EGStoltzfus received the 2022 Ethics In Business award at Samaritan Counseling Center’s 15th annual awards banquet on Thursday, July 21.
EGStoltzfus is a full-service construction company with headquarters in Lancaster. They are a second-generation, family-owned business serving the southcentral Pennsylvania region that specializes in the design and construction of neighborhood homes and communities, custom homes, residential remodeling, and commercial construction.
Andy Dula, president of the company, accepted the award at the July 21 event and emphasized the importance of humility as a company even when they are successful. Andy added that the company still strives today to follow founder E.G. Stoltzfus’s mission of customer first, employee second and profitability last.
Prior to the announcement of the award, Stacie Blake of YWCA Lancaster shared opening remarks on the not-yet-released Lancaster County Equity report, and revealed how our ethics are needed to fuel the continued pursuit of equity within our community and organizations.
Q&A with Final Nominees
The 2022 Ethics In Business awards program had four total final nominees: EGStoltzfus, Evolution Power Yoga, Joyland Roofing and Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse.
Representatives from all final nominee companies participated in a question-and-answer session facilitated by emcee Diane Dayton of LCTV 66 that included questions about the practical ways they’ve implement ethics in their organization, challenges they’ve had, etc.
In his responses, Andy Dula of EGStoltzfus discussed the importance of leadership modeling ethics for their teams, as well as the necessity of creating a culture of disclosing mistakes and practicing moderation.
Lisa Taylor, owner of Evolution Power Yoga, shared the need for defining ethical practices and behavior when emotions are not running high, as well as the power of seeking out each other’s differences in order to better understand each other.
John Esh, president of Joyland Roofing, talked about the need to be proactive and address issues with employees as they come up, and how they create a culture that helps employees feel comfortable telling a client when they may not need Joyland’s services.
Todd Smith of Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse shared the need to have a motive other than profit for running your business, which for Zoetropolis is their people and their customers. He also discussed the importance of protecting staff members and stepping in when customers may be out of line.
The Ethics In Business Review Process
The selection of EGStoltzfus as the award recipient came after the strenuous review process that has been established by Samaritan Counseling Center and our organizational development department, known as Samaritan Consulting Group.
The first step of the process includes each nominee providing documents to Samaritan such as financial statements, employee handbooks, organizational charts, and internal communication tools.
The second step is the administration of a comprehensive online survey that allows employees to provide anonymous feedback about the culture of ethics within the company.
For the third step, trained site visitors conduct half-day in-person or virtual visits with employees from the final nominee organizations.
After all three steps are completed, site visitors use the documents provided, the employee survey and the visit to compile comprehensive reports. An anonymous selection committee of leaders within the Lancaster County business community receives these reports, discusses the nominees and decides on the award recipient.
All four of this year’s nominees were honored at the recent events ceremony at Lancaster Country Club on July 21. At the end of the event, EGStoltzfus was announced as the award recipient through a video that provided an overview of the company’s history and included employees sharing feedback about the company.
