Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Company became the highest ranking Oil and Gas Company in America with a 7^th place ranking on the 2013 FORTUNE Magazine’s “Top 100 Best Places to Work” list, thanks in part to a unique partnership with Marketplace Chaplains.

Hilcorp uses the employee benefit of corporate chaplains for its 1,000 + employees to extend ‘complete care’ for employees and their family members.

“At Hilcorp, we look for three things in our employees – energy, intelligence and ethics,” said Founder, Chairman and CEO Jeff Hildebrand after receiving the award, the first ever for his multi-billion dollar company.

“Chaplains are a wonderful ministry of help and care for our employees and a meaningful way to be able to help each other. We need this in our company and other companies do as well,” said Hildebrand.

The idea of employee satisfaction leading to increased productivity is not a totally new concept as multiple corporate studies have shown a direct correlation between the two.

The annual survey in FORTUNE Magazine is considered one of the most prestigious honors.  (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/best-companies/2013/snapshots/7.html?iid=bc_lp_arrow1) Google takes the crown for the 4^th time, as the top company on the list, with Hilcorp, founded in 1989, being the highest ranked Texas company. It began utilizing Marketplace Chaplains in 2004.

Marketplace Chaplains, formed in 1984, currently serves at 2,865 service locations, in 44 states, 936 cities, 4 foreign countries and 1 commonwealth, with more than 2,700 chaplains, caring for over half a million employees and their family members.

Houston’s David Weekley Homes, also uses Marketplace Chaplains to help and care for their employees and their family members, and is a three-time FORTUNE Magazine “Best Places to Work” winner. David Weekley has also seen how providing this level of care attracts the best people to work for his company.

“’Our company has been recognized as one of FORTUNE’S “Best Places to Work,” said CEO David Weekley. “The chaplain program is a low-cost employee benefit that has garnered us more loyalty than our other ‘standard’ benefits and has resulted in lower turnover, improved morale and a general sense of ‘caring’ on the company’s part about our employees’ ‘well-being,’” he continued.

Regal Marine, one of the largest manufacturers of luxury pleasure watercraft, judged its Marketplace Chaplains program to be the #1 benefit offered by the company, by a vast majority of its 600 workers.

Austaco, Ltd., a chain of more than 60 Taco Bell franchises in the South and Central Texas area was named Taco Bell Elite Franchise after adding Marketplace Chaplains to its benefit package, and has seen its turnover rate drop from 300 % to 100 %, as well as its “shrink” or theft be the lowest in the industry.

“I’m grateful to see that this prestigious publication, FORTUNE Magazine, has recognized Hilcorp Energy Company and its visionary Founder, Chairman and CEO Jeff Hildebrand, for doing what so many other client companies are doing, using Marketplace Chaplains for their employees and their family members,” said Dick De Witt, Marketplace Chaplains’ President and COO.