Established in 2006, Stevie-winner SmartOSC is a premium, full-service e-commerce agency, offering simple yet effective solutions, from consulting, website development, UX/UI design to managed services.

Over the past 16 years, SmartOSC has built its reputation through a focus on e-commerce and cost-effectiveness for famous brands and e-tailers around the world, such as LG, Paypal, and Nestle. With a “people-centric” strategy, they always strive to enable employees to grow sustainably in the industry and pursue their passion with a clear career path.

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, SmartOSC still broke records in employee relations through the implementation of its people-centric philosophy and 5 core values: Sharing, Modesty, Action, Respect, and Transparency. 

With Internal Communication, all of the employees are communicated with continuously, clearly and transparently through diverse channels, especially during the pandemic. The Emergency Response Team (ERT) was formed quickly to monitor and make sure all employees are updated with the pandemic news. Over 20 e-newsletters/month & daily announcements about the pandemic.

During the pandemic, SmartOSC was one of a few IT companies that ensured employees’ jobs and financial status. Additionally, they implemented “work-from-home” only a few weeks in early 2020, ensuring business continuity and employees’ ability to work.

By Q4 2021, SmartOSC attracted both technology and non-tech specialists, increasing the number of employees to nearly 1000 across offices in Vietnam, the USA, the UK, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and Thailand. The company’s digital presence increased in reach and talent database. Over 1 year, their LinkedIn followers increased by 30%, and the fan page SmartOSC Careers (recruitment page) followers increased by 350%.

Their online training system, “Smart Academy,” has more than 1,000 online training courses stored, with over 30,000 hours of training and 40 internal seminars. Using this available training resource, more than 30% of trainees have passed international certificates, such as PMP, ISTQB, PMI-ACP. The company provides a transparent career roadmap with clear mobility opportunities to all employees.

One of the most important things that SmartOSC feels makes them unique from other companies is their “O-S-C” culture: “Open, Self-disciplined and Continuously growing.” Employees are free to speak to the CEO or Chairman about anything, including business or personal issues. More than that, employees are enabled to set their own pace and strategy without being forced to follow a common standard. 

Their philosophy encourages employees to have freedom and autonomy, with a flexible work time policy that allows employees to be more independent, productive, and creative by fully controlling their 8 hours.

They aim to incorporate employee engagement throughout every aspect of work life, not only in the company’s diverse activities every month, such as Family Day and Summer vacation. In 2020, they launched a CSR project called: “SMART GREEN FOREST” that planted more than 6,600 trees to reforest the barren hills at Xuan Son National Park.

SmartOSC won a Bronze Stevie Award for Employer of the Year in Computer Services in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Registration is now open for the 6th annual Women|Future Conference, to be held virtually from August 1-2. Attending the 2023 conference is free, but attendees must register in advance to access the virtual platform and sessions.

The Women|Future Conference is a professional development, learning, and networking event that brings together a community of small business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, and women who are interested in starting a business.

In 2018, the Women Future Conference was created in conjunction with the highly successful Stevie® Awards for Women in Business program to give high-achieving women professionals, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs a place to come together, share ideas, and network.

Today, we have accomplished this and more, expanding our conference to many ambitious, forward-thinking professionals across industries and career stages. Attendees are a mix of CEOs, founders, small business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, directors, and managers, as well as women between jobs or starting a career transition who are seeking mentorship.

Reputed Stevie Award Winners Give Tips on Award Submissions
The 2023 conference agenda features two days of panels, workshops, and breakout sessions hosted by over 30 world-class speakers including CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and small business consultants.

A new feature in the 2023 edition of the program includes a workshop on “How to Write a Winning Stevie Award Nomination,” led by Denise O’Leary, MBE. Denise is a 21x Stevie Award winner and will share her experience on how to construct a winning Stevie Award entry. Denise will share insights from her years of experience in Stevie applications and provide hints on what judges really want to see.

Many 2023 speakers are actually past and current Stevie Award winners who have earned recognition in one (or many) of our eight Stevie Awards programs. Speakers this year who are also past winners in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business include:

• Viola Palescandolo, Founder & CEO, Black Platinum Gold B.V.
• Marnie LeFevre, Founder & CEO, Fempire
• Etosha Thurman, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer, SAP
• Mez Gallifuoco, Founder & CEO, The Mad Ones
• Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry - Marketing, Microsoft
• Jennifer Harris-Kroll, Director of Growth, Anthill
• Bridgett McGowen, Speaker/Author/Publisher, Press 49, a part of BMH Companies
• Valeria Jennings, CEO, Jennings Social Media & MarTech 
• Jennifer Cloer, Founder & CEO, Story Changes Culture
• Lauren Clemett, Managing Director, The Audacious Agency
• Annette Densham, Creative Director, Audacious Agency

Speakers who have won a Stevie Award in one of our other seven awards programs include: 

• Safiya Johnson, Leadership Strategist & CEO, Safiya Group
• Ciara Ungar, Founder & CEO, The Why Group, Inc.
• Alycia Huston, Founder & CEO, The Culture Cru
• Brenda Jimenez, CEO, MENTOR New York
• Christina Helena, Public Speaking & Communications Coach, Mental Health Speaker, My Scar is Sexy

Women from cities across the United States, Canada, Australia, Asia, and Europe attend the conference year after year to be inspired, build resilience, and share insights into changes that impact their industries, their careers, and their lives. 

Below are a few of the upcoming 2023 Women|Future Conference sessions:

• From Wages to Wealth: Making the Shift from Employee to Entrepreneur
• Taking the Leap: How to Transfer Your Skills from One Role to the Next
• Funding Female Futures: Navigating the Investment Landscape and Bootstrapping Success
• Unveiling the Unspoken: Candid Conversation on Workplace Inclusivity Issues for Women in Business
• From Idea to Empire - Lessons in Branding
• The Must-Have Money-Marketing Marketing Tool…That Few Businesses Have but that Every Single One of Them Needs

To learn more about the Women|Future Conference speakers and view the full agenda, visit www.womenfutureconference.com. 

Free Registration
In order to attend the conference and access the virtual event platform, all attendees must register in advance. 

For partnership, press, and media inquiries, contact Nina@stevieawards.com.

Multiple Stevie® Award-winner mindit.io is a global company that creates enterprise applications, business intelligence solutions, and integration solutions across many industries, with proven expertise in retail, banking, fintech, and healthcare.

Their mission is to continuously mind customers’ business through outstanding services. They help clients establish roadmaps for their technological path or products and provide comprehensive implementation resources in terms of solutions and people.

Their dedicated engineers are proficient in delivering end-to-end software services with a focus on business analysis, architecture, development, integration, maintenance, and support. mindit.io has created a sustainable intrapreneurial environment where people can expand both their professional and personal perspectives.

The Women Leading Change and Growth
In the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, mindit.io took home a Silver Stevie Award for Fastest Growing Company of the Year. When asked what winning the award meant to her, Chief Executive Officer Lucia Stoicescu commented:

“Software is what we know how to build. But ultimately, we wanted to foster an environment in which people can become the best version of themselves. The moment you choose to compromise regarding the best version of yourself, you give away the power. And we want to empower people.

This award is motivation to continue, dream bigger, work harder to build upon the trust our people put in our community, and deliver upon that trust. In a fast-growing company, you need a systematic approach to growth that involves a transformation mindset and team growth.”

With decades of experience working in the technology sector (mainly retail, fintech, telecom, and MedTech), Lucia’s expertise is in driving and managing business growth, technology transformation, sourcing, operations, finance, HR, and regulatory compliance for international customers.

Two additional women on the mindit.io team were recognized in the 2022 awards program: Mona Hristachi, Co-Chief Operating Officer, won a Silver Stevie for Woman of the Year in Business Services; and Roxana Staneiu, Chief People Officer, won a Silver Stevie for Female Employee of the Year in Business.

Woman of the Year in Business Services, Mona Hristachi
Before she was Co-COO of mindit.io, Mona started her journey in 2014 working in background screening, then gained experience in various business roles like sales representative, analyst, key account manager, and project manager:

“There are many skills that I had the chance to develop in time. Still, one of the skills I got the context to explore more evolved around identifying and understanding needs. How do you ask the right questions to understand the real need to be able to provide support, and where is the case to come up with the right solutions?

Through servant leadership, you can better understand how you can help a colleague or a partner, and that’s something that I resonate with.”

Mona remarked that she was already happy to be nominated for the award and was pleasantly surprised at winning:

“For the past 8 years, my professional journey has been within the mindit.io team, exploring different roles and having a continuous learning experience. Receiving the award means that the excellent work we are doing at mindit.io is recognized.

It’s important to continue to create a community where each one contributes with their expertise and skills and learns from others while building software engineering platforms and products."

Female Employee of the Year in Business, Roxana Staneiu
Certified as a NeuroMindfulness Coach Practitioner, Roxana is a people-oriented leader whose mission is to inspire, coach, and lead teams to drive innovation and create added value.

Specifically, she helps people nourish their potential in dynamic and challenging environments, facilitates authentic experiences, and provides clear vision in fast-paced situations. “People are the epicenter of everything I do,” she explained, “be it organizational culture or key account management, my role is deeply influenced by the passion I have for building authentic connections.”

When asked if it was challenging being a woman in a predominantly male-dominated industry like software development, Roxana commented:

“Over the last decade, women constantly prove that they can code, they can come up with innovative solutions, can be in top management positions, can run businesses, they can be visionary leaders.

I feel we don’t need to prove ourselves anymore and it’s high time to be recognized for the value we all can bring. I’m aware there are still some old socially desirable standards that are imposed on women, but I feel we came a long way, and every time we put our focus on results, passion, hard work, ideas, and innovations, not on gender or stereotypes, we all make another step towards a better society.” 

Since Winning Their Stevie Awards
mindit.io has since been recognized in Romania for its unique benefit called minditNomad. Through minditNomad, they have their own minditNomad homes located throughout Romania, in the mountains and at the seaside, where employees can work from or have a vacation with their friends and family without having to worry about accommodation costs, not having Internet, or not having the right equipment. They believe in working from anywhere and that a change of scenery is essential from time to time. 

Irina Arsene, mindit.io Founder, was also awarded the first-ever "Inspiring Woman of the Year" Award at the 2023 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Gala!

In addition to these achievements, mindit.io has also been officially certified as a Great Place to Work® with 97% of their employees answering "yes" when asked, "Taking everything into account, do you consider mindit.io a great place to work?"

mindit.io has also managed to continue with 40% year-over-year growth in 2022 and more than 250 employees. They plan to reach the 1000-people milestone by the end of 2025.

mindit.io won a Silver Stevie Award for Fastest-Growing Company of the Year. Mona Hristachi, Co-COO, won a Silver Stevie for Woman of the Year in Business Services; and Roxana Staneiu, Chief People Officer, won a Silver Stevie Award for Female Employee of the Year in Business in the 2022 Stevie Awards for Women in Business. 

Interesting in entering the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business? 

 

DHL Global Forwarding, Freight has been named the winner of two Gold, two Silver, and three Bronze Stevie® Awards in the seventh annual Stevie® Awards for Great Employers. In six categories, ranging from diversity and inclusion to employee engagement and workplace health & wellbeing, DHL Global Forwarding, Freight impressed the jury with its commitment to its employees. The certification attests to DHL's achievement in implementing HR best practices, fostering a positive work environment, and encouraging its employees' personal and professional development.

Executive Vice President of Human Resources at DHL Global Forwarding & Freight, Harm Otten, said: “I am proud to announce that DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won seven 2022 Stevie Awards for Great Employers in six different categories. A big thank you to all our colleagues and their teams who have contributed to this amazing achievement, and above all, congratulations!”

In the Achievement in Leadership Development for Women category, DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won the Gold Stevie Award with its "Shift Up A Gear" program. As part of this program, the air, ocean and overland transportation freight specialist, together with other Deutsche Post DHL Group divisions, has identified female employees from around the world who have the potential to progress to Director or higher level. Through the program, the company aims to achieve at least 30% women at these higher levels by 2025. 

Another Gold Stevie Award went to DHL Global Forwarding Middle East & Africa in the "Reward & Recognition Strategy" category. They proactively recognized and acknowledged their employees' talent, success, and contribution to the company through two highly anticipated initiatives: “MEA Got Talent” and the Employee of the Year Conference. The jury commended the company for developing a creative, systematic approach to recognizing and rewarding talent that supports employer brand strengthening and talent retrofitting.

Part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group (DPDHL), DHL Global Forwarding has been the expert in freight forwarding since 1815. Their air, ocean, and overland freight forwarding services include standardized transport as well as multimodal and sector-specific solutions, together with individualized industrial projects.

DPDHL is one the world’s largest employers, with a workforce of some 590,000 employees. In five divisions and 220 countries and territories, people are busy working in more than 1,000 different occupations.

DPDHL continues to offer attractive working conditions to some 590,000 employees into 2023 – as confirmed by the recent certifications from the Top Employers Institute. A total of 125 country organizations in 70 countries achieved Top Employer certification. For the first time, the Deutsche Post DHL Group as a whole was awarded Top Employer status in Europe. As in the year before, DHL Express and DHL Global Forwarding, Freight achieved Top Employer Global status, placing them among the best employers in the world.

DHL Global Forwarding, Freight won two Gold, two Silver, and three Bronze Stevie Awards in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers in categories including Achievement in Leadership Development for Women, Best Reward & Recognition Strategy; and Achievement in Workplace Health & Wellbeing. 

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?  

Healthcare Consultancy Group (HCG) is a global leader in medical communications, comprising eight interconnected agencies with distinct personalities and complementary skills.

Incorporated in 1987, their agencies craft scientific evidence into medical stories that shape decisions and drive medicine. They aim to accelerate the understanding and acceptance of pharmaceutical clients’ medicines, getting the medicines closer to the patients who need them.

In their 30+ years of experience, they have helped bring transformational medicines to billions of patients worldwide in areas such as COVID-19, oncology, and CAR-T therapy. 

Their company culture is designed to generate a “thought arena,” driving future thinking, collaboration, and communication excellence. Since 1987, the company has grown to 900+ in global staff, now supporting over 70 pharma and biotech companies.

Employee Value Proposition
The HCG employee value proposition is “Come for the work. Stay for the culture. Have an impact.” With the advent of what many call “The Great Resignation,”  2021 presented a new challenge: How to become an agency everyone wants to work for? 

HCG engaged their staff consultants to gather insights that could translate into actionable change to strengthen the employee value proposition:

Come for the work — Placing talent at the heart of their business strategy meant overhauling their website to host a new talent campaign “The Wonderland of Medical Communications,” which reintroduces their fusion working model and highlights all available resources. 

Stay for the culture — HCG sought to create more value for existing employees by developing The Employee Engagement Council; building talent retention programs like the Personal Discovery program; and creating innovation initiatives like SWARM profilers to uncover the “inner innovator” in all employees.

They strengthened their commitment to Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), driven by a DEI Council through education initiatives like the DEI University, which includes three training modules and discussion points on inclusive mindset, unconscious bias, and antiracism; sponsorship programs: an initiative to elevate 25 midlevel diverse employees through intentional mentorship and action planning; and partnerships with five DEI- certified recruitment firms.

Have an impact — They continue to empower staff through industry-leading “Collective Intelligence” thought leadership initiatives. They recently started the HCG Disparities and Inequities Council to ensure a more equitable distribution of healthcare. They also restarted the Work with a Purpose initiative, allowing staff to directly engage with patients who have had access to transformational medicines.

Since Winning Their Stevie Awards
HCG continues to foster a healthy work culture through the expansion of successful employee-focused initiatives and the introduction of new or refreshed programs.

With their talent campaign “The Wonderland of Medical Communications,” HCG increased their global footprint that now spans the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Australia.

Since submission, a brand-new companywide intranet, consciously designed and organized to align with the three distinct categories determined by the employee value proposition was launched. The intranet, entitled “StartHere,” houses over 900 assets that are fully available to all staff. Planned expansion upon StartHere is planned to focus on the connectivity of staff.

HCG has built a now annual workshop, known as FUTURUM, is a forward-looking think-tank initiative, bringing together the collective intelligence of HCG leadership expertise to research, prioritize, and take action against key trends in the coming year spanning pharma, medicine, technology, and society, which impact HCG and medical communications.

In addition to the SWARM Innovation Profiler, which aids individuals in gaining insight into their own strengths as an innovator, they have deployed the SWARM Innovation Culture Assessment. This assessment measures the degree to which your organization supports the eight innovation talents in its people and the maturity of your innovation system. 

They also re-introduced HCG’s LEAD (Learn, Engage, Act, Develop) program, which provides a forum for emerging leaders to interact with and learn from current leaders across the broader HCG organization, gain valuable insight from those leaders and guest speakers, engage in addressing relevant HCG challenges, and create connections with colleagues from across all the HCG companies. The program was held in person and allowed attendees to dedicate two full days to their development.

Healthcare Consultancy Group won a Bronze Stevie Award for Employer of the Year – Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

 

Stevie-winner Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, founded by Shri Gautam Adani in 1988.

Adani envisions training the youth of India and making them capable enough to earn their daily bread with self-respect and pride, resulting in the establishment of their Gold Stevie^® Award-winning Adani Skill Development Centre (ASDC).

The ASDC was registered on May 16, 2016, as a section 8 not-for-profit company to focus on skill development activities to contribute toward nation-building by bridging the skill gap demand & supply, in line with the Government of India’s Skill India Mission.

Adani Skill Development Center 
ASDC started its operations pan-India in 2016 with the project “SAKSHAM,” which has reached more than 100,000 beneficiaries. The program helps to teach parents, communities, and employers about gender equality, equal opportunities, and economic empowerment for females, as gender equality is embedded in all the courses. 

“SAKSHAM” means “capable” and is an ideology of the ASDC to enable the youth of India to become more capable of achieving their goals by becoming skilled professionals. This ideology has no borders and boundaries. SAKSHAM is working to bring world-class skills development training to India through partnerships with various corporations and other organizations.

The environment is designed to encourage young girls and boys to take up training and employment opportunities to build a well-trained, skilled workforce. ASDC aims to help India's youth achieve their goals by turning them into skilled professionals.

It is an initiative to provide disadvantaged youth, especially those who have been deprived of mainstream education, with essential life and market-oriented vocational skills. This not only helps them to access decent employment but also gives them the independence to be themselves.

Project Impact and Expansion
Thus far, the program has impacted over 100,000 young adults by equipping them with livelihood skills, thereby making ASDC the fastest-growing skill development company in India. Interestingly, 60% of the total trained youth are females.

ASDC has since launched additional programs, including:

• Special Project for FISHERMEN community in Kutch district of Gujarat state, which provides assured placement in nearby industry after training to the highly isolated community of the area.

• Special Project for Prisoners of Jail in Gujarat State, which provides basic digital literacy training to soon-to-be-released prisoners to help them integrate into the digital world after release.
• Training offerings for technological advancement in Welding, Crane Operation, Electrical Wiring & Heavy Motor Vehicle programs by introducing Mixed reality (Augmented + Virtual) -based simulator training.
• Four new training centers in India created the presence of Saksham in 11 states, enabling an overall annual training capacity of 30,000+.

ASDC is one of the biggest non-government-funded training partners in India to provide training in employable skill domains and providing livelihood opportunities to the upskilled youth of the Nation. 

They have now started to offer diplomas, postgraduate diplomas, and certificate programs affiliated with State Government recognized universities in skill development. They also provide experience-based learning opportunities through On Job Training (OJT), Exposure Visits, and Project work in almost all the courses to ensure that the Skill Gap is appropriately addressed. 

Adani Skill Development Centre won a Gold Stevie Award for Organization of the Year among Medium-sized Non-Profit or Government Organizations in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards?

HIVE by Income (HIVE), an Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform by one of Singapore’s leading composite insurers, Income Insurance, enables insurers and digital platforms to launch innovative embedded insurance propositions with speed and agility. 

With pre-built InsurTech integrations and seamless customer journeys, HIVE brings innovative product offerings to new segments of digital-first customer segments across the region, empowering greater financial well-being for all.

Recently, HIVE collaborated with Vietnam's leading housekeeping service, JupViec.vn, and third largest non-life insurer, Post and Telecommunication Joint Stock Corporation (PTI), to launch a pay-as-you-earn microinsurance product that addresses the needs of vulnerable gig economy workers - domestic helpers.

Empowering Lives Through Stackable Microinsurance: Protecting The Underserved, One Policy At A Time
JupViec.vn is a mobile app that connects domestic workers with customers for on-demand housekeeping services. Known as the “Uber for maids,” its objective is to provide regular jobs and skills upgrading necessary for these women to earn a higher income and improve their lives and social status.

HIVE launched “JupViec Care” with the gig platform and PTI to provide a pay-as-you-earn personal accident microinsurance product that is embedded into every successful job completed. Designed to be simple and flexible even for tech illiterates, premiums are adjustable starting from as low as S$0.12. These domestic helpers can stay protected against death and disability, with a sum assured of up to SGD6K.

“Helpers are at high risk of getting injured while working such as climbing as they are cleaning. In the event of injuries, treatments would mean a financial loss which could take away their humble income. JupViec Care cleverly fits as a perfect solution, by allowing the helpers to purchase insurance with an amazingly small, affordable amount and making coverage stackable, giving them extra confidence and protection as they carry out their shifts.” —Mr. Phan Minh, Founder & CEO of JupViec.vn

The availability of this innovative microinsurance model allows informal gig economy workers access to relevant financial services, putting them on a path toward greater financial security and social mobility. HIVE's approach to financial inclusion prioritizes customer-centric partnerships and allows for flexibility and customization to address the specific needs of different communities.

HIVE InsurTech offerings, which are compatible with any insurance core system and adaptable to multiple customer channels, allow new embedded insurance propositions to be launched in as short as 3 months. HIVE integrated with PTI and JupViec wallet within 3 months to serve the needs of the domestic helper segment.

Together with like-minded partners, HIVE aspires to transform the insurance industry and create a fairer and more sustainable economy, embedding insurance into our lifestyle activities, one activity at a time.

HIVE By Income won a Gold Stevie Award for Innovation in Business-to-Business Services in the 2023 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. 

View the full list of 2023 winners.

Over 50 years ago, the founders of Pharmavite sought to improve health and wellness by focusing on complete nutrition through essential nutrients and minerals. Since that day, they have been a leader in the health and wellness industry, earning the trust of consumers, healthcare professionals, and retailers.

Pharmavite’s purpose is to bring the gift of health to life. As a pioneer in the health and wellness industry and makers of Nature Made^® vitamins—the leading national vitamin and supplement broad-line brand that’s ranked the #1 Pharmacist Recommended vitamin and supplement brand—this purpose starts with its employees.

Their employee wellness program, PharmaFit, brings their company's purpose to life by offering a holistic approach to support employees’ health and well-being. This program earned them a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Workplace Health & Well-being in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers. This was Pharmavite’s fifth HR-related award in 2022.

The PharmaFit Employee Wellness Program
Pharmavite offers wellness challenges and onsite activities including massage, yoga, vaccine clinics, nutrition & financial wellness education, and meditation. They also partner with Virgin Pulse, a digital platform to support workplace culture change and provide easy access to wellness resources. 

The PharmaFit Program is grounded in its unique wellness strategy. The program launched in 2017 and has grown to a strategic company-wide wellness program with 95% employee enrollment, a full-time Manager of Wellness, an innovative digital platform, and a generous medical premium reduction.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Pharmavite redesigned its wellness program to also be delivered virtually and to offer bi-weekly themed wellness guides; monthly wellness challenges to promote engagement on a variety of topics and keep employees connected; virtual yoga and meditation (still offered today), and webinars focused on stress, anxiety, and burnout in partnership with the company’s EAP.

As mental wellness needs grew, the company curated special programs to support employees and families. Yearly, they sent “self-care” wellness gifts to each employee to remind them of mental health support along with wellness items to promote good sleep and relaxation. When they returned to the office in 2022, an EAP therapist was on site to help employees adjust.

Drive-through flu shot clinics opened in the Fall of 2020 with outdoor COVID-19 vaccine clinics at all Pharmavite locations for employees and family members; booster shot clinics continue to be offered.

Pharmavite also broadened its wellness benefits to support the changing needs of employees, including:

• Free digital memberships to ClassPass@Home and Peloton with discounts on bikes and treadmills so employees could stay active in the safety of their own homes
• Care.com to support caregivers
• Free tutoring for the children of employees
• Zoom fitness classes for kids at home, giving parents a much-needed break 
• Lyra Health to provide free emotional support for employees and families
• Onsite wellness rooms including a Peloton bike and space for yoga and meditation 

In Pharmavite’s 2020 employee engagement survey, 72% of employees responded favorably to “I feel supported with Pharmavite-provided programs, tools, and resources to help me effectively manage my health and well-being during the pandemic.” In the 2021 survey, 81% responded favorably to “I feel my benefits are competitive,” which is 16% higher than external benchmarks.

Pharmavite won a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Workplace Health & Wellbeing in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers? 

ValueLabs is a global technology company specializing in software product engineering, data technology, design, and consulting.

The multinational corporation delivers success to its clients by designing and implementing digital transformation tailored to their needs. ValueLabs believes that a prosperous digital journey is ensured by prioritizing the business strategy & business model, tools & technologies, and people & processes.

One of the frameworks that ValueLabs developed and employs is the “The Digital Flywheel™”, a solution design playbook to drive digital transformation for companies with varied business needs. Focused on business strategy at the core, “The Digital Flywheel™” uses cross-functional elements such as User Experience, Analytics, Automation, and Product Development to tailor solutions to the clients' unique business needs. Their client NPS stands at an industry-high of 90, a testament to their commitment to delivering value to clients.

They had humble beginnings in 1997, starting with a philanthropic act of building free-of-cost, computer-based learning programs for school students, and have since expanded to a global operation spanning 26 locations, 7,000 associates, and 300 clients worldwide.

Combining their expertise with the ability to take risks on clients’ behalf as strategic partners, they successfully create tangible value for all things technology and design.

Core Values & Employee Benefits
The company’s leaders have succinctly captured their founding principles and purpose within the statement, “Doing the Right Thing, Always.” – emphasizing their unwavering commitment to ethical conduct and moral integrity. ValueLabs’ commitment to improvement and evolution has led to their employee NPS rising to 80 since 2020 (compared to the industry benchmark of 50).

The company fosters a merit-based culture by identifying and promoting high-potential individuals to leadership positions, regardless of factors such as gender, age, or ethnicity. Employees have the freedom to explore areas they enjoy working on as they accord equal importance to talent, experience, and education. Additionally, the company endeavors to provide accelerated career paths for promising young graduates.

ValueLabs’ commitment to the well-being of their employees and their families is exemplified through their Employee Assistance Program. This program provides a range of support services, including vaccination drives and wellness activities to address social anxiety, work-life balance, and depression. They have made significant strides in enhancing their medical insurance benefits, increasing coverage by up to five times over the past two years. They also proactively introduced COVID-19 insurance at no additional cost to employees and created financial trusts for the families of employees who passed away in an untimely manner. 

Moreover, ValueLabs demonstrates its commitment to investing in the future of its employees and their families by sponsoring top-rated international tutors through its “ImagineEd” program. This program has been designed to help children develop a well-rounded education and establish a strong foundation for their academic and personal growth.

To encourage continued innovation, they created the “Ideathon” framework to solve client and internal business problems. They implement this through their “ThinkTank CoE” to provide a structure for regular brainstorming on novel, out-of-the-box ideas. Additionally, through its "Imagine" entity, the company encourages its employees to explore their technological interests and bring their ideas to life in the form of real-world projects.

Since Winning Their Stevie Award
ValueLabs is focused on building trust with businesses and continues to prioritize its two key stakeholders: Customers and employees and has achieved industry-leading employee and client NPS.

They have also extended the “ImagineEd” program to various areas such as education, culture, and art. To ensure the best quality of learning, the program carefully selects some of the best teachers globally who bring insights, questions, and methods that strengthen fundamental knowledge.

ValueLabs won a Gold Stevie Award for Employer of the Year in Computer Software among Companies with More than 300 employees in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Friska Wirya is the powerhouse behind Stevie-winner Fresh by Friska, a change management consulting, facilitation, and personal development service for executives, teams, and large businesses.

Friska guides complex organizations through the people side of change; she has helped industry-leading organizations shift tribulation into transformation.

Friska is the former Head of Change at the biggest gold miner in the Southern Hemisphere, leading digital transformation changes to achieve US$170m annual savings, skyrocket innovation and improve safety. She infiltrated a digital-first culture across four countries to create a solid foundation to drive the adoption of new and emerging technologies, achieving recognition such as the Most Innovative Hard Hat Company from Apple and various industry awards.

Before this, she was the Global Change Lead for multi-million dollar projects spanning technology, structure, process, and people, impacting +23,000 at Tier 1 engineering firm Worley. She brought the digital future of policing to life for the world’s single-largest policing jurisdiction.

Friska started her own business after leaving her corporate job in the mining, oil & gas, and engineering industries on the precipice of the global pandemic. As COVID-19 spread, restrictions came out fast, borders closed, and Friska’s pipeline was eliminated in the blink of an eye – organizations were not investing in change management, ironically when they needed it the most. Friska invested time in the online space to develop her virtual brand.

In response to the COVID curveball, Friska offered workshops to the public she’d previously only offered in-house and even welcomed big brands like Salesforce and Microsoft on board as clients. She spoke at Microsoft’s first D&I event in Asia and at conferences such as The Future of Mining, Female Influencers in Tech, and Women in Construction and Engineering.

Friska was then engaged by the #1 university in Australia, The University of Melbourne, to pivot rapidly to a fully remote campus, impacting 65,000 students and 15,000 staff while maintaining operational efficiency and blitz-scaling programs to aid student financial and mental health during the global pandemic.

With a speedy turnaround, Friska’s team created a country-first digital portal for students to remain connected to their lecturers, lesson materials, access COVID-19 safety information, financial support information, and mental health resources. This portal also connected university departments and had them working together in ways they had never done before. The results were astounding:

• Transitioned to a fully remote campus in five business days
• Built a one-of-a-kind connection portal where everyone may have been physically distanced - but in heart and mind closer than ever
• Held virtual open days—the University of Melbourne had a two-week Open Day event. The first visual open day saw more than 40,000 people registering from around the world. People could take a virtual tour, join a sample lecture, ask questions, and network with other students.
• 300+ live events over six separate days
• ~45k event registrations and ~14k platform registrations

Friska’s work made students feel supported and empowered the university to adapt and continue to operate. The scale and speed at which the COVID response was executed make it noteworthy. During this process, there was zero downtime. 

The open days, and the positive feedback from these virtual events, were phenomenal. This program was the most comprehensive of its kind and a fully immersive experience. In numbers, this initiative impacted 65,000 students, 16,000 staff, and 250 vendors/consultants. It received exceptional media coverage in major newspapers. The marketing data for the virtual open days indicated that, over two weeks, over 45,000 visitors joined events from around the world, which suggests that a virtual event opened the university to more people.

Aside from keeping current students supported and extending the university’s credibility during a pandemic, this work also gave Friska’s business a chance to demonstrate her commitment to excellence and exceptional capabilities, seeing her pull off many incredible “firsts'' under challenging circumstances.

Friska has created a blueprint for change that is relevant for large workforces with central hubs where the workplace is more than just an office. Since then, she has gone on to consult for the world’s largest family-owned business in the automotive industry headquartered in the USA and enable a large Australian engineering company to implement sustainability principles across APAC.

Friska Wirya’s Fresh by Friska won a Bronze Stevie Award for Company of the Year among Small Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations Organizations in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards?