Service and hospitality workers from across Northwest Indiana gathered at Hard Rock Casino on Thursday evening to celebrate the 2023 R.O.S.E & R.I.S.E. Awards Dinner. Hosted by the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority (CVA), the awards recognize excellence in customer service roles.
This year there were over 100 nominees for the R.O.S.E award. Short for Recognition of Service Excellence, the goal is to commend service workers who go above and beyond the call of duty, often stepping beyond the bounds of their job description to provide quality service to their customers. An anonymous committee, who only knew the stories and reasons for each nomination rather than the names of the individuals or businesses, selected the 10 winners.
“There’s a lot of compelling stories, that don’t even have to be germane to their job title,” said David Uran, president and CEO of the South Shore CVA. “This is the 17th year that we’ve recognized these workers, and over that time we’ve had 192 R.O.S.E winners. These are people earning recognition not because they’re trying to win an award, but because they’re providing excellent customer service.”
The R.I.S.E. Award, standing for Recognition of Industry Success and Excellence, is available to managers of customer service roles, or individuals who have already received a R.O.S.E award in the past. Five winners were selected and they, along with the R.O.S.E winners, each received a gift basket packed with over $1,300 dollars worth of goodies from businesses and organizations around the Region.
“Since this event started, we’re at over $150,000 in in-kind donations and contributions to the winners,” Uran said. “This year was a record total, with over $20,000 in total prizes for our winners. You can see that the industry itself recognizes the importance of this work. They need people to frequent their businesses, so you need these individuals who make customers feel valued.”
One of those individuals is R.O.S.E winner Taylor Verbich, a server at Blockhead Beerworks. Her anonymous nominator, a regular of the kitchen and bar, described Verbich’s relentless positive energy and dedication to ensuring every customer gets properly served.
“I honestly was shocked when I was told I was nominated,” she said. “It’s just such a cool experience. I’m a fish out of water, I’m very good at taking care of people but not very good at being taken care of.”
Amanda Beebe, assistant manager of Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana’s Table Games Department and R.I.S.E. finalist was excited to see so many fellow industry workers – including many of her own co-workers earn recognition.
“I’ve worked all over the United States in many jurisdictions and this is the only time I’ve ever seen something like this,” she said. “I think people put my name in the hat because I live judgment-free. I look at every single person that I deal with and think ‘What’s my objective here?’”
Nominations are already open for the 2024 R.O.S.E & R.I.S.E. Awards, and you can submit them online at www.southshorecva.com/rose/nomination-form/.
The South Shore CVA thanked a wide range of sponsors for making the event possible, including NIPSCO, the City of Crown Point, Valparaiso University, Purdue University Northwest, Strack & Van Til, Lubeznik Center for the Arts, and many more.