This content is sponsored by Chenega MIOS.
For the eighth consecutive year, Chenega MIOS has been recognized as one of the top workplaces in the Washington, D.C., area, earning the distinction this year through the Top Workplaces program conducted by Energage in partnership with WTOP News.
The award recognizes organizations that prioritize workplace culture and employee engagement, with winners selected based on employee feedback gathered through the Energage Workplace Survey.
The research-backed survey measures factors tied to organizational success, including whether employees feel valued, supported and empowered in their work.
For JC Campagna, president of Chenega Corporation’s Military, Intelligence and Operations Support Strategic Business Unit, the recognition carries added significance because it comes directly from employees themselves.
“On a personal level, I find it extremely rewarding,” Campagna said. “Employees participate in determining who wins and what attributes are being recognized and that’s an incredible source of pride.”
Maintaining healthy work relationships
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Lorton, Virginia, Chenega MIOS is a shared services division of Chenega Corporation.
The organization provides business services to Chenega Corporation’s wholly owned companies and assists in the management of contracts with a net value of more than $2 billion.
Campagna has been with Chenega for 27 years.
“Maintaining relentless focus on the people and the culture of Chenega really brings it together,” Campagna said. “Discipline of execution, discipline in leadership, long-term thinking and resilience are all important.”
The company’s latest recognition comes as many employers continue navigating the challenges of hybrid and remote work environments that emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sustaining company culture in a more distributed workforce has been a priority for the organization over the past several years.
“My biggest fear was forgetting the culture,” Campagna said. “We developed a culture of family closeness because we were together every day.”
The organization has worked intentionally to preserve those relationships by bringing employees together regularly, even when remote work remains common and, in many cases, more convenient.
“We get together, whether we need it or not, at least once a quarter,” Campagna said. “We also plan social events where we can all hang out together and appreciate each other as colleagues and as friends.”
According to Energage, the Top Workplaces methodology is informed by feedback from millions of employees across more than 70,000 organizations over two decades of research.
The survey evaluates workplace culture drivers that have been shown to predict employee engagement and organizational performance.
“You don’t, by accident, start an organization and then eight years in a row win something like this,” Campagna said. “It really tells you what the DNA of the organization is truly made of.”
A formula for sustained success
Employee feedback remains one of the company’s most important management tools.
“I thrive on feedback,” Campagna said. “Over many years of trial and error, we found that employees will give you honest feedback and tell you how they really feel if you just ask them, because they feel like they’re going to be part of the solution.”
Beyond its internal workplace culture, Chenega MIOS also places a strong emphasis on community involvement and social responsibility.
The company supports charities, food banks and organizations that assist military veterans, ranchers and farmers.
“We want to make sure that if we arrive into a community, we don’t just arrive and take,” Campagna said. “We want to arrive and give equally.”
Campagna said the company’s growth and operational success stem from a willingness to constantly reevaluate business practices and improve processes over time.
“I’ve always looked at failure as an education,” he said. “Good enough isn’t good enough, so we need to revalidate the things that we do and the steps that we take to do business day in and day out, because they would become stale otherwise.”
As Chenega MIOS marks its eighth consecutive Top Workplaces recognition in the highly-competitive D.C. region, Campagna said the achievement reflects the long-term effort employees across the organization have put in over the years.
“It’s great to say that we’re a top workplace, but you only get there if you’re good at what you do,” said Campagna. “The fact that we have continued to grow year in and year out is a tribute not just to the people doing the job, but also to the business practices that we employ to get there.”
Check out all of the WTOP Top Workplaces coverage now!
