UDRI One of Dayton's Best Places to Work

The University of Dayton Research Institute has been named a winner in the Dayton Business Journal’s first “Best Places to Work” in Dayton contest!

UDRI competed with 60 greater-Dayton area companies to take a top spot in the contest, held in January and February. Winners will be profiled in the Business Journal March 18.

Wichita, Kan.-based QMR Inc. facilitated the contest for the newspaper by soliciting confidential feedback from employees of nominated companies. Employees rated their companies in 10 categories — manager effectiveness, trust in senior leaders, feeling  valued, people practices, work engagement, alignment with goals, trust with coworkers, team effectiveness, individual contribution, retention risk — by completing an online survey that could not be traced back to the employees.

Once UDRI was nominated, half of its 368 Dayton-area employees — those located on campus and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — were required to participate in the survey for the Research Institute to even qualify as a contest candidate.

According to reports released by QMR, UDRI beat the cumulative average of all large companies — those with 151 or more employees — in eight of the 10 categories, and tied with all companies in the remaining two categories. Business Journal editor Lisa Morawski said she believed three of the winners were large companies, three fell in the medium category (51-150 employees) and four in the small category (50 or fewer).

Morawski said the Dayton affiliate of the national newspaper chain decided to follow the lead of other Business Journals that had sponsored Best Places to Work contests. “The contest gives the winning companies a chance to serve as examples to others who are trying to attract and keep good employees — which is a huge challenge — and it gives companies that didn’t win the opportunity to learn from those who do,” Morawski said.

The Journal chose not to rank the 10 winners by score, but announced them Feb. 21 in alphabetical order. In addition to UDRI, the winners are Chaminade-Julienne High School, Cornerstone Research Group Inc., Dayton Heart  Hospital, Graphic Impact Communications Inc., Kforce Healthcare, McGohan Brabender, Midwest Manufacturing Solutions LLC, TriCom Marketing and Communications and Upper Valley Medical Center.

March 17, 2005

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