PHI Affiliates Named “Best for the World” Companies
Two worker-owned home care agencies — Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx and Home Care Associates (HCA) in Philadelphia — have received a “Best for the World” designation for their positive overall social impact.
The honor was bestowed by B Lab, a nonprofit organization that promotes businesses that engender positive social and/or environmental change.
Last year, CHCA and HCA became the first home care agencies to receive B Corporation certifications from B Lab, indicating companies that meet “rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency,” according to B Lab’s website.
Both CHCA and HCA are affiliates of PHI.
Top 10 Percent
Although hundreds of companies across the world, representing dozens of different industries, have been recognized as B Corporations, only 67 of them — the top 10 percent — were given the “Best for the World” honor.
CHCA was specifically chosen for investing in high-quality home care services to elders and people with disabilities while maintaining high job quality for its workers — an uncommon combination in a traditionally low-wage, low-job-quality industry.
Asked specifically about CHCA, PHI Development Director Ben Freeman told the Guardian that CHCA’s commitment to job quality “runs counter to an industry paradigm that regards direct-care staff as temporary and easily replaceable [whereas] we guarantee quality jobs that recognize the dignity of their work and its value to the community.”
Bloomberg Businessweek recognized CHCA’s “Best for the World” status in an article published April 17.
CHCA was also listed as the highest-ranked of the “Best for the World” organizations employing more than 50 staff in a Forbes piece on the same day.
— by Matthew Ozga
