YPTC NAMED A BEST PLACE TO WORK
-- TWO YEARS RUNNING!

Heidi Pelczar (left) and Jennifer Alleva are all
smiles as they receive the prestigious 2011
Philadelphia Business Journal award.

For the second year in a row, Your Part-Time Controller has been named one of the Best Places to Work in the greater Philadelphia region.

The prestigious award, offered annually by the Philadelphia Business Journal, recognizes the most employee-friendly work environments. YPTC was one of 15 Small Companies to win the 2011 distinction, competing against dozens of entries. Thirty-eight other larger firms were also named as winners.

The Best Places to Work competition ranks the top employers in the Delaware Valley according to scores given to the companies by the people who know them most intimately – their own workers.

Each year, readers of the Philadelphia Business Journal are invited to nominate contenders. An independent surveying firm then asks employees of nominated companies to rank their employer anonymously on several dozen questions known to drive employee engagement, including team effectiveness, trust with co-workers, alignment with goals, trust in senior leaders, and corporate practices related to respect, recognition and benefits.

The contest uses no outside judges or subjective criteria, and companies are benchmarked against their size peers. To qualify, a statistically significant number of employees, based on company size, must complete the survey.

“It isn’t easy to ‘game’ a contest like this,” said Sonja Sherwood, associate editor of the Philadelphia Business Journal. “You either have loyal and engaged employees, or you don’t even make it into the qualifying round.”

“The tough economic climate has made your work all the more difficult, and everyone is doing a lot more with less,” publisher Lyn Kremer told the award recipients. “Your winning the award is the mark of a great management team.”

The Philadelphia Business Journal initiated the contest eight years ago as a way to judge the corporate culture of the region’s businesses by those who know it best – the employees themselves. At YPTC, where we believe a firm is only as good as its employees, our staff responded enthusiastically to the challenge in 2010 and YPTC was voted one of the Delaware Valley’s Best Places to Work. In 2011, they again answered the call and YPTC received the coveted designation for the second consecutive year.

“Our staff consistently express positive feelings about working here. They love the benefits, teamwork, respect and professionalism that are offered. We feel that giving staff a chance to express their views publicly and in a regional competition is a great motivator. We are honored to have been selected as a winner,” says Jennifer Alleva, YPTC Partner.

“Winning the award the first time in 2010 was sensational, and to be named again in 2011 is just unbelievable. We truly have an incredible staff – and we’re going to be expanding and are actively hiring new Associates.”

YPTC’s nomination emphasized that an organization is only as good as its employees and that the firm recognizes that staff have lives and families outside of work. Employees are not required to turn their lives over to the company, but rather are encouraged to have a healthy balance between work and home. Staff love the flexibility of their schedules, the dedicated mentoring, their opportunities for personal and professional growth, and knowing that they are making a difference by working exclusively with nonprofit clients. As a result, staff turnover is minimal.

The use of the corporate website to boost staff pride was cited as particularly innovative for employee morale. “We find that the most effective way to market our services is to have our clients tell our story. Our website features testimonials from many of our clients. Having nonprofit organizations raving about a for-profit vendor is unique enough – but there’s an additional human resources value as well. These clients consider YPTC’s Associates as ‘one of the family,’ and their praise motivates the Associates with an institutional inspiration and an enthusiasm that infuses our entire staff,” says Alleva.
 “Our website also features interviews with employees who describe why they enjoy working at YPTC: this section was initially included to encourage new hires in our rapidly expanding offices. It has the added benefit of promoting positive morale among current staff. Our employees’ involvement in community charitable events is proudly featured on the website, too, with ongoing features about fundraisers they support,” she adds.

“This pride permeates throughout the staff. When we hire someone we look for more than just technical expertise: we want people with the personality and communication skills to educate clients about their financial management systems and help them build better organizations. By focusing on client education, they can better understand the numbers and make more informed financial decisions. This is especially critical in the nonprofit sector,” she says.

 “When staff say that the pay and benefits are good but the emotional rewards are better, that their clients treat them like they’re part of the team, and that they feel like they’re contributing to their clients’ missions, we know we’re doing something right.”

The contest is co-sponsored by TransitChek, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission and SB1 Federal Credit Union.