HBG has just been named a Gold Winner for Corporate Citizenship in the 2015 Workforce Magazine Optimas Awards for expanding cultural awareness among employees through visionary and impactful human resources initiatives, in particular, the GOH Travel Scholarship program.
HBG was among 21 finalists which included organizations and corporations from Peterbilt Motors Company to Red Robin International Inc.
This year marked the 25th anniversary of the Workforce Magazine Optimas Awards, which recognizes HR and workforce management initiatives that achieve business results for the organization. Each winner produced measurable business results. “Companies are not just realizing their people are their strongest asset, they are acting on it and setting in motion HR initiatives and solutions that develop and empower their workforce,” said Rick Bell, managing editor of Workforce. “The groups named Optimas Award winners are some of the top performing organizations producing fruitful and lasting change where it was needed.”
Below is the article published in Workforce Magazine about the Optimas Award Winners:
For its commitment to expanding cultural awareness among employees, Hnedak Bobo Group is the gold 2015 Optimas Award winner for Corporate Citizenship.
It’s been said in corporate conversations that as economic globalization grows, the world continues to shrink.
As corporate America learns more every day about those far away places with the strange sounding names, there’s still a great big world that stokes the imagination and awaits exploration.
Gregory Hnedak was one of those people who, like Willie Nelson, couldn’t wait to get on the road again. Except Hnedak wasn’t a country music singer crooning in a different town each night. In 1979, Hnedak was an architect who had just opened his new local firm in Memphis, Tennessee. While that could have been a burden to a young man with the itch to travel, Hnedak instead grew his regional firm to one of national prominence, along the way designing the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, as well as projects for mega corporations FedEx Corp., International Paper and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.
To share his love for travel with employees, Hnedak Bobo Group initiated the Gregory O. Hnedak Travel Scholarship in 2014.
“We thought it only fitting to honor his legacy at HBG through an experiential travel scholarship that gives one employee a year a unique opportunity to experience travel with a sense of purpose,” said Terri Struminger, chief operating officer, in the nomination form. “The trip is intended to enable personal connection to the one element that most significantly impacted personal and professional growth for our firm’s founder: travel.”
Church in La Portela de Valcarce taken by Branden Canepa who travelled the Camino de Santiago
The competitive program was designed to help employees make a deep connection to the firm’s core values while broadening their knowledge and understanding of the world around them.
Among the four objectives is external messaging, which has a broader motive than a two week business trip. Traveling to broaden knowledge and enrich the design experience for their clients’ benefit is well communicated externally and is a key component in the firm’s marketing messages.
One of the winners of the 2015 scholarship — which is open to any non principal level employee with two years’ tenure — was operations coordinator Branden Canepa, who spent her 12 days walking the 145 miles along Spain’s El Camino de Santiago.
“Mr. Hnedak’s legacy will live on through generations in part because of this program’s positive effect on enriching our culture.”
For its commitment to expanding cultural awareness among employees, Hnedak Bobo Group is the gold 2015 Optimas Award winner for Corporate Citizenship.