JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --The Jacksonville Business Journal has announced the selection of Gate Petroleum Co. as one of Jacksonville, Fla.'s Best Places to Work for 2013, ranking third in the large business category.
"What began as a single service station more than 50 years ago grew into the organization we know today thanks to the hundreds of men and women who have and continue to dedicate themselves to this company's success. The caring culture we share here can be felt throughout every facet of our business. Relationships and commitment to continuous improvement are the values that carry the day--and that is something special," said John Peyton, GATE president.
"The tenure here is just unbelievable," Jenny Ordway, Peyton's executive assistant, told the newspaper. The reason for this, Ordway said, is that the management team respects every employee and is interested in them personally, not just in what they can do for the company.
GATE has good retention rates even at the store level, Denise Gaitanzis, the company's human resources director, told the Business Journal. The management team visits stores each week to talk with the managers and employees. Gaitanzis said another important aspect of GATE's management style is that the leaders are willing to invest in employees and mentor them to move into other positions.
Click here to read the full GATE profile.
Quantum Workplace, a third-party company that specializes in measuring workplace satisfaction, compiles the rankings for the paper's 2013 Best Places to Work list. The list splits companies up into three categories: large businesses with 250 or more full-time employees, medium businesses with 30 to 249 employees and small businesses with 10 to 29 employees.
Quantum Workplace set up the online survey and employees were given several weeks to respond to questions about their workplace. Each company had to have a certain percentage of employees responding based on the number of employees, with small businesses requiring a higher percentage of responses than larger ones.
Based in Jacksonville, GATE is a privately held, diversified corporation, the 17th largest in Florida in 2012. Among operations in several industries, including real estate, hospitality and construction materials, GATE operates convenience stores throughout the southeastern United States in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and South Carolina.
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