DILLON — To the Summit Chamber of Commerce, it’s SummitCove Lodging’s programs for workers that chamber officials described as “remarkable” to the point of being named the Chamber’s Best Place to Work in the annual Business Excellence Awards contest.

Namely, they were impressed by what chamber spokeswoman Angelique Lochridge described as a new business model at SummitCove Lodging dubbed the “Great Game of Business.”

“It was very transparent and let employees learn all about the company’s business and finances and have a direct stake in the outcome of the company,” Lochridge said. “… They really worked with their employees and asked for a lot of feedback and implemented it. One of the feedback they’d gotten was for more flexible scheduling so employees could take advantage of where we live, and they implemented much more flexible scheduling that allowed people to do that.”

Alyssa Hubbard, spokeswoman for SummitCove Lodging, said she feels the Chamber honor is reflective of the culture the company focuses on with 50 full-time staffers and 70 seasonal employees. She said from the top down, beginning with CEO Peter Reeburgh, SummitCove Lodging wants to recruit good people with attitudes centered around taking pride in feeling invested in how they can empower themselves and, in turn, the company.

Hubbard said if someone is interested in a certain aspect of the vacation rental and property management company’s business, SummitCove Lodging tries to provide training and tools to focus in on it.

“We’ll have weekly meetings where everybody in the company has a chance to speak up,” Hubbard said. “It’s about providing that kind of environment for people that makes people happy, where they feel like they are making a difference in decisions and everyday things within the company. It’s definitely a group effort to create that environment, but Peter is a good example of someone who really speaks up about the decision-making. He’ll always stand behind you with any decision you’ll decide to make. We have a checklist of five questions we ask, and if the answer to all of them is ‘yes,’ we’ll stand behind you if you make that decision.”

Amid the pandemic, the company has expanded to provide its services to properties outside of the more than 300 SummitCove Lodging homes in the county. Hubbard described the past four months as “a big challenge,” one that started with the company going from sold out for spring break to having to remove vacationers from rental properties.

But amid the turmoil, the company’s effort to offer its services to the public via the “Clean it for a Cause” program is a reflection of the company’s creativity and culture. To the Summit Chamber, a program like that is evidence the company listens to its employees like they say they do, including many from the county’s Spanish-speaking community who were hit hard by the virus and shutdown.

“The biggest thing that got us through it was being able to adapt, to figure out what we could do and how we could offer that to stay afloat,” Hubbard said.