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Fellowes, Inc. Named One Of The Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in America

Itasca, Ill – (May 1, 2009) The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding permanent, loving families for children in the North American foster care system, listed Fellowes, Inc. among the top 100 of the Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces in America.

“We continue to see increases in the number of companies establishing and enhancing adoption benefit policies. Even with today’s tough economy, we found that companies are dedicated more than ever to providing competitive benefits packages to help their employees when they adopt,” said Rita Soronen, executive director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

Fellowes Policy
Fellowes, Inc. is pleased to provide a combination of financial assistance, paid leave, and unpaid leave to its eligible employees. Financial assistance covers related expenses such as agency and placement fees, legal fees, medical expenses for the birthmother or child, immigration fees, and travel expenses. The company continually leverages competitive employment programming, such as the adoption-friendly policy, to attract, retain, and engage its workforce. Although individuals choose to join and remain with Fellowes for different reasons, this type of employee program helps drive loyalty and commitment to the organization.

“As a family-owned company, Fellowes has a long history of caring about employees and their families. Our adoption-friendly policy recognizes the value they bring to our organization. It provides flexible options to support individual needs while reflecting our core beliefs including the knowledge that, more than anything else, our success depends on our people” said Lyn Bulman, EVP Global Human Resources for Fellowes.

Survey Methodology
Rankings for the Best Adoption-Friendly Workplace list are determined by an analysis of each company’s adoption benefits, which includes both the financial reimbursement and paid leave available to employees who adopt. The Foundation collected survey data from 753 U.S. employers. Employee Benefit News, a leading source of information for benefits decision makers, helped extend the survey’s scope even further by inviting readers to participate.

Today, more than 150,000 foster care children are available for adoption in North America – 129,000 of them in the United States. Most will spend nearly four years in the system before they are adopted. The release of the third annual Best Adoption-Friendly Workplace list helps the Foundation increase foster care adoption awareness while celebrating those businesses that support adoptive families.

In addition to ranking the top 100, the foundation also ranked the top 10 companies by size, the leaders of each industry, and companies who support the cause of adoption and adoptive families in other ways. To view the complete Adoption-Friendly Workplace list, please visit www.adoptionfriendlyworkplace.org.

About Fellowes
Headquartered in Itasca, Ill., Fellowes, Inc. offers an impressive range of products to equip the workspace, including paper shredders, binders and laminators, desktop accessories and record storage solutions. Fellowes, Inc. owns and operates subsidiaries in Canada, United Kingdom, Benelux, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Singapore, Japan, Korea, China and Australia. The company employs more than 2700 people throughout the world and expects global sales to be approximately $650 million this year. For more information, visit www.fellowes.com.