application is open.

Last year, hundreds of organizations applied for the award, known as The Alfred P. Sloan Award for Excellence in Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility, resulting in 297 winning worksites. To view the list of 2013 winners, click here. We hope you will join this dynamic and prestigious group of leading organizations! To learn more:

• Register and begin the application
• Log back in to an existing application
• Application process
• Eligibility
• Deadlines 

  Register and begin the application

  There is no application fee.

  To apply, please click on the registration page and look for this response, “Yes: Click the >> button below to continue to the registration process” when you see the question, “Would you like to create a new 2014 Sloan award application?”  You will be asked to provide your email, username and password before you can complete the employer survey (Round 1). You may use your same email to register for multiple U.S. worksites.

   

  Log back in to an existing application

  If you have already registered and would like to return to your employer application, click HERE to login.

  If you cannot recall your username and/or password, please email whenworkworks@familiesandwork.org instead of registering again.

  About the Sloan Awards

  Since 2005, the Sloan Awards have been recognizing model employers of all types and sizes across the U.S. for their innovative and effective workplace practices. The Sloan Awards are part of When Work Works, a research-based initiative to highlight how effective and flexible workplaces can yield positive business results and help employees succeed at work and at home. When Work Works is a joint partnership between Families and Work Institute (FWI) and The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

  In addition to the recognition of earning a Sloan Award by FWI and SHRM in national media, When Work Works’ community partners recognize winners in their communities at individual, local awards events.

  All applicants receive a free Benchmarking Report on Workplace Effectiveness and Flexibility, based on their applications, comparing their responses to other award applicants, winners, and nationally representative samples of employers.

   

  Application Process and Scoring Criteria

  Using a rigorous scoring methodology that emphasizes the real life experiences of employees and incorporates national benchmarks for employer practices, the Sloan Awards honor organizations that are using workplace flexibility as a strategy to make work “work” better—for both the employer and the employee. The application process takes place in two rounds.

  In Round 1, employers apply by completing an on-line application about the flexibility programs and practices at their worksite, which may take about 30 minutes to complete online plus some possible prep time to gather your answers. For employers with more than one location, each site can submit a separate application and is judged and awarded the Sloan award independently. Responses provided by the employer are then measured against a nationally representative sample of employers, based on Families and Work Institute’s ongoing National Study of Employers. Employers that rank among the top 20% of employers in the U.S., when compared with this national data, are selected as finalists and move on to Round2.

  In Round 2, employers are invited to have their employees complete a questionnaire, which takes approximately 30 minutes to complete, that asks about their individual use of and experiences with flexibility and other aspects of an effective workplace, the supportiveness of their workplace culture and whether they perceive any negative consequences for using flexibility at their workplace. For organizations with fewer than 250 employees at the worksite, all employees are surveyed. For larger worksites, a random sample of 250 employees is sampled. Of those surveyed, a 40% response rate is required.

  The final scoring heavily weights the experience of employees. While one third of the final score depends on the employers’ responses, two thirds of the score is determined by the employees’ responses. There is no minimum or maximum number of award recipients.

   

  Eligibility

  1) A minimum of 10 employees must work at or report to the worksite applying for the award. This does not include contract workers or consultants for whom you do not withhold federal income tax from paychecks, but does include part time employees, hourly employees and employees who travel frequently or work from home as long as they report back to the applying worksite.

  2) The organization must have been in operation in the United States for at least one year.

  3) All worksites must have a designated liaison to complete the Round 1 employer survey, to coordinate the completion of Round 2 surveys, and to receive notifications that the worksite may receive. A single liaison may fulfill this function for multiple worksites. The liaison can only be changed by emailing whenworkworks@familiesandwork.org.

   

  Deadlines

  The 2014 Sloan Awards Employer application process opens on Tuesday, January 21 and closes on Friday, April 11. Below are the projected timeframes for the rest of the 2014 award program cycle.

  2014 Sloan Award Timeline (* represents projected dates)	Start Date	End Date
  Round 1 Employer Application	01/21	04/11
  Round 1 Finalists Announced*	05/12	05/16
  Round 2 Finalists Submit Employee Email Lists*	05/16	05/27
  Round 2 Employee Survey*	06/02	06/27
  Sloan Award Winners Announced*	08/04	08