Stories of Grantees in Action
The Hitachi Foundation is, at its core, a learning organization. From supporting cutting edge surveys about corporate citizenship to unique projects across the country, we are dedicated to advancing knowledge about helping economically isolated people and communities, and building strong business-community partnerships. Our Grantees in Action series tells some of these stories.
At Integrated Packaging Corporation, President and CEO Al Fuller is doing well and doing good. Integrated Packaging Corporation (IPC) has been Proctor and Gamble’s Minority Business Enterprise “Company of the Year” and was named a “Top 100 Industrial Company” by Black Enterprise Magazine. Annual growth catapulted the company onto the Inner City 100 for two consecutive years. Only a true business gazelle makes it even for a single year onto this list of the fastest growing firms in the nation’s central cities.When Donna Klein left Marriott International six years ago she was Vice President for Workforce Effectiveness. She had dedicated her career to making the workplace work for families, reshaping the role of business in response to dramatic changes in the circumstances of workers' lives. Recognizing that neither the prevailing business management practices nor public policy adequately responded to the realities of work and family in the 21st century, she founded Corporate Voices for Working Families.
Employer Perspectives Series
It is the source of sleepless nights for many a health care administrator. Traditional training approaches have failed to deliver an adequate pipeline of skilled frontline health care workers. Our multimedia series, Employer Perspectives, spotlights examples of forward-thinking health care enterprises that have realized clear business benefits by rethinking traditional approaches to health care worker recruitment, training and advancement. These employers are among those involved with The Hitachi Foundation's Business and Work Program, which seeks to discover and expand business practices that both strengthen the bottom line and create greater economic opportunity for frontline workers.
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One of the best ways to increase market share is to do a better job training frontline caregivers. That’s what David Kohnstamm, Administrator of the Rose Schnitzer Manor assisted living facility in Portland, Oregon, and his colleagues figured out. "At the time all we had is shadowing. We would hire somebody and we would have them shadow another employee. There was very little formal training and bad habits got passed down. It was hard to hold people accountable. If you have a team that doesn't have the tools to do its job, it's scary because you're trusted with people's lives--people's grandparents and parents--if they're left on the floor or not responded to properly after an incident or documentation is not appropriate, there are all sorts of bad things that can happen." As president of Good Samaritan, a 317-bed adult care community teaching hospital based in Baltimore, MD, Larry Beck faced a dual challenge familiar to many hospital administrators: high turnover and vacancy rates among crucial frontline workers, and an inadequate pipeline of skilled applicants for these essential positions. The national health care workforce shortage is an issue that keeps many a hospital administrator up at night, threatening to reach cataclysmic proportions in the coming decades. In a recent op-ed appearing in The Herald News in Fall River, MA, Nancy Paull, CEO of Stanley Street Treatment and Resources in Fall River, describes how implementing a work-based learning program in partnership with the local community college created positive outcomes for the organization, patients and employees. SSTAR is one of the employers participating in the Jobs to Careers program. |
