The US auto glass repair brand Safelite has just wrapped up this year’s winners of its photo calendar contest. The top photograph was taken by Eric Sallee, a Phoenix auto glass repair specialist. Second place went to a company advertising director in Ohio, Matt Johnson, and third place to Andrey Skorobagatko, another technician, this time coming from New Jersey.
The auto glass repair brand has an annual contest among its employees to see who can submit a photograph worthy of being placed in the company’s national calendar for the next year. Usually, it would be the president and CEO of the company selecting the first place winner, who gets to have his submission printed on the top cover of the company calendar. However, the company deviated from the routine this year due to a new theme that is in keeping with what seems to have been one of its primary concerns of late: Powered by Our People, a theme touting the engagement of the workforce in company policies and decisions.
Safelite is a large company, so there is even more pressure for it to provide for its employees in the sense that they have their needs well attended to and encouraging incentives in place. Tom Feeney, the president and CEO, has actually spoken on the matter at length, insisting that it is a major principle of company policy that employees be given a voice or acknowledged by executives and so-called ‘company decision-makers’.
There were actually judges for the contest. There was a professional photographer among the judges, naturally, as well as a designer from an advertising company. Besides these was an in-company judge, Lindsey Rabalais, who happens to be the company’s graphic designer. These helped in the selection of the final winners, although the first place spot’s selection did not fall within their responsibilities.
Instead of the traditional selection by the president and CEO, this year’s employee photo calendar contest top winner was selected in a democratic fashion: the company’s employees were permitted to vote for which photograph they believed should be on the cover of the national calendar. Eric Sallee’s photograph, a shot of the 3666th Support Maintenance Company returning from service in Iraq, was thus chosen as the cover photo and first place winner. Aside from this honor, Sallee also gets to take home $750 in prize money.
The other two placers, Matt Johnson and Andrey Skorobagatko, get to bring home $650 and $550 respectively. There were also nine other contestants whose photographs received an honorable mention, and who secured their own photographs’ places in the calendar. Each contestant with an honourable mention gets $250 aside from a place in the same calendar whose cover the photo from Phoenix auto glass repair technician Sallee shall be gracing.
