Espresa, Inc. announced this year’s Culture Benefits® Award for Innovation and Excellence winner is Okta, Inc., the leading independent identity provider, for its proactive and extraordinary employee experience strategy during the ongoing global COVID pandemic.
As companies continue to fight the great resignation while keeping workplace cultures intact, Espresa seeks out client companies that share its core mission and values through actionable results that impact their employee communities in an inclusive way. In 2020, Espresa awarded leading enterprise security company, Proofpoint with its Culture Benefits Innovation and Excellence Award. In 2021, the award is going to Okta due to the company’s employee experience initiatives that align with Espresa’s cultural priorities: humanity, evolution, future, and purpose driven.
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Human-centric and people first
For the award, Espresa looks for companies that continuously show steadfast determination in creating connective and next-level employee supportive experiences. While COVID-19 and variants continue to be pervasive globally, human resource and employee experience teams continue to show significant leadership by proactively addressing the challenges facing employees, their mental health, their homes, and their families. Okta has continuously expanded programs to meet the moment, while meeting employees exactly where they are.
“Okta has always been a leader in workplace innovation, and our approach to employee experiences is no different,” said Christi Gilhoi, Senior Director, Employee Experience for Okta. “Empowering our people is a core value of Okta’s. With this pandemic, this value became even more critical to ensure we place our people first. We’re thrilled to continue to partner with companies like Espresa to deliver on this mission,” Gilhoi continued.
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Leading the evolution of what’s next
Okta was already delivering on a promise of extensive support for dependents on a global scale. “Okta continues to deliver next-in-class human-centric programs to help relieve employee stress,” said Dr. Alex Shubat, CEO of Espresa. “With women leaving the workforce at unprecedented levels based on a lack of support, Okta has continuously worked to ensure that all individuals, regardless of identification, have had immediately impactful and supportive resources at their fingertips.”
Espresa chose Okta for this award based on its truly empathetic approach and response in times of crisis with fortitude and resilience to reduce stress, create social activities for culture connectivity, and provide virtual childcare programs to support working parents. “Part of what we look for in this award are companies that meet our own values and mission as a company. Chief among them in this moment is humanity,” discussed Shubat. “This pandemic has created a new path for how we see the world. Innovation must come from all of us, and award winners like Okta are leading the culture charge.”
Layering in topical and relevant programs with immediacy, companies use the Espresa platform with analytics built in to inform decisions in real time. “As leaders, we need to know what’s working and what’s not,” discussed Shubat. “We’ve designed the evolving Espresa platform to facilitate and support HR – and now more than ever, we help people teams do it more successfully, with less. Okta is a prime example of an organization delivering on their cultural promise, while also supporting ours.”
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