Mars Wins Gallup Great Workplaces Award

12 March 2009 - United States

Mars has won the prestigious 2009 Gallup Great Workplace Award in recognition of the high levels of engagement among our associates globally and the company’s focus on keeping our associates highly engaged. 

The Gallup Great Workplace Award – the premier honor of its kind – recognizes organizations whose employee engagement results demonstrate they have the most productive and engaged workforces in the world.

"The winners of this award have established a new global standard for engaging people" said Tom Rath, leader of Gallup's Workplace and Leadership Consulting practice.  "When compared to millions of workgroups we have studied around the world, the awardees have worked tirelessly to create an environment that values people.  They go far beyond trivial perks to ensure that each employee has an emotional connection to the company's mission and growth." 

The Gallup Great Workplace Award is based on criteria including engagement survey response rates, overall engagement levels, and evidence of engagement impact on performance.  Applicants’ results are compared across Gallup’s database of research on millions of work teams in more than 150 countries.

Mars, Inc. began its engagement journey in 2004 and has made remarkable progress. The company has seen a dramatic increase in its engagement ratio and the number of highly engaged teams, at the same time the company has achieved levels of organic growth and return on total assets not achieved for more than two decades.  

Mars has built associate engagement into its core business strategy, making it one of three key areas of focus across the business. Mars’ engagement best practice initiatives  include driving completion of  the  engagement survey by more than 85 percent of associates , creating a line manager learning community, and establishing an engaged Mars-Gallup core team to address the strategic and tactical aspects of the company’s engagement efforts.

“This recognition from Gallup validates what we already knew…Mars, Incorporated is a great place to work thanks to our dedicated and highly engaged associate population,” said Jon Shepherd, Chief Learning Officer, Mars, Incorporated. “This award gives us even more energy and enthusiasm to keep improving associate engagement, at every level of the business.”