With the company’s 21st birthday approaching next Tuesday, the story was ripe for re-telling. When Dave St. Clair founded MEDecision with $1,000 in his basement, he wanted a company he could walk into every day and feel comfortable, remembers COO Scott Storrer.
St. Clair, the current CEO, has held true to that through the company’s phases of growth, and Wayne-based MEDecision is now celebrating being named among the Best Places to Work in PA by the Central Business Journal and Best Places to work in healthcare by Modern Healthcare Magazine.
“It’s about recognizing real work gets done by employees and there should be certain rewards shared by employees,” says Storrer, who has been with the company less than a year but has already played a large role in the most recent phase of MEDecision’s growth.
While company culture was already positive and high-performing, Storrer brought in business performance gurus Senn Delaney to roll all 300 employees through three-day sessions on relationships, accountability, planning and feedback. For MEDecision, which provides electronic health records and other technology solutions to health care management organizations, the training has proved invaluable, particularly in its monthly town hall-style company meetings.
“We’ve found a dramatic increase in how people feel when they come into the workplace, how they feel about the future of the company,” he says. “It’s like night and day. It’s taken a very healthy culture and put it on steroids.”
Storrer jokes that he has never seen a token gift–like gym bags or photo frames–handed out to employees. But if one of MEDecision’s employees hits the 15-year mark, the company pays for a weeklong vacation for their families. Also, as the company has grown–including its acquisition by Health Care Service Corporation, the country’s fourth largest health insurance provider–it has placed an emphasis on internal communications that share MEDecision’s victories and challenges and celebrate them. That’s been especially important since the company added 40 new employees last year and expects to grow by 50 more in the next year.
“I’m sitting here in jeans and a shirt,” says Storrer, nodding to his company’s relaxed dress code. “We’ve got to keep our eye on culture as we grow and how we integrate new talent from other cultures.”
Source: Scott Storrer, MEDecision
Writer: Joe Petrucci