The Champions: The competition for the 10 Best Workplaces successfully concluded

''The Champions'', the competition for the 10 Best Workplaces in Greece has been successfully concluded and the awards ceremony took place on March 6^th 2003 in Athens. The winners received the awards from Mr. kyriacopoulos, President of the Federation of Greek Industries and Mr. Theofanopoulos, General Secretary for the Management of European Funds, Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The Coordinator of GPW EUROPE Competition, Mr. Muller, also attended the awards ceremony.

The list with the 10 Best Workplaces in Greece is the following: 

1. JANSSEN - CILAG S.A.
2. ΠΕΙΡΑΙΩΣ DIRECT SERVICES S.A.
3. NOVABANK S.A.
4. SAP HELLAS A.E.
5. KRAFT FOODS HELLAS S.A.
6. TITAN CEMENT Co S.A.
7. ABBOTT LABORATORIES HELLAS S.A.
8. GENESIS PHARMA A.E.
9. SC JOHNSON & SON HELLAS Ltd
10. TROFEKLEKT MASTERFOODS S.A.

ALBA wishes to congratulate all participating companies; it is needless to say that they would not have participated in the competition weren’t they really committed to their people. Especially, we would like to congratulate the 10 winning companies for their ability to create a people-centered culture.

The 1^st organization of the competition in Greece was assigned to ALBA as research partner, with media partners Oekonomikos Tachydromos weekly review & To Vima daily newspaper. The project was under the supervision of scientific coordinator Dr. Olga Epitropaki , Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at ALBA, and organized by the Applied Research & International Projects Department (ARIP) at ALBA.

The competition began in July 2002, when it was first announced in VIMA and OECONOMICOS TAHYDROMOS. ALBA sent letters - invitations to participate to 365 companies operating in Greece, which employed more than 50 employees. 73 companies initially applied for participation; 19 decided to withdraw for several reasons and 4 had to withdraw due to the low response rate of their employees to the main competition questionnaire. Eventually, 50 companies were assessed (26 Greek and 24 multinational companies), based on a) answers of a randomly selected sample of employees to the questionnaire ''Great Place to Work Trust Index'' and b) answers provided to a series of questions (Culture Audit) by the Head of Human Resources Department, concerning human resources management practices, training opportunities, benefits & rewards, etc. The processing of the questionnaire data was conducted in Denmark by Oxford Research, the organization representing Great Place to Work in Europe, whereas the evaluation of Culture Audit was conducted by the ALBA evaluation team, based on a specific coding system of qualitative data provided by Great Place to Work®.

The competition is currently running at a European level in 15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, UK, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Finland and Greece) aiming at identifying the 100 best Workplaces in Europe.

ALBA wishes good luck to the 10 winners of the Greek competition, which will compete with the winners of other European countries, in order to identify the 100 Best Workplaces in Europe. The 100 best companies will be awarded in Brussels, by the EC Commissioner Ms. Anna Diamantopoulou on March 27^th.