Safelite Senior Vice President of People & Leadership Development Natalie Crede Wins Award for Company Culture
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Smart businesses need smart leaders. Safelite® Group, which operates Safelite AutoGlass®, the world’s largest vehicle glass repair and replacement service provider, and Safelite® Solutions, a leading claims management company, officially has smart leadership. Natalie Crede, who serves as Senior Vice President of People & Leadership Development, is an honoree in Smart Business Magazine’s 2016 Smart Women Awards program for her leadership in building a People Powered, Customer Driven culture at Safelite.
The Smart Women Awards recognize the achievements of leading businesswomen, inspiring male advocates and effective women’s programs. It combines a live event and content—digital and print—to address today’s issues facing women in the workplace.
Crede first joined Safelite in 2009 and helped move HR from a functional department to a strategic arm driving the company’s success. She did this by introducing the concept of an integrated talent management program. In other words: making sure Safelite has the best employees possible – and empowering them to do a great job.
Crede has been the driving force in creating a People Powered, Customer Driven culture. Safelite is a company thatdrives business performance by putting people first and having an obsessive focus on having talented people who are inspired to deliver great results. The philosophy is simple: happy, talented and engaged people will deliver on Safelite’s brand promise to create a memorable experience for our customers. To communicate this to employees company-wide, theSafelite People Pledge was introduced in 2009, promising employees:
- You’ll experience great leadership.
- We focus on you first.
- We hire top talent… that includes you.
- You’ll work in a caring culture.
Additionally, Crede was instrumental in introducing the company’s Purpose Statement: “We exist to make a difference and bring unexpected happiness to peoples’ everyday lives.”
As a result, Safelite’s employee engagement scores have been above average for the last five years. The company also has completed studies to show that the return on sales aligns with employee engagement: the greater the engagement improvement since 2009, the higher the average return on sales.
“Culture is everything to us at Safelite,” said President & CEO Tom Feeney. “Natalie has been fundamental in developing our cultural strategy and bringing to light its importance. She has set the tone for us as we strive to be a truly great service brand. I congratulate her and her team on this well-deserved recognition.”
About Safelite Group
Safelite® Group, a subsidiary of Belron®, is a multi-faceted vehicle glass and claims management service organization based in Columbus, Ohio. The company, which has been in business since 1947, is comprised of four major business operations that includes Safelite AutoGlass®, the largest provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services in the U.S.; Safelite® Solutions, which offers fleet and insurance claims management services; and Service AutoGlass®, a vehicle glass wholesale and distribution operation. The company employs more than 13,000 people throughout the United States. For more information, visit Safelite.com, or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.