Frederick County Office of Economic Development (OED) received 132 nominations for Frederick’s Top 50 Workplaces, which were selected based on powerful employee testimonials and each workplace’s unique strategies to attract and retain top talent. The final list also included criteria based on the company’s individual responses on the following: company’s median salary, benefits offered to employees, community involvement, work environment, professional growth opportunities and work-life balance.
Get to know four of the top 50 this month: Costco Wholesale, Dairy Maid Dairy LLC, Dynamic Automotive, and Edgewater Federal Solutions, Inc.
What Employees Are Saying
Costco Wholesale: “Costco offers medical, dental, vision and a variety of assistance for professional services.”
Dairy Maid Dairy: “Dairy Maid gives everyone the opportunity to learn and advance no matter what their skill set is.”
Dynamic Automotive: “The ownership deserves recognition as they work to better our lives more so than their own.”
Edgewater Federal Solutions: “Edgewater is an all-around great place to work, not only because of the great family management, but because of the entire package they offer employees and the great staff they have hired.”
What unique initiatives does your company have to attract and keep top talent? How does your business keep employees happy and healthy?
Costco Wholesale: The Company provides and is known for having a superior benefit package that takes in consideration employee health and happiness. Costco pays well and is able to recruit top talent.
Dairy Maid Dairy: We have a happy, healthy, safe program for all employees which allows discounts on medical insurance. We offer 18 days of PTO for new hires and 40 hours of sick leave.
Edgewater Federal Solutions: When you become an Edgewater employee you are instantly treated as family. Edgewater offers great benefits for their employees, as well as, tries to make each work day fun. The corporate staff enjoys monthly lunch activities that include taco Tuesdays, Kentucky Derby dress contest, exploring downtown Frederick restaurants, upcoming Food Truck Friday, and many other great activities.
What are some intangible benefits your company offers? What career growth opportunities are offered?
Dairy Maid Dairy: We offer tuition reimbursement and career growth opportunities.
Dynamic Automotive: Having Career Paths for each team member is key to our success. Our career paths are individual and can start from the entry into your field to retirement. Our goal is to continually train our team members and promote them from within. By doing this we retain our culture while growing both organically and through adding locations. All our Location Managers have been with us over 12 years and started as a technician or cashier. We have many potential leaders in the company we are developing!
Edgewater Federal Solutions: Our employees are recognized yearly at our After the Holidays Awards Banquet for their years of service. The corporate staff also works hard to make sure our off-site employees feel the same appreciation, by planning event for them and having management visit periodically for lunches or dinners.
What activities and initiatives does your company allow employees in terms of encouraging them to give back to the community?
Costco Wholesale: We have drives throughout the year promoting the Children's Miracle Network and the United Way.
Dairy Maid Dairy: We partner with the United Way and Stuff the Bus, the Salvation Army and holiday stockings, local food banks and are a second chance employer.
Dynamic Automotive: We participate in events all year to give back to the community. We believe that helping your community to be strong is the best way to grow your business. We reach out to all our local partners to help them. We have spent time raising money for the uniforms for the Urbana High School Marching Band, helped raise funds for services at Daybreak Adult Day Care, we offer free labor and raise funds for Second Chances Garage. Our team has helped to dip ice cream at the Mission, walked in 5ks for Stomp out Heroin & Paws for Claws, Participated in Second Chances Garage Road Rally (Each location entered a vehicle to see who was top with Dynamic), been at the music festivals and movie night with the Library, and even painted a picture to raise funds for SHIP. Take a look at our website for more cool stuff we do with the community. https://dynamicautomotive.net/community/
What does the physical work environment look like?
Costco Wholesale: We are a warehouse environment consisting of 2 buildings with a streamlined operation to offload and load freight utilizing our cross dock and an additional facility which houses our E-commerce operation. We do have a quiet room for nursing mothers and break rooms with micro markets in both of our facilities along with a basketball hoop in one of our buildings.
Dynamic Automotive: We try to keep our team comfortable by air conditioning all the shops. The heat is hard on our technicians and having an air-conditioned bay keep them productive and healthy. We also have a break room in each location if possible that has an area to eat, heat up food, refrigerator, TV to watch and some peace and quiet away from the job.
Edgewater Federal Solutions: Our Business Development office has a dart room, putting area set up and ring hook game. We are a bit cramped since we have grown fast in the last year, but are anxiously awaiting our new space in Frederick, where we will have many unique spaces to offer the employees.
