MemorialCare Health System Among 29 Major Employers Worldwide Receiving 2011 Gallup Great Workplace Award

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. and LONG BEACH, Calif., March 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- MemorialCare Health System is among a select group of 29 employers worldwide recognized with the prestigious Gallup Great Workplace Award. Based on the most rigorous workplace research ever conducted, the award honors organizations whose employee engagement results demonstrate that they have the most productive and engaged workforces in the world. Gallup Great Workplace Award winners span the globe, representing businesses from health care to hospitality, retail to manufacturing, and banks to insurance.

The Gallup Workplace Award recognizes companies with an extraordinary ability to create an engaged workplace culture. Companies are judged on multiple criteria, including response rates, overall engagement levels and evidence of engagement impact on performance. Applicants' results are compared across Gallup's renowned workplace research database composed of millions of employees and 816,000 work teams in 170 countries worldwide. Those organizations whose results exceed strict criteria are invited to submit a portfolio of their strategic plans and best practices. A panel of workplace experts evaluates and selects the winners.

"Every one of our exceptional 10,000 employees, 2,350 affiliated physicians and countless volunteers contributed to this tremendous honor," says Barry Arbuckle, Ph.D., president & CEO of the not-for-profit MemorialCare Health System, a pioneer and innovator in best practice medicine. "Their continuing high level commitment to our MemorialCare mission is the reason we are able to offer Southland communities extraordinary, high quality patient care."

MemorialCare Health System's five hospital facilities—Long Beach Memorial, Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach, Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley and Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills and San Clemente—join current and past Gallup Great Workplace recipients including Marriott, Campbell Soup, Starbucks, Qwest, Mars and Wells Fargo. MemorialCare Health System is the only 2011 Gallup Great Workplace Award winner headquartered in Los Angeles, Orange or San Diego counties.

"Worldwide, there are more than two actively disengaged employees for every engaged employee. The organizations honored work hard to shatter and reverse that trend, averaging nine engaged employees for every actively disengaged employee," notes James Harter, Ph.D., Gallup's chief scientist of workplace management and wellbeing.

"Engaged employees are more productive, safer, more customer-centric and more successful. They are also 3.5 times more likely to be thriving in their overall lives, experience better days and have fewer unhealthy days. These winners are improving lives as they improve overall company performance," adds Harter. The winners have established a new global standard for engaging people. When compared to millions of workgroups Gallup studied around the world, awardees create an environment that values people. They go far beyond the norm to ensure each employee has an emotional connection to the company's mission and growth.

SOURCE MemorialCare Health System