Orion Homes: Winner of the special award for Training

‘We try to make everyone included in the team’

Orion Homes provides mental health services to Arizona’s community through 24-hour care while maintaining a work environment that keeps its staff comfortable.

“We do our best to create a work environment where staff feel like they’re doing something important that benefits the community and we try to make everyone included in the team,” Brandon Dow, Orion Home’s CEO said.

It’s no easy task to have a positive workplace.

“Our teams are supportive,” Dow said. “We’re always checking in … to find out what (staffers’) goals are and how we can support them. That comes from our Internal Training from Mentoring.”

Ricardo and Elizabeth Macias founded Orion Homes in 2010 to help residents get through mental health care and support.

Since its start, the goal has been to bring special mental health care to Arizona at over ten locations.

Of course, the work done by Orion’s direct care team is where Orion shines. The leadership at Orion knows this and shows its appreciation to its team.

“Our leadership team from the office goes out on holidays (like) on Christmas or Thanksgiving and we take coffee and gift cards to every staff that has to work,” Dow said. “This past Christmas, I went out at midnight and visited all our locations — our overnight staff — and brought them coffee and thanked them for being there to support our residents.”

Going beyond giving coffee, Orion’s leadership was there for its staffers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. The pandemic added economic and emotional stress to the already stressed health care workers.

So, Orion ensured its staffers could speak up about what was going on during these stressful times. It even helped its staffers financially by giving paid time off when they get sick or need to help rehabilitate a family member.

Maintaining a positive work environment is part of having happy staffers. In addition to that, opportunities to grow let staffers know they can make careers at a company.

Dow is familiar with that as he started in a different role approximately ten years ago.

“I am a great beneficiary of Orion’s system of promoting from within and of developing our team, providing training, resources and mentoring to employees at all levels who want to move up, expand their careers, influence our team and their community in different ways,” Dow said.

The success of a positive workplace stems from the collaborative effort of a company’s team. At Orion, being recognized by Top Workplaces shows it’s there for its crew. “You can’t fake caring about your employees,” Dow said. “It has to be a genuine emotional connection with your staff.”

B Y Steven Hughes

Staff members from Orion Homes.

Courtesy photo by brandon dow

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