When workers are happy ... (team -- winner)

During the past three years, Starlight Community Services in Oakland, Calif., has reduced its employee turnover rate to 12.2% from 28%, quintupled the size of its staff and boosted employee satisfaction to 94% from 67%.

The community-based program, which serves gang-affiliated youth and others who often have difficult family lives and exhibit high-risk behaviors, has seen increases between 2006 and 2009 in consumer satisfaction, to 97% from 89% overall family satisfaction; and progress toward treatment goals, as reported by the family to 76% from 65%. These results have earned the facility the 2009 Spirit of Excellence Award for Team.

The picture hadn't been so bright four years ago, after closure of Starlight's former residential programs and rapid expansion of the community services wing of the agency led to confusion over roles, says Karly Abner, assistant administrator. “There was a lot of scrambling to figure out what it meant and how we fit in, to a point where everybody was productive and providing the right clinical services,” she says.

Read about the honorable mention in the team category

Starlight developed an employee recognition program and a professional development program. The former began when new administrator Michelle McDonald worked to build a more open environment to share concerns, hired new supervisors who supported this culture, and began to offer a variety of team-building activities like happy hours and a quarterly “superstar” award for one member of each team.

“That's a tough world to work in,” says Lee Elliott, judge for the team category and vice president at St. Francis Medical Center, Grand Island, Neb. “They had clearly tangible results.”