Louisville, KY, September 12, 2012—The local, privately held company Integrity HR has a lot to celebrate this month. Not only did the woman-owned HR Outsourcing and Consulting Company reach its five year anniversary, but it also won Greater Louisville Inc.’s Very Small Business of the Year award.
GLI, the metro chamber of commerce, presented its annual Inc.credible awards Tuesday during the 2012 Celebration of Small Business luncheon at the Galt House. This year’s luncheon aimed to Recognize. Celebrate. and Inspire. small businesses in Greater Louisville. Annually, the event honors the best and brightest in the field.
The award winners, selected in eight categories, were selected by a panel of 50 judges from among more than 1,300 nominations and 139 candidates. The Very Small Business of the Year Award was awarded to a company with one to nine employees that exemplified both business and civic leadership.
Integrity HR’s Founder and CEO Amy Letke said in her acceptance speech, “This award means so much to me and my team. We are celebrating our fifth year in business and I can remember back to starting our business that it was just me and one other person. A lot has changed in five years, but there are some things that haven’t changed. One of those things is having a vision.”
Letke’s vision included providing HR outsourcing and consulting services to small, medium and large sized companies to help businesses upgrade the bottom line on human resources and improve employee issues management. During her acceptance speech, Letke reminisced about deciding to name her company, Integrity HR, back in 2007.
“Integrity HR is pretty much what the name means,” she said. “I remember when I took that name that it was a big risk because a name like that means a lot. I’m grateful to have a team committed to providing excellent human resources services locally as well as nationally.”
Despite the turbulence other businesses are going through, Integrity HR has been inundated with requests from businesses seeking to increase their efficiency. Letke has witnessed incredible success of a sort almost unheard of in times like these: over 50 percent growth every year since its foundation.
“We are very appreciative of the opportunities that are coming our way, and work hard to make sure new staff gets the training and resources needed to help clients right away,” Letke said. “While it’s challenging to make this happen as we continue to add staff, our standards are rigorous and maintaining consistent quality is extremely important to me.”
Letke announced at the GLI luncheon that the company’s tenth employee will start later this month. Not only is the company growing, but it is also launching its human resource and management software, Simplified HR this year.
Simplified HR will help business owners and HR professionals streamline the employee life cycle and onboarding process by managing orientation, employee files, new hire paperwork, performance evaluations and training as well as improving communication and accountability with current employees so that businesses can run more efficiently.
Letke concluded her speech by thanking the city of Louisville, GLI, and the judges for their commitment to small businesses. “I am so grateful to be an entrepreneur and to be working in this city,” Letke said.