Mother Nature often isn’t the ally of electric sector entities charged with keeping the lights on, but she cooperated beautifully for Community Electric’s annual Team Appreciation Day in mid-September. The cooperative’s employees and many of their family members gathered under idyllic conditions on a late Friday afternoon at Topgolf Virginia Beach.
Over the course of the next few hours, they knocked some rust off their golf swings; caught up on recent developments; downed some fajitas and corndogs; and otherwise celebrated the opportunity to unite with one another in a non-work setting as teammates serving the greater Community Electric mission.
“It felt great to have so many of the families of Community Electric family under one roof at one time,” CEC President and CEO Steven A. Harmon said. “We have a fantastic group of people who are dedicated to serving the cooperative’s membership to the best of their abilities each and every day. I always feel especially privileged when we all are able to take a timeout together and show appreciation for one another.”
Beyond the food, drink and recreational activity, the Appreciation Day festivities included raffle drawings where employees were able to drop their ticket amongst a variety of gifts provided by CEC’s RECORE energy solutions subsidiary and partnering vendors. There also were top golf scoring prizes where six employees won medallions and gift cards.
“As one of those who helped organize this event, I’m very pleased that everything flowed so smoothly,” Manager of Communications Jessica Parr said. “We had a great turnout – spouses and children too – Top Golf and weather combined nicely to give everyone a chance to unwind and have some fun.”
The Appreciation Day gathering also made it possible for the group to welcome new employees who have succeeded recent retirees, and to extend their thanks and well wishes to some longtime employees who are scheduled to retire in the coming months.
The combined efforts of the cooperative’s work force – “new” and “experienced” alike – is the driving force behind the quality of work that CEC provides and the customer satisfaction that members express, Harmon said.
He noted, in the independent customer satisfaction survey conducted for CEC last spring, the “Cooperative Attitude and Performance Score” stood at 92 – three points higher than the average satisfaction score for rural electric cooperatives nationally, and consistent with the positive findings of other surveys conducted for CEC in recent years. The survey’s Net Promoter Score – another metric of attitudes regarding co-op services – climbed to 74 in last spring’s survey, an 18-point jump over the 2023 result.