For the third time, 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. The award recognizes companies that give their people a voice and watches them grow. YPTC won the distinction in 2013, 2011 and 2010, competing against dozens of entries in the Small Business category.

Meanwhile, our new office in the nation’s capital was also voted one of the Best Places to Work in 2013 by the Washington Business Journal.

The Best Places to Work competition surveys thousands of employees, measuring 40 attributes known to drive employee engagement. It ranks the “best of the best” of Philadelphia’s employers for providing competitive benefits, emphasizing a healthy work/life balance, and promoting healthy living. Scores are 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 factors, 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 Philadelphia Business Journal initiated the contest nine years ago as a way to judge corporate culture 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 and YPTC was voted one of the Best Places to Work in 2010, 2011, and in 2013 for an astounding third year.

“Our staff consistently love the benefits, teamwork, respect and professionalism that are offered. Giving staff a chance to express their views publicly 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 and 2013 is just unbelievable. We truly have an incredible staff – and we are rapidly expanding and actively hiring new Associates.”

YPTC’s nominations emphasized that we recognize 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 2013 awards were co-sponsored by Comcast Spectacor, Mars Philadelphia and the MidAtlantic Employers’ Association (MEA).