DaimlerChrysler, Domino's and The Rehmann Group to Take Top Honors at 8th Arbor Awards

NORTHVILLE, Mich., March 7 -- Companies that are passionate about automobiles, pizza, and numbers will take top honors this week at the Eighth Arbor Awards for Excellence in Human Resources. DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Domino's and The Rehmann Group will receive Arbor Awards for Excellence for best practices and innovation in human resources in a special ceremony on Thursday, March 10, 2005 at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn from 7:30-9:30 a.m. Additional winners include Special Tribute Award recipients Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, Glacier Hills Retirement Community and University of Michigan Benefits Office.

The Arbor Consulting Group and the Eastern Michigan University Master of Science HR/OD Program sponsor the awards.

The 2005 Arbor Awards for Excellence winners include:

* DaimlerChrysler Corporation (DCC), headquartered in Auburn Hills, for transforming its recruiting function into a centralized, strategic, internal executive search and hiring function. A highly trained internal recruiting team identifies, assesses and "on-boards" professional candidates that "fit" both the DCC culture and the specific needs of the open positions. DCC's Human Resources Department has reduced hiring cycle time and costs by centralizing and internalizing executive search. Importantly, DCC is seeing a high rate of satisfaction among its internal clients, a reduction in turnover of new hires, and avoidance of costly hiring errors.

* Domino's Pizza , with 150,000 employees in 50 countries, for initiating its PeopleFirst Star Selection Training Program. Driven by Chairman and CEO David A. Brandon's belief that "the pizza company with the best people will win," Domino's is taking a highly disciplined and strategic approach to selecting, training and retaining its team members. The PeopleFirst Star Selection Training Program initially involved training Domino's top 200 managers in a 10-step process focused on strategic recruiting and interviewing. Although team member turnover was low for positions outside of the pizza stores, Domino's turnover of corporate team members hired within the first year of service was 45% before the Star Selection Training Program began. Corporate turnover has been effectively reduced to 3.28% to date saving more than $4.5 million in the first year of the program.

* The Rehmann Group, an accounting, financial services and business consulting firm, for its True Blue brand building, an effort led by Human Resources in conjunction with top management and Marketing, that has been instrumental in transforming the organization and growing new business. True Blue included employee as well as customer research, relationship management training, compensation incentives and a name change as well as the design of The Rehmann Group's distinctive blue logo. Since launching True Blue, The Rehmann Group, headquartered in Saginaw, has dramatically increased client and employee satisfaction, brand awareness and client sales among its 13 Michigan offices.

"Human Resources is a strategic partner that plays a leadership role in every successful organization. For the 2005 Arbor Award recipients, this means HR professionals are leading the way in setting selection standards and processes and advancing an organization's brand and profitability," says Joan Moore, J.D., SPHR, president of The Arbor Consulting Group, Inc. "Whether you are a company that wants to create a new brand or a strategic selection and hiring process that will give you the competitive edge as well as cut costs, you can adopt a best practice from this year's awardees."

The Arbor Consulting Group, based in Northville, Michigan, is a national human resources management consulting firm specializing in employee relations and retention, affirmative action, human resources compliance and cultural due diligence for mergers and acquisitions. For more information visit: http://www.arborhr.com/ .