For Martin County’s largest employer, the seventh time is the charm.
Martin Memorial Health Systems learned last week that after seven years of trying it has been given a prestigious national title: Employer of Choice.

“This is a tremendous achievement,” said Dr. George Rittersbach Jr., chairman of the board of directors for Martin Memorial Health Systems, which owns two hospitals and numerous clinics on the Treasure Coast.

Martin Memorial is one of four Florida health care organizations to earn the designation. The others are Orlando Health, Lee Memorial Health System in Cape Coral and Baptist Health Care in Pensacola.
Martin Memorial got the award last week during a ceremony with about 90 employees at the Robert and Carol Weissman Cancer Center in Stuart.

The designation, given by Employer of Choice Inc., based in Greensboro, N.C., is based on an employer’s work practices, including efforts to improve, training, employee satisfaction and benefits, turnover rates and retention, and comparison to similar employers.

Applications are often a couple of inches thick, said Joyce Gioia, Employer of Choice’s chief executive officer.

Martin Memorial had a team of employees meet nearly every week for seven years to work on the organization’s application. They identified such improvement areas as customer service and employee recognition and then made changes.

The changes were charted through quarterly surveys of employees.

The designation is paying off, said Scott Samples, a hospital spokesman. An out-of-state candidate for a nursing job chose Martin Memorial over other health care organizations after hearing about the Employer of Choice award, he said.

Tags: business, Health, Martin County, Stuart

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