• Discuss.io is a smart video platform that connects brands to consumers and provides insights into conversations 
• Leading global companies use Discuss.io to capture and share insights in real-time
• The company’s products saw a surge in use as a result of COVID and provides tools to fill the gap in the video conferencing market 

About Discuss.io

Discuss.io is an enterprise-level smart video platform helping businesses make better-informed decisions by using experience and innovation to set up, capture, analyze and share consumer conversations to generate aha-moments and insights at scale. Leading global companies and their partners trust Discuss.io to enable deep, purposeful connections with their key audiences and to securely capture and share insights across their organizations in real-time.

Traditional enterprise video conferencing technology is generic and built for broad use. Discuss.io is purpose-built to enable meeting rooms of the future that allow companies to get more out of their video conversations. Brands connect with customers anywhere around the world and easily and securely record, categorize, transcribe, share and store insights, allowing companies to make better informed, strategic business decisions, whether big or small, based on their own direct experiences with consumers, rather than assumptions based on historical, behavioral, and third-party data. 

The company’s mission has always been focused on helping customers get insights from having more conversations with more consumers through innovations in video and workflow. While Discuss.io has developed several new products to combat the challenges brought on by COVID specifically, the company has worked to develop products that allow brands to adapt to changing and more agile environments since its founding by looking to the future of video conferencing. In 2019, Discuss.io launched its Pulse program, which enables live video conversations directly between consumers and marketers globally, enabling all marketers within an organization to build and strengthen consumer empathy. In 2020, the company refined and developed several products to enable businesses to better adapt to their new virtual settings, including private and enhanced chat features, new options for message editing and deleting, and personal meeting rooms that have also been built to provide users with the efficiency benefits of the platform, like interactive whiteboards, and integrated discussion guides. 

More recently, the platform launched its Respondent Management tool, an industry-first DIY hub feature that allows agencies and brands with their own panels and databases to connect and manage their respondents in one place, eliminating the need for multiple tools and systems, thus reducing friction in the consumer insights process.

While video conferencing has seen an uptick in light of the pandemic due to the need to connect virtually, many video platforms weren't developed with the intention of being used for important business conversations and lack a number of features that can be beneficial for a professional setting. The products that Discuss.io has developed as immediate solutions for COVID-19 also speak to a current gap in the video conferencing market, specifically, by providing a number of integrated tools that can aid all aspects of internal and external business communications across multiple industries.

Discuss.io helps enterprise market researchers, UX researchers, product managers, sales professionals, brand managers, and CX departments ramp consumer conversations and streamline the workflow. 

Discuss.io won the Silver Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Most Innovative Company of the Year - Up to 100 Employees in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Wabtec provides integrated solutions and digitization for the freight and transit rail sectors
• The company is committed to reducing emissions and has created the first 100% battery-powered locomotive 

About Wabtec

Wabtec is a leading global provider of equipment, systems, digital solutions, and value-added services for the freight and transit rail sectors. Drawing on over 150 years of experience, Wabtec is leading the way in safety, efficiency, reliability, innovation, and productivity.

Wabtec is an integrated solutions provider delivering lifecycle products and services for the transportation industry by improving interoperability, efficiency, and competitiveness for customers. With more than 23,000 locomotives in Wabtec’s global installed base, and components on many of the locomotives, freight cars, and transit cars around the world, Wabtec is developing tomorrow’s logistics and transit solutions. 

The company’s digital solutions, combined with Positive Train Control (PTC) and electronics capabilities, unlock significant productivity components - saving billions of dollars for rail customers and operators, all while creating pathways to advanced automated operations. These digital tech solutions improve safety and efficiency for the transportation industry, helping address the growing demand for improved rail performance. 

Wabtec has made great strides in the past two years. It started with the merger with GE Transportation in 2019; this accomplishment brought together industry leaders with complementary and unique technologies to create a leading rail technology company. It also established Wabtec as a Fortune 300 and S&P 500 company. Since the merger, Wabtec has introduced innovations that enable customers to succeed in transforming the rail industry. Some major accomplishments include: 

• Designed, built, and shipped the world’s first 100% battery-electric locomotive
• Won the NYC Transit order to extend battery technology to passenger transit
• Completed over 500 million auto miles and has saved customers 400 million gallons of fuel with the Trip Optimizer System
• Helped 70 railroad customers meet the first US-mandated PTC deadline
• Tested, introduced, and sold zero-to-zero train operations (starting a train from 0mph and stopping the train automatically using various controls integrated with PTC)
• Introduced and began testing the new, innovative Green Friction braking solution for transit rail to reduce friction particle emissions on metro trains by up to 90%
• Launched Wabtec’s first sustainability strategy and report as a new company 

Wabtec’s Commitment to Cleaner Transportation

Trends show that freight and passenger activity will more than double by 2050, and with it, demand for cleaner, more energy-efficient transportation solutions. The rail industry is on the cusp of technological advancements required to power locomotive fleets with alternative green energy sources. Wabtec is leading this environmental shift with the FLXdrive Battery Locomotive - the industry’s first and only heavy-haul, 100% battery-powered locomotive operating in revenue service with BNSF Railways. This technology will provide up to 30% in fuel savings for the complete locomotive consist. Pairing the alternative power solutions with automation and digitization is an essential driver for the modernization of the entire transportation system, making it seamless, more efficient, and key to driving increased levels of safety, security, reliability, and reduced emissions. Wabtec’s dominant market share in Positive Train Control (PTC) systems, which span 70,000 miles of track, is the foundation for a more autonomous network. 

Wabtec won the Gold Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Company of the Year - Automotive & Transport Equipment in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Jade Global is an IT systems and solutions company with a diverse portfolio if technological innovations
• Jade Global has scaled up exponentially since 2003
• The company’s innovations make Jade Global a highly reputable company with lasting partnerships

About Jade Global 

Jade Global is a global information technology systems and solutions company. Jade Global provides enterprise business application implementations, integrations, software product engineering, cloud services, technology advisory, testing, and managed services across diverse industries.

Clients rely on Jade Global’s trustworthy advice to derive value from software investments and gain business efficiencies. The company is well-positioned to be a strategic IT services partner for enterprise business applications and software product engineering. Jade’s workforce is made up of over 1,000 people operating from offices across the US, India, Canada, and Austria. Jade Global has earned a reputation for delivering on time and on budget, quality work, and personalized, transparent services. Being the right size gives Jade Global the flexibility to pass on cost benefits to clients. 

In less than two decades, Jade Global has scaled up to great heights and formed lasting partnerships that are built on quality and trust. Jade Labs, the company’s in-house innovation nucleus, is responsible for enhancing partner offerings by creating cutting edge technology. Jade Global’s AI, Kanverse, is a great example of originality that is seamlessly offered along with the company’s other services. Kanverse is a cognitive automation platform that can support various use cases across the enterprise to remove bottlenecks, streamline business operations, and minimize manual touch points across workflows. Kanverse’s system of intelligence provides a decision and analytics engine, conversational and programmable interface, and out of the box connectors for interfacing with users, as well as a system of records to maintain enterprise data. 

Jade Global was ranked #3484 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 list with an impressive growth rate of 107.2%

Jade Global won the Bronze Stevie Award for Fastest Growing Company of the Year - Up to 2,500 Employees in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Stevie-winner SingleCare is a prescription savings service that provides low prices to improve access and adherence to medication 
• The company saves millions of consumers up to 80% on medications 
• SingleCare rolled out COVID-safe initiatives to help vulnerable populations get medications at an affordable price 

About SingleCare

SingleCare is a free prescription savings service for consumers that provides consistently low prices to improve access and adherence to medication. Its convenient access to low prices saves consumers up to 80% on medications at pharmacies nationwide through its website, app, and discount cards. SingleCare handles hundreds of thousands of prescriptions per day, helping millions save money on their prescriptions. 

Drug costs are rising 5x faster than inflation and the onset of COVID-19 lead to more than 5.4 million Americans being newly uninsured and facing financial pressures. SingleCare responded by rolling out a series of new products and services to help drive down the cost of prescriptions and expand pharmacy partners to improve access for people to get the medications they need. 

To help provide consumers with financial relief during the pandemic, the company launched SingleCare Member Savings, a free program designed to lower the cost of prescription prices to deliver more affordable medications. With Member Savings, nearly every prescription filled earns SingleCare customers $1 to apply towards their next prescription, discounting their medications even further. There is no fee and customers can start earning immediately. 

SingleCare also recognized the challenges for customers to access care, whether impacted by social distance and sheltering guidelines, or delays in the USPS. The company expanded its pharmacy partners to include new home delivery services so that customers could order prescriptions from the comfort and safety of their own homes. SingleCare’s new home delivery service partners with GeniusRx to provide convenient access along with market-leading prices on hundreds of the most commonly filled drugs. 

During the pandemic, the company also dedicated its customer support hotline to help people set up prescription delivery from their own local pharmacies. For many users, these resources have been a lifeline as social distancing and quarantining have limited their options for obtaining prescriptions. SingleCare is committed to providing more affordable prescriptions and helping people across the USA with access and adherence to needed medications. 

SingleCare won a Silver Stevie Award in the COVID-19 Response Award Categories - Most Valuable Corporate Response in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

Illumis™, by Valassis, a Vericast business, is a transformative marketing platform that combines best-in-class technologies, innovative media and robust intelligence to empower marketers to directly tie insight-led strategies to high-performing consumer content.

Consumers are constantly adapting to today’s realities, embracing new interests, and consuming different media. This shifting behavior, coupled with a landscape that is rapidly evolving, is a challenge for marketers seeking to build integrated strategies responsive to today’s consumer.

Illumis was purposefully built to plan, execute, and optimize marketing in a seamless way to expand reach and improve results. This unified marketing platform helps marketers keep pace with the changes in consumer behavior; unifies the disparate tools marketers must manage and balance when creating campaigns; and removes silos around data and execution.

The platform offers a competitive, data-informed approach to omnichannel media buying, fueled by the powerful, predictive intelligence of the two-time award-winning Valassis Consumer Graph™. The Consumer Graph unifies massive amounts of data by making 7 trillion daily model calculations to help customers improve marketing strategy, audience targeting, engagement and results.

How Illumis brings data together to uncover consumer motivation is unique. Using patented analyses and rich text mining on over 110 billion bid stream signals every day, they can discover consumer interest as well as a propensity to buy. They have access to 33 billion daily location signals to understand where consumers like to shop and where they live. This data helps to build a more complete, custom audience for each campaign. All the data is anchored to a household for stability and for the ability to scale – to neighborhoods and targeting across channels. With this, Illumis allows advertisers to discover new high-value markets, targets, and ways to reach consumers. It also spotlights the best media – across both print and digital channels – to connect with the right audience to drive commerce. Illumis uses machine-learning for real-time optimization and to continuously learn and improve, sparking further discovery for consumers and growth for marketers.

There are challenges around the fragmented nature of marketing technologies. Illumis’ integrated platform helps to solve those pain points by delivering meaningful multichannel engagement with an architecture that minimizes data loss and unifies intelligence for optimal results.

For example, longtime Valassis Direct Mail Insert client, La-Z-Boy, wanted to drive sales as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and stores reopened, pivoting to digital ads ahead of an omnichannel approach. Predictive data in Illumis revealed high-propensity shoppers in-market, who the company engaged with through Display Ads and Direct Mail Inserts. Illumis also identified prospects outside the trade area who received Display Ads alone. Digital ads extended consumer reach and outperformed industry benchmarks. Overall, the omnichannel campaign influenced $2.4M in revenue and a 15:1 return on ad spend.

“The discussions, the planning, and the next steps were so professional, respectful and smart,” said Kevin Mauldin, La-Z-Boy Owner. “(It) reassured me that Valassis is still an awesome partner.”

Additionally, Forrester conducted a Total Economic Impact™ study that evaluated the potential financial impact and return on investment for brands using Illumis. Forrester developed a composite organization and aggregate three-year financial analysis based on interview data, which yielded a 110% increase in revenue from ads; nearly 4:1 incremental return on advertising spend; and an 83% increase in ROI – all without increasing costs from previous marketing platforms. Details here: https://intelligence.valassis.com/rs/275-QRU-089/images/Forrester-TEI-Of-Illumis-From-Valassis_March-2020_Final_Updated-20200903.pdf

Driving results and building connections comes down to capitalizing on high-impact moments that deliver the right message at the right time to the right consumer – which requires reaching audiences through several, high-impact media formats. A recent Vericast study found when consumers see an ad in print and online, 52% say it captures their attention. Not only does Illumis help marketers measure what consumers do in these moments, it makes it easier to understand what media drove engagement. Using a closed-loop connection with measurement and campaign insights, marketers can refine strategies and media mix to grow results from campaign to campaign.

More recently, the power of the Illumis integrated platform enabled olive oil company Filippo Berio to increase household penetration and drive in-store sales at key retailers across the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast. Using data from Illumis, the campaign targeted high-intent consumers who grocery shop in-store, omnichannel and use delivery, and the profile was continuously optimized by real-time sales. Consumers were targeted when activity like recipe lookups indicated they were in a buying mindset. The display advertising campaign ran in two flights, spaced one month apart, and outperformed both viewability and click-through-rate benchmarks. Both flights of the campaign drove a 6% sales lift at a key retailer, surpassing the benchmark of 1.1% - 5.7%.

“Working with Valassis and their wealth of data allows us to target [the right] consumers to drive household penetration and trial for our brand in a way that is efficient for our campaign and budget,” said Meghan Boyd, Marketing Manager at Filippo Berio.

Valassis won the Gold Stevie Awards for Marketing/Public Relations Solution in The 2021 American Business Awards ®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards?

• Calder Capital, LLC is a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm for small privately held companies
• The firm grew significantly despite the coronavirus pandemic, which dropped the industry average by roughly 20%; Calder’s revenue grew by 85% and transactions by 74%

About Calder Capital, LLC

Calder Capital is a lower middle market Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory Firm focused on representing sellers of industrial, distribution, and business services companies, as well as strategic buyers seeking platform and bolt-on acquisitions in the same market segments. 

Founded in 2013 by Max Friar, the boutique mergers and acquisitions firm is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At its core, the company spends its days calculating the value of small privately held companies and subsequently engaging with the owners of those companies to locate buyers and consummate a sale transaction with the buyer that is the best fit in terms of price, purchase structure, and continuity for the business. Typical clients are industrial, distribution, or service businesses with 10-100 employees where the owner has no natural successor and wishes to transition out of their business generally for retirement purposes. 

Prior to 2020, Calder operated out of one office and had never broken 23 transactions in a single year. The company had experienced growth in most years of its existence, but 2020 was truly a watershed period in terms of breakout growth, despite COVID negatively affecting the M&A markets. In 2020, the firm opened four new offices and closed 40 successful transactions, which represents an 85% increase in revenue and a 74% increase in closed transactions compared to 2019. 

Led by Founder and Managing Partner, Max Friar, the firm took a number of intentional steps that fostered its growth in the face of the coronavirus backdrop that decimated deals nationally by double digits. Calder Capital’s initiatives include: launching a service offering specifically focused on helping distressed/turnaround businesses locate buyers quickly; catalyzing a Franchise Outreach Program specifically targeted at helping franchise owners transition successfully; implementing a sales program that targets 300 business per week to inform them of Calder’s services, and deploying a Buy-Side M&A Services program that guarantees unlisted leads for clients. 

Calder’s achievements, particularly in 2020, are significant because M&A transactions were down 13-15% across all sectors internationally and down 22% in US-based small businesses. Despite this, Calder Capital has grown significantly in the face of strongly unfavorable industry headwinds. 

Calder Capital won the Gold Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Company of the Year - Financial Services - Small, a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Fastest Growing Company of the Year - Up to 100 Employees, and a Bronze Stevie Award for Entrepreneur Categories - Entrepreneur of the Year - Financial Services in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• airSlate is a global technology company that provides no-code business process automation and document management solutions
• The company’s goal of solving a simple problem evolved into expanded solutions and processes that now serve millions of users around the world 

About airSlate

airSlate is a global SaaS technology company serving tens of millions of users worldwide with its no-code business process automation and document management solutions. airSlate's PDF editing, e-signature workflow, and business process automation solutions empower users to digitally transform their businesses to run faster and more efficiently. 

airSlate was founded in 2008 with the goal of solving a simple problem that originally had nothing to do with workflows: how to create fillable and editable forms and documents from PDF files. Today, the product that came from the original effort, pdfFiller, is used by millions of people around the globe. Since then, airSlate has expanded its solutions and no-code workflow automation to empower non-technical users to digitally transform their front and back-office business processes, such as employee and customer onboarding, sales, and ordering workflows, contracts, and payments. 

Nearly 700k customers and more than 87 million users have achieved significant improvements in the delivery and effectiveness of their departments through airSlate’s fully digital, remote-work-first environment. Individuals and teams can collaborate at any time, from any device, on any cloud, supported by industry-leading security and compliance standards to keep all important data safe and secure. 

With exponential growth to its user base, fresh financing, new product launches and integrations, and a rapidly expanding global team, airSlate has seen significant momentum in the business process automation, e-signature, and document management markets since 2019. In 2020, buoyed by the pandemic and an increasingly global, remote work environment, airSlate’s user base skyrocketed. 

The company launched its newest product to expand its portfolio, offering an end-to-end workflow ecosystem for customers. airSlate’s solution gives teams the power to build and automate any part of their workflows using a single, no-code, easy-to-configure solution. In addition, airSlate announced several major integrations, including with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft. 

The company’s launch of its airSlate product in 2020 was a significant differentiator for the business and what was currently available in the market. airSlate’s closest competitors only offer point-based solutions, meaning customers have to bring together multiple disparate systems to meet their workflow goals. The launch of airSlate eliminated that need, offering up the first of its kind, end-to-end workflow automation solution for teams. 

airSlate won the Gold Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year - Up to 2,500 Employees and a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Computer Software - Large in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

Employee recognition does pretty much what it says on the packet: it’s about recognizing the hard work that your staff has done, and rewarding them for it. 

It sounds simple, but it’s actually a lot more complex than you may at first realize. It’s done in many ways and for many different reasons. This article will break all this down for you, and explain why employee recognition is so important to your business.

What Is the Purpose of Employee Recognition?

Employee recognition is carried out in order to meet three main objectives: 

To Showcase Achievements

It feels great just to get a simple “thank you”, doesn’t it? That’s what showcasing achievements is all about. 

It gives your employees the opportunity to admire each other’s work, as well as learn from it. 

Take this example. Say you run a business VoIP service. You sell communication services to help companies stay connected, using a mixture of both traditional conference call methods and online tools.

Imagine a cloud architect of yours has recently done a particularly good job. They’ve met all their targets and even come up with some new ideas. Showcasing their achievements to the rest of the company by doing something as simple as publicly thanking them on the company’s social media can go a long way. Not only will it boost the morale of that individual employee, but it can also inspire the rest of the company to work harder.

This takes us to the next objective: motivation.

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For Motivation

Showing employee recognition can increase motivation for all employees. To continue the original example, imagine that the same social media post is seen by employees in other departments. Seeing another member of staff being publicly praised and thanked can inspire someone to work harder in the hopes that they will also enjoy that reward.

This of course applies to other types of recognition and reward as well. Employees that see other people being rewarded, even in non-corporate public sectors like restaurants or pubs, are much more likely to increase their engagement and productivity as a result. It’s a rule that applies across the board.

To Reinforce Company Values

This is an important one. Recognizing employees’ efforts can reinforce the values that your business holds. For example, if you’re rewarding a cloud engineer and recognizing their work, praise their innovative outlook and their problem-solving skills.

If you run a newsletter builder software, you could award recognition to an employee that has shown exceptional time management and written communication skills.

It’s all about realizing what your values as a company are and bolstering them by rewarding employees that demonstrate them.

Types of Employee Recognition

Now we arrive at the nitty-gritty. What are the types of employee recognition and when should you use them?

• Peer recognition
• Superior recognition
• Attributed recognition
• Anonymous recognition
• Social recognition
• Private recognition
• Behavior recognition
• Achievement recognition

All of these kinds of recognition are fairly self-explanatory - but the real trick is knowing when to use each one.

Say, for example, that you run an appointment booking app. One of your employees has reached a sales target and deserves recognition for their efforts.

Achievement-based recognition is the way to go here because your employee has reached a productivity goal rather than exhibiting any exceptional behavior. However, in terms of whether the employee would prefer to be publicly awarded or privately thanked? That’s your call.

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Every employee will have different preferences when it comes to recognition. Some desire the spotlight, while some can’t imagine anything worse. Would they prefer a meeting with a more senior manager or an anonymous thank-you card on their desk?

Ultimately, it’s all about deciding which method of recognition would suit that particular employee, taking their wants, needs, and comfort into account at all times. What would inspire them the most? What will motivate them and make them feel appreciated within your company?

These are all important questions to consider.

Why Is Employee Recognition Important?

Now we come to the final piece of the puzzle. Why is employee recognition so important? Doesn’t it seem like a bit of a hassle?

It may well seem like one, especially if you have lots of employees that each require their own method of recognition. What we’re trying to get across here is that it’s a completely worthy investment of your time and money.

Think about it this way. Morale is at an all-time low due to the pandemic. Colleagues can’t see each other except in online meetings, and it’s easy for workers to feel isolated and underappreciated when working from home.

If you make a habit of regularly recognizing and rewarding your staff’s achievements, the news will spread that your company has a great working environment, and you can expect to onboard new employees as a result.

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Here are some proven benefits of habitual employee recognition:

• Stabilized workplace

You’d be surprised how many people leave due to lack of recognition; investing in this process can encourage your employees to stick around for longer.

• Decreased absenteeism

Recognition affirms to the employees that what they’re doing is useful and helpful to the company, which encourages longer workdays and less lateness and sick days.

• Increased productivity

Recognition increases general employee happiness and motivation, which naturally raises productivity.

• Improved sense of unity

Seeing other employees succeed encourages everyone to do the same, which fosters a sense of unity among the staff - it’s a team effort.

• Increased trust between employees and management

If management shows that they appreciate the effort that employees put in, it will show the staff that the higher-ups keep their promises and truly care about their workers.

• Improved customer experience

If employees are all working harder to gain recognition and rewards, customer service and the customer experience will naturally be more seamless and enjoyable. When everyone’s doing their best work, the clientele is the first to enjoy the benefits.

• Decreased employee stress levels

Employee recognition can do wonders for stress relief. Imagine working tirelessly day after day for nothing but a paycheck, without even so much as a “thank you” or a “good job!”. It follows, then, that regular recognition goes a long way in relieving employee stress and increasing their enjoyment of work.

Conclusion

If all this isn’t enough to convince you, try it and see the results for yourself. Bringing this much more human side to a technologically advancing working world reminds us all that businesses are, first and foremost, made of people, and people deserve to be recognized and rewarded.

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Bio:

Marjorie Hajim

Marjorie Hajim is the SEO Manager for EMEA at RingCentral, a leading cloud communications company that provides VoIP and an automatic call distributor system. She develops and executes strategies for short-term and long-term SEO growth. In her spare time, she loves reading books at coffee shops and playing with her dogs.

• VOMO’s platform and app hosts a global volunteer movement and connects organizations and communities 
• Support Staffer of the Year, Paige Dudek, exemplifies the values of VOMO with dedication and proactivity to keep the company running smoothly

About VOMO

VOMO is a web-based platform and app powering a global volunteer movement by providing organizations with the tools needed to discover and initiate projects, connect to community causes, and measure and amplify the impact of volunteering. VOMO, which stands for Volunteer Movement, harnesses the strength of technology to galvanize a generation to change the world for good by streamlining volunteer engagement.

Support Staffer of the Year

Paige Dudek is the backbone and spirit of VOMO. As a company that exists to change the world by serving those who serve others, Paige exemplifies everything it means to be a “VOMie”. VOMO is a small, close-knit team that thrives because of every extra step that Paige takes. She takes care of
hundreds of unseen tasks that keep the company
running smoothly. 

In September 2019, Paige stepped up to lead the sales team. In doing so, she turned what was once a stressful environment into a fun, exciting atmosphere through team-building games. She managed to simultaneously operate daily office functions such as ordering supplies and manning the phone. Her willingness to help and her ability to work cross-functionally are two of the many attributes that earned her the title of Human of the Month, September 2019. 

When the coronavirus shook the world and VOMO needed to shift, Paige didn’t miss a beat. VOMO relaunched the Be A Neighbor campaign, and Paige was at the helm to ensure it functioned without a hitch. She spent her personal time mastering the platform overnight as she sourced and posted various serving opportunities to the campaign page. In addition, she learned the ins and outs of WordPress, HubSpot, Mailchimp, and Canva in the span of one week to seamlessly manage the national campaign. She also took on managing all social media for the campaign while still completing her regular work, and somehow never letting the snack box run empty. 

A woman who wears many hats, Paige’s unending dedication to VOMO is evident through her passion for everything that she does. 

VOMO won the Gold Stevie Award for Support Categories - Support Staffer of the Year in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit. 

• Microbiological Testing & Consulting is a Chicago-based testing lab registered by the FDA
• Small lab size allows MTC to uniquely meet their clients’ needs
• With the whole world shopping for hand sanitizer during the pandemic, MTC’s clients were under significant pressure to deliver, and Microbiological Testing & Consulting helped make it possible

About Microbiological Testing & Consulting

Microbiological Testing & Consulting is an FDA-registered microbiological testing lab in Chicago, Illinois. MTC provides state-of-the-art microbial, sterility, preservation, and product development testing for clients in the personal care industry, a critical component in the development of safe and effective consumer products. 

What sets Microbiological Testing & Consulting apart is its size. MTC is a small lab, which allows them to be nimble in their ability to satisfy clients’ needs. With state-of-the-art equipment, MTC offers clients the testing services they expect from a large organization but delivers it with the personalization of a boutique lab. Clients appreciate that they can speak directly with lab personnel and discuss specific issues and timeframes. They enjoy rapid turnaround and MTC’s ability to re-prioritize as necessary to keep production lines running smoothly, something that larger competitors cannot offer. 

MTC’s COVID-19 Response

When the pandemic struck the nation, Microbiological Testing & Consulting became an essential business. Due to the CDC’s recommendations surrounding hand hygiene as a means to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, hand sanitizers were in high demand and in short supply, so the FDA authorized local production and published specifications for efficacy against COVID-19. MTC’s clients quickly switched their product lines from personal care products to hand sanitizers, and with the coronavirus spreading quickly, there was an intense pressure to provide the market with products that would protect consumers and contain the spread of the virus. 

Because hand sanitizers and other OTC products cannot be released to the consumer market without FDA-approved microbial testing, MTC’s lab services became critically important, and a quick turnaround was essential. MTC worked around the clock, accepting samples from across the region and extending hours to accommodate critical testing. Staff performed Kill Time studies to ensure that the alcohol-based sanitizers were effective, and if not, they consulted with their clients to reformulate their products to perform within CDC and FDA specifications. MTC troubleshot their clients’ formulations, adjusting where necessary to align tolerances or increase effectiveness. They tested the purity of each sample to ensure there were no bacteria present, and if necessary, they identified the pathogens and devised a production plan to eliminate them. 

With the whole world shopping for hand sanitizer, MTC’s clients were under significant pressure to deliver, and Microbiological Testing & Consulting helped make it possible. 

Microbiological Testing & Consulting won a Bronze Stevie Award for Company / Organization Categories - Company of the Year - Health Products & Services - Small in The 2021 American Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2022 American Business Awards? Request the entry kit.